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N. Korea Promotes Power Elite Ahead of Anniversary
The North Korean regime has promoted two military officers to colonel generals, five to lieutenant generals, and 38 to major generals as founder Kim Il-sung's birthday approaches. The official KCNA news agency on Wednesday said one of the two new colonel generals is O Il-jong (57), the director of the Workers Party's Military Affairs Department and a son of leader Kim Il-sung's closest aide O Jin-u, the former minister of the People's Armed Forces "It seems many senior military officers who are expected to play key parts in the era of Kim's son Jong-un benefited from the latest promotions," a South Korean government source said. "Some may even be promoted to vice marshals and four-star generals just ahead of the North Korean Army's anniversary on April 25." There is speculation that One feature of the latest promotions is that many of the beneficiaries are the sons of first-generation revolutionaries who fought against the Japanese alongside Kim Il-sung. As the director of the Military Affairs Department since last year, O Il-jong supervises reserve forces including the 4 million-strong Worker-Peasant Red Guards. Experts believe that O Junior managed to get promoted thanks to his late father's influence although he was a schoolmate of Kim Jong-il's quasi-exiled brother Pyong-il, the perennial ambassador to Poland. One of the most prominent second-generation leaders is Choe Ryong-hae (63), a party secretary and son of former minister of People's Armed Forces Choe Hyon. As a senior secretary in North Hwanghae Province, he was promoted to four-star general alongside Kim Jong-un last September. He has been appointed to almost all key party posts, including party secretary, member of the Central Military Commission, and associate member of the Politburo. Paek Ryong-chon (49), who was appointed governor of the North Korean Central Bank last month, is the third son of Paek Nam-sun, the foreign minister from 1999 to 2007. Paek junior climbed up the career ladder rapidly from department chief at the Cabinet secretariat to central bank governor. Right after the party congress last September that saw Kim Jong-un make his first public appearance, the state-run TV showed two parts of a film titled "The Inheritance" that glamorized Choe Hyon and O Baek-ryong, who are believed to have been a key force in Kim Jong-il's victory over rivals for his father's succession. "In the 1970s when he competed with his uncle Kim Yong-ju and his stepbrother Kim Pyong-il to become successor, Kim Jong-il got a lot of help from the first-generation revolutionaries," a North Korean source said. "It seems that the regime is trying to use the descendants of these revered fighters to buffer the hereditary transition of power." Several of them are said to have sworn an oath in June last year to protect Kim Jong-un at the risk their own lives. Posted by: Steve White 2011-04-14 |
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