Entertainment From DPRK

By Douglass P. Bacon

Despite its usual ominous and threatening tones, news releases from North Korea offer a splendid opportunity for intellectual entertainment. This is because the folks in Pyongyang, not noted for being either candid nor truthful, open the door for our development of scenarios based on their utterances.

Take, for instance, the story of Kim Jong-il, known as the ``Dear Leader," ``The General," ``Father" or whatever else his titre du jour happens to be.

Kim disappeared for a while last year, briefly reappeared in some concocted photographs, and only recently was seen in public. The obvious question is what happened during the Dear Leader's flight from sight. Here's my interpretation.

During the six-party talks, North Korea's military hierarchy started worrying that Kim might trade nukes for food and oil. Giving up some rather useless weapons in order to save millions from starvation or provide energy for factories scared them silly. So, they grabbed Kim and took him to one of his many palaces for re-education ― one of the few things North Korea is really good at.

If you were a self-respecting god-dictator who had been born under two rainbows with birds singing strange sounds and a new star appearing in the sky, how would you react to having mere mortals re-educate you? Well, Kim threw an apoplectic fit, which precipitated a stroke.

Now the generals had a real problem on their hands. They didn't want him messing with their business any longer, but after telling an anxious world that Kim's rumored stroke was nothing more than a capitalist plot against the homeland, they couldn't admit their first ever duplicity. The trick would be to keep his highness visible but sheltered and ineffective.

Since the Dear Leader obviously wasn't firing on all cylinders, trotting him out before the public wouldn't be smart. Still photographs might provide the illusion all was well. But because the generals were better at shooting people than pictures, they decided to select some existing pix out of the millions at Rodong Sinmun. One of the first showed Kim standing in the countryside.

But this picture released in the fall showed summer foliage. With that screw-up immediately recognized everywhere, another picture was needed. The next photo-op was of the boss standing in front of a grandstand filled with military officers. Oops. A horizontal line behind Kim changed when it got to his buddies. Better try something else.

Undated indoor pictures seemed a pretty safe bet, so the generals wheeled the Dear Leader into a swimming pool and had him hang onto the pool ladder. This picture was great! Not only did it show Kim as being alive (sort of) but oversized gloves hid any possible impediment of his right hand. The only misfortune associated with this latest PR gimmick was the officer leaning toward Kim looking like he was encouraging him to jump into the pool. Perhaps this was wishful thinking on everyone's part.

With Kim mentally and physically out of the picture (no pun intended), the generals were pretty well free to do what they wanted. They had always hated the industrial complex at Gaeseong for a number of reasons.

They hadn't thought of it first, it wasn't Juche-istic, and it was about the only thing in North Korea that worked other than their rickety atomic bomb factory. Even worse, they had been on the losing side when they opposed the Gaeseong project earlier. Payback time. Either shutting it down or raising the rents was a win-win situation with no more Gaeseong, or, alternatively, more money to make more bombs.

With that pot bubbling, the next illogical step would be to get everyone good and mad. Testing another poorly designed atomic bomb, shooting another funky missile and gumming up computers would not only help but also be lots of fun.

While all this was going on, Kim kept sliding downhill. The problem facing the generals was that if he did pass away or his subjects felt he were no longer running the show, they would lose the symbol that helped them hang on to power.

So, they decided to let him be seen despite his feebleness, flattened hairdo and no high heels. They would need, however, someone standing in the wings to take his place. Kim Jong-nam wouldn't do because he was caught by, of all people, the Japanese in a compromising Juche-incorrect situation.

Kim Jong-chol might want to feed his people and close concentration camps. Turning to the last of Kim Jong-il's legitimate family, Kim Jong-un, they found a winner. He was young, inexperienced, and fond of booze ― easily exploitable traits. Rumors are now emanating from Pyongyang that the ``brilliant comrade" is to be the anointed one.

See what I mean? The news from the north can be lots of fun as long as we know how to deal with it!

The writer is a former chief chemical operations officer, USFK/EUSA, Yongsan, and has also taught courses on the Korean Peninsula at Northwest Florida State College. He can be reached at interalia@bellsouth.net.