Speculation about a possible sixth nuclear weapons test in North Korea has heightened tensions in the region, forcing the world to pay close attention to the hermit kingdom and its secretive ruler, Kim Jong-Un.
Kim is the third head of state from his family’s dictatorial dynasty, one of the last inherited absolute monarchies on earth. Yet despite his unrivaled power in North Korea and his command over nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles, remarkably little is known about him.
Dr. Van Jackson, a scholar on Korean security and an associate professor at the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, told that North Korea’s secretive nature makes it hard to verify most information coming out of the country.
Early life:-
Anybody who can answer all your questions with certainty has false confidence. Ask them to prove their answers and they won’t be able to,” Jackson said.
In the absence of a reliable official biography, the information publicly available about Kim reflects a “broad consensus understanding” from experts keeping a close eye on the regime, Jackson explained.
Here is what you need to know about the North Korea’s reclusive leader.
He later returned to the North Korean capital of Pyongyang, where he attended the Kim Il-Sung Military University, the BBC reported.
Dr. Robert Kelly, a professor of political science at Pusan National University in South Korea, said Kim’s late estranged half-brother, Kim Jong-Nam, who was murdered on Feb. 13 at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia, was the would-be successor to the throne. Kim Jong-Nam was being groomed for the position until around 2009.
Kelly noted that Kim Jong-Un “lacks the deep institutional and affective relationships with Pyongyang’s elite which his father and grandfather had.” He “parachuted in late” when his father became ill and his half-brother became an embarrassment after his arrest, according to Kelly.
Rise to power:-
In 2009, Kim was appointed to the state’s National Defense Commission. The next year, he was promoted to the rank of four-star general and was named vice chairman of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea and of the Central Military Commission.
When Kim Jong-Il died in December 2011, Kim Jong-Un was placed at the head of the party, the state and the army within a matter of weeks.
In 2012, state media reported that Kim was married to Ri Sol-Ju. Kim is reportedly a basketball fan. Former NBA star Dennis Rodman has visited North Korea on Kim’s invitation several times. Rodman later told The Guardian that Kim has a daughter named Ju-Ae.
The same year, Kim assumed the title of marshal of the North Korean army, the highest military rank in the country. He briefly disappeared from the public eye in 2014 and later reappeared with a cane.
The U.S. Department of Defense’s 2016 report on North Korea’s military capability described the violent means Kim has used to gain and hold power since assuming control in 2011.
Kim “has solidified his grip on power by embracing the coercive tools used by his father and grandfather. His regime has used force and the threat of force,” combined with suppression of dissenters, to “co-opt” the state military and elites, grow military defense capabilities and challenge the U.S. and its South Korean allies, the report said.
Kelly said Kim seems like a “classic Neronian dictator-figure — grossly self-indulgent, vicious, prone to self-glorification — but not stupid or irrational,” in a way that might endanger his grip on power.
Nuclear program:-
According to the Department of Defense, Kim announced a policy of co-developing the country’s economic and nuclear weapons program in April 2013.
Since then, North Korea has continued to develop intermediate and long-range ballistic missiles while staging a series of nuclear tests. Before Kim took control of the state, his father reportedly tested nuclear explosive devices in 2006 and 2009. It is believed Kim tested nuclear weapons once in 2013 and twice in 2016. A possible test on Saturday would be the first of 2017 and would be a breach of U.N. Security Council resolutions against nuclear arms proliferation.
source:ABC