[ANALYSIS] Bloody purges may be imminent in North Korea amid worsening food crisis

The Korea Times

The Korea Times

North Korea

Mon, December 4, 2023 | 06:24

ANALYSISBloody purges may be imminent in North Korea amid worsening food crisis

Posted : 2023-08-29 17:00

Updated : 2023-08-30 16:46

This photo released on Aug. 22 shows North Korean leader Kim Jong-un inspecting the flood situation in a tidal area of South Pyongan Province, North Korea. Signs of a bloody purge of top-ranking officials appear imminent in North Korea as Kim searches for scapegoats amid a worsening food crisis, according to analysts on Tuesday. Yonhap

Top-level officials could be executed as Kim searches for scapegoats: analysts

By Jung Min-ho

A bloody purge of high-ranking officials appears to be imminent in North Korea as Kim Jong-un, its dictator, searches for scapegoats amid a worsening food crisis, according to analysts.

In assessments of the North's current economic and political situation, Tuesday, experts said at least several officials in charge of the economy, particularly food production management, could be executed. The North has often used such forms of punishment in the past to place the blame on bureaucrats for policy failures.

The analyses come as North Korean Premier Kim Tok-hun is being investigated over flood damage in farmlands along its western coast. During his visit to a tidal area where seawater flooded vast swathes of rice fields following the collapse of an embankment, Kim Jong-un used expletives to lambast the premier and other senior officials for "irresponsible neglect of duties."

"Judging by the degree of Kim Jong-un's criticism and anger expressed by the North's state media, those in charge of economic policy may well be executed or sent to political prison camps," Oh Gyeong-seob, an analyst at the Korea Institute for National Unification, a think tank, told The Korea Times.

Oh compared the current political mood to the atmosphere in North Korea during an acute food shortage in the 1990s, known as the Arduous March, and after botched currency reforms in 2009, in which high-ranking policymakers were executed apparently to ease a public furor over exacerbating economic problems.

Given the international sanctions, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the limited power of North Korea's Cabinet in terms of policymaking, the fate of Kim Tok-hun might have been determined from the very beginning, according to Cho Han-bum, another senior researcher at the think tank.

"In North Korea, where the Workers' Party of Korea rules, the Cabinet has little power," Cho said in his analysis. "Kim Jong-un appears to have tried to shift the blame on the powerless Cabinet … The photos of him giving orders in a flooded rice paddy seem to be a PR stunt aimed at projecting his image as a leader in contrast to the inept Cabinet."

Reports by many institutions and recent testimonies from North Korean escapees suggest that the food shortage there has been aggravating to the worst levels in over 20 years.

A Bank of Korea report released last month showed that North Korea's economy contracted for the third straight year in 2022. It is estimated to have decreased 0.2 percent, following a 4.5 percent contraction in 2020 and a 0.1 percent dip in 2021.

Cho said the extent and depth of the looming purge could be comparable to what is known as the Deepening Group Incident, in which approximately 10,000 people were executed and 15,000 others were sent to concentration camps as scapegoats for the great famine in the '90s.

"The strong criticism of Kim Tok-hun and the Cabinet appears to be part of a strategy to achieve a political breakthrough by victimizing scapegoats and enforcing a reign of terror in the face of the worst crisis seen since Kim Jong-un rose to power," Cho said. "Judging from (the intensity and content of) Kim Jong-un's criticism, it (the purge) could end up as the second Deepening Group Incident. But the North Korean elite and ordinary citizens are aware that Kim Tok-hun and the Cabinet were powerless from the beginning ... So questions remain as to whether a bloody purge would lead (him) to gain a firmer grip on power."

mj6c2@koreatimes.co.kr