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North Korea's top ranks pay allegiances to Kim Jong-un in wake of purge North Korea's top ranks pay allegiances to Kim Jong-un in wake of purge
(about 9 hours later)
North Korea's political and military elite publicly pledged their loyalty to ruler Kim Jong-un on Tuesday, less than a week after he ordered the execution of a powerful family ally in a rare public purge.
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/>The young leader was the centre of attention at a large memorial in Pyongyang staged to mark the second anniversary of the death of his father, Kim Jong-il.
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/>The public display of fealty came a few days after the execution last week of Kim Jong-un's uncle, Jang Song Thaek, who had been considered the second most powerful man in North Korea.
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/>The ousting of Jang overlaps with a propaganda drive that has tied the younger Kim to his father's legacy in the weeks leading up to the anniversary.
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/>Official television footage showed Kim Jong-un sitting centre stage beneath a huge red mural of a flag emblazoned with a picture of his smiling father.
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/>A noticeable absentee on the stage was his paternal aunt Kim Kyung-hui, Kim Jong-il's sister and Jang's wife. She and Jang had been the "Pyongyang power couple" considered to be the real force behind the North Korean leadership.
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/>"By eliminating the only other faction the power in North Korea is now fully concentrated on Kim Jong-un," said Cheong Seong-jang at the Sejong institute, a Seoul-based thinktank.
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/>Kim, believed to be about 30, took over when his father died suddenly in December 2011.
/>In a relatively short period of time he has followed his father's programme by ordering the North's third nuclear test and successfully launching a long-range rocket in the face of increasingly tight UN sanctions.
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/>Jang was thought to have been the only leadership figure capable of posing any real threat to him.
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/>The new leader's first two years in power have also been marked by construction, with a flagship project being the Masik Pass ski resort near Wonsan on North Korea's east coast.
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/>Propagandists have used the construction of the resort to mint the slogan "Masik Speed" which, similar to Kim Jong-un's rapid ascent to power, emphasises the hurried completion of a goal or project.
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/>While North Korea has purged many officials in its 65-year history it is rare that anyone as powerful as Jang had been removed so publicly – suggesting a recognition of internal divisions and competing factions around Kim Jong-un.
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/>Kim Jong Un has removed most of Pyongyang's old guard during his comparatively short rule, replacing ageing generals and cadres with figures closer to his age. He has changed his Korean People's Army (KPA) chief of staff four times. The job changed hands three times during his father's 17 years in power.
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/>Choe Ryong Hae, a party apparatchik who has been around the Kim family for decades but had kept out of the limelight until three years ago, now appears to be the most influential adviser to Kim Jong-un. On Monday Choe addressed a gathering of KPA soldiers assembled outside the Kumsusan Memorial Palace where Kim Jong-il's embalmed body lies in a glass coffin.
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/>"The KPA is the eternal army of Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il and Kim Jong-un and it will always remain the army of Kim Jong-un defending him unto death and upholding his leadership only," an official KCNA news agency dispatch quoted Choe as saying.
/>North Korea vowed to unite behind leader Kim Jong-un during carefully staged events on Tuesday to mark the second anniversary of his father's death, in an attempt to show it has returned to business as usual after the purge and execution of his once-powerful uncle last week.
Kim sat silently as a stadium full of military and party officials paid homage to his father Kim Jong-il at the day's main event. He was flanked by Kim Yong-nam, the ceremonial head of state, and Vice Marshal Choe Ryong-hae, representing the military. Conspicuously absent was Jang Song-thaek, who was executed after being accused of corruption and trying to overthrow the government.
Jang was widely seen as the second-most powerful man in North Korea before his fall. The regime's decision to execute and publicly vilify him – charges of everything from alleged drug abuse to womanising to trying to create his own powerbase were trumpeted daily in the state media – heightened questions over the stability of Kim's two-year-old leadership and shattered the North's carefully cultivated illusion of total unity.
But with Jang now out of the picture – he is already being deleted from state media archives – North Korea's official message Tuesday was back to its usual calls for "single-minded unity" behind Kim's leadership.
As top officials sat with Kim on a wide stage at the Pyongyang Indoor Gymnasium for Tuesday's event with a huge portrait of Kim Jong-il behind them, heads bowed as the traditional North Korean funeral dirge played. At several points during the speeches, all rose to applaud the "immortal and glorious exploits" of the late leader. Kim Jong-un, wearing a gray Mao suit, did not speak at the ceremony.
"Once more, our people's army is firmly determined to guarantee the victory of our great general's revolutionary cause," Choe said, adding that the military would "hold high the flag of the part" and follow "the ever-victorious leadership of our supreme commander".
Three minutes of silence were observed at the start of the ceremony.
Jang's wife, Kim Kyong-hui, who is Kim Jong-un's aunt, did not appear at Tuesday's memorial. But she was noted by state media over the weekend in connection with another funeral of a top official, a sign that she has survived Jang's removal.
Contradicting past assertions of unity and strength, North Korea has acknowledged its leadership had indeed been riled by the challenge by Kim's mentor and uncle after the 2011 death of Kim's father. The acknowledgement of dissension and dangerous instability in the government has raised fears of what's ahead as Kim tries to revive a moribund economy while maintaining and advancing development of the country's nuclear arsenal.
On the eve of the anniversary Monday, tens of thousands of people crowded Mansu Hill in Pyongyang, where two giant bronze statues of national founder Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il stand. A mass rally of the military was also held outside the mausoleum where the two Kims lie in state to swear allegiance to Kim Jong-un and the ruling Workers' party.
As the ceremony began on Tuesday, Pyongyang's streets were empty.
Regular citizens are often expected to attend memorial gatherings at their workplaces, some watching the live broadcast of the Central Memorial Meeting on state TV. Many then turned out in groups at portraits and monuments around the city to lay flowers before going back to work. The anniversary is not a public holiday and work continues around the memorial meetings and events.
There were no major displays of public grief like the tears and wailing that filled the days after Kim's death in 2011.
State media, meanwhile, has already switched back to usual propaganda fare.
Jang is no longer in the headlines and has been deleted from at least one recently aired documentary. The focus has shifted strongly back to the glorification of Kim Jong-il and a series of on-site guidance visits by Kim Jong-un, who has in the past several days trave;led to a military institute, a ski resort and a fish factory, all in keeping with the long-standing propaganda message that he's deeply engaged in the business of running the country.
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