North Korea leader's visit to Mt. Baekdu raises speculation?
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, accompanied by aides, looks around the snow-covered Cheonji crater lake on Mt. Baekdu. The Korean Central News Agency released the photograph Saturday. / Yonhap
By Yi Whan-woo
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s rare visit to the peak of Mt. Baekdu, Saturday, is raising questions over whether he will come up with another drastic plan to tighten his brutal grip on power.
The 2,744 meters high Mt. Baekdu is the tallest mountain on the Korean Peninsula and is significant in the setting of the repressive state’s mythology aimed at propagandizing the third-generation lineage of its dynastic leadership.
Kim Jong-un purportedly trekked up the “sacred” mountain often after taking power in December 2011, as his late grandfather Kim Il-sung and late father Kim Jong-il did in bids to consolidate their respective leaderships.
The young tyrant first visited the mountain shortly before he executed his uncle Jang Song-thaek, who was considered the country’s No. 2 and a mentor to Kim, in December 2013.
He visited the mountain again in November 2014, when he sought to come up with a new vision for state affairs ahead of the third anniversary of his father’s death.
Given this climate, analysts said Sunday that the dictator’s visit to the “sacred mountain” may also have a political message.
An Chan-il, the head of the World Institute for North Korea Studies, speculated Kim may be trying to wrap up the latest purge that involved the country’s second-most powerful military officer, Vice Marshal Hwang Pyong-so and Hwang’s top deputy, Kim Wong-hong.
The two high-profile officials were believed to have been punished amid a power struggle between Pyongyang’s military and the ruling Workers’ Party.
But Kim may take more brutal measures against them to help Choe Ryong-hae, vice chairman of the Workers’ Party.
Choe has been considered Hwang’s rival and has been put in charge of the purge.
He was among several officials who accompanied Kim to Mt. Baekdu.
A North Korean expert, who spoke on condition of anonymity, claimed that Kim abruptly decided to visit the mountain last weekend after visiting facilities and military posts on the border with China.
Kim left Pyongyang last week, leaving suspicions that he was afraid of the massive Vigilant Ace air force exercise conducted by South Korea and the U.S. according to intelligence sources.
The annual drill took place from Dec. 4 to 8 and involved 24 stealth aircraft, including F-22s.
Meanwhile, Kim “went through thick snow” before reaching the top of Mt. Baekdu, the Korean Central News Agency reported.
He ordered that a monument on the peak and a nearby education facility should be “spruced up,” and that a new hotel and several rest stops should be built.
Citing Kim, the Rodong Sinmun reported that he often climbed the mountain but this was the first time to do so amid nice weather in mid-winter.
“His eyes reflected the strong beams of the gifted great person seeing in the majestic spirit of Mt. Baekdu the appearance of a powerful socialist nation which dynamically advances full of vigor without vacillation at any raving dirty wind on the planet,” the newspaper said.