There may be a slim chance that Kim Jong-nam, the exiled elder brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, died of natural causes Tuesday night in Kuala Lumpur. Once an heir apparent who fell out of grace for his antic overseas, Kim was 36 years old and robust, although a bit obese.
Equally unlikely is that Malaysia, fraught with its own political troubles, will get to the bottom of Kim’s death, especially when they see it was a murder as suspected by two North Korean female agents ― either by a poison-tipped pen or a deadly chemical spray. His body will be shipped to the North.
That would lead to the world of calculated speculation ― Saint-Exupery’s exercise of guessing the shape of an elephant only by a blind man’s tactile forensics. The benefit of the French method is to “see” the trees better than the forest.
What details we can glean from his murder boil down to two. The first is, as much speculated, about his younger brother’s efforts to consolidate his power and the murder was part of that grand scheme. This presupposes that the deceased posed a threat to the dictator. As typical with Korea’s dynastic history and that of others, the king would kill his siblings or others who were in a position close to the throne, especially when power didn’t transfer as usual to the eldest.
This fratricide was often not because those next in line were capable of rebelling alone but because they would serve as a rallying center in an effort to dethrone “illegitimate” leaders.
Applied to this latest case, it is plausible to think that Kim Jong-un detected signs of a mutiny in progress, requiring him to remove its rallying figure, his elder brother, or his paranoia pushed him to take action.
Or the assassination may have been ordered because Kim was about to do something that would embarrass Pyongyang’s leadership enormously. There have been a string of high-profile defections, senior diplomat Thae Yong-ho stationed in London being the latest.
These defectors blow holes in the North’s propaganda that it is a workers’ paradise and its leader’s image as one with the trait of cultish infallibility.
Kim’s defection would be devastating, possibly exceeding the sum of all previous defections including the 1997 defection of Hwang Jang-yop, the architect of the North’s founding doctrine, “Juche” or self-reliance. Hwang provided a key to unlocking some of the secret ways by which the North Korean society worked, while Pyongyang took years to remove his legacy.
Kim, who lived in the Chinese territory of Macau, openly criticized his younger brother as an unacceptable third-generation succession to power. Also worthy of note were reports that Kim had financed his western lifestyle by siphoning off funds from arms deals dating back to his father’s day. In short, to the younger brother, Kim was nothing short of a thorn in his side.
Either way ― to consolidate his power or save further embarrassment ― one thing that has been confirmed by this news from Kuala Lumpur is that the circumstances about his death are as murky as the North’s power structure is fragile. Power in Pyongyang converges on one person who constantly feels insecure at the age of 34. Exploiting this will be the key to securing a lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula.