Reports of a Coup in North Korea?
New Developments
Over the weekend, there were a number of important reports in regards to the political situation in North Korea. To begin, Keegan Hamilton of Vice reported that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is no lower in power in North Korea. This follows weeks of speculation as to the whereabouts of the North Korean leader, as he was not seen in publics for just under a month. According to a North Korean leader Jang Jin-sung ,who used to be in the Ministry of Security in North Korea, and the author of the book Dear Leader: Poet, Spy, and Escapee–A Look Inside North Korea, said that the Organization of Guidance Department (OGD), which would take orders from the North Korean leader, are not longer doing so. And now, they have carried out a political coup against Kim-Jong-un (Hamilton, 2014). Some, such as Jang Jin-sung, although think the change of power may have occurred last year, and that Kim Jong-un is merely shown as the leader, when in reality, it is the other military members running the country (Hamilton, 2014). Jang-Jin sung believes that this situation began when Kim Jong-un killed his uncle, Jang Sung-taek. Jang Jin-sung is quoted as saying that “[w]hen Jang Sung-taek was executed that was, basically that totally broke everything.” He went on to say that “[y]ou just can’t touch a Kim family member publicly…its the OGD’s claim to legitimacy. It’s them saying no one is more legitimate than them. By Jang dying, Kim Jong-un is now surrounded by the OGD” (Hamilton, 2014).
Also, according to the report, the tensions within North Korea are at a point where there is a “civil war” in the country in the sense that there are two major power blocks vying for the power and future direction of North Korea.
In a related story, on Saturday, October 4th, 2014, CNN reported that some high level North Korean officials headed to South Korea for talks with the South Korean government. This comes as a surprise, not only because of the relationship between North and South Korea, but also because North Korean Leader Kim Jong-un was nowhere to be seen at these meetings. This might speak to the political developments as it relates to the power struggle within the OGD, since it was reported that there are divisions on whether to open up North Korea to additional international trade (Hamilton, 2014).
This situation makes one indeed wonder whether in fact a coup against the North Korean leader did in fact take place, and if so, when and why. According to a New Focus International, which was founded by Jang Jing-sung, they wrote about the coup on December 27, 2013. The report stated that the OGD had great political influence, even during the time of Kim-Jong Il, saying that
“[t]he origins of the current shape of the Korean Workers’ Party Organisation and Guidance Department lie in the circumstances that led Kim Jong-il to build an entity that concentrated all executive, personal appointment and enforcement powers in the OGD Party Secretary — himself — without publicly dismantling Kim Il-sung-era structures and positions…But it was the routing of real powers through the OGD’s totalitarian structure that empowered Kim Jong-il – above anyone or anything else – as the enforcer of Kim family sanctity, ousting the long-designated successor Kim Pyong-il in spite of the endorsement from Kim Il-sung’s power bases in the government and military. The DPRK Government became an empty shell, and even the military was subsumed under the OGD through its personnel appointment and political surveillance rights; the apparently powerful General Political Bureau of the Korean People’s Army has been a sub-branch of the OGD since 1992, reporting to Section 13 (military surveillance).
This continued to Kim Jong-un. And even when he killed his uncle, making public statements admitting “factional maneuvering” hurt his credibility, since “[t]he charges are not in the voice of the ruling Kim, and neither is the voice collective or ideologically unified; it is not an individual, but many individuals, who ‘knew Jang Song-thaek’s crimes for a long time and observed them’, and ‘could not watch any longer, but had to remove Jang Song-thaek’ in this ‘third year since the passing of eternal Leader Comrade Kim Jong-il’ (New Focus International, 2013). But the mere fact that someone had the ability to carry out such actions against Kim Jong-un actually weakened his power in North Korea (New Focus International, 2013). And some wonder as to the role of the OGD in actually driving these actions (New Focus International, 2013). The New Focus International report ends by saying that “The Kim Jong-un era can be summed up in the following way: Kim Jong-un does not hold power, he only legitimises the status quo. The men behind the coup will no longer take orders from the ruling Kim. Instead, they will legitimise and stabilise their power by upholding and “obeying” the cult of the Kim family.”
When thinking authoritarianism, it is important to remember that the ambition of leaders is to stay in political power. And in the case of North Korea, Kim Jong-un was believed to have needed to show his military backers, and the population as a whole, that he was capable of running the state, and that he had power. In fact, this is why he may have continued his push towards more nuclear weapons, as well as testing one in 2013. However, every authoritarian leader needs some sort of minimum winning coalition, namely group of backers. This group can vary in size, but nonetheless the coalition of supporters is quintessential for an authoritarian leader to survive. Often, this group is comprised of close family members, or a handful of top military leaders. Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith of New York University wrote a highly informative book entitled The Dictator’s Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics, where they speak about how these leaders shore up political support.
Thus, in this case, if the reports and analyses are true, then it seems that Kim Jong-un had little control over even those few that he needed to shore up his political support. It is difficult for a non-democraticlly elected leader to keep power when they don’t have the necessary coalition of supporters. And in this case, as stated above by Jang Jin-sung, it seems that the OGD did indeed become stronger than Kim Jong-un.
