Ranking North Korean officials feel they are constantly exposed to personal danger because they never know when they will become the victims of "revolutionization," a type of punishment banishing those who commit errors to mines or farms for a set period of time, where they undergo hard labor and ideological reeducation. Outwardly it resembles the condemnation of a criminal to exile, practiced under Korea's dynasties, but in reality it is far more strict and crueler than banishment. To be suddenly condemned to work as a manual laborer is physically harsh, and causes mental misery.

"Revolutionization" has nevertheless become a routine practice in senior officials circles of the North. In reality, few distinguished officials have been exempted from it.

The problem lies in what the so-called "errors" are. Though blunders in line of duty are involved sometimes, they often are the mixture of minor gaffes, personal lives, and conflicts among senior officials, boiling down eventually to the "yardstick of loyalty" to the Kims, senior and junior. Hence "revolutionization" is sometimes referred to as a means of disciplining officials in responsible posts.

The banishment of several prominent figures is widely known in the North. Among them were first deputy director Jang Song Taek of the Workers' Party Central Committee's Influential Guidance and Organization Department; Kim Jong Il's brother-in-law, who was once rumored as the number-two man in the North Korean hierarchy; central committee secretaries Kim Yong Sun and Kim Jung Ryin; First Deputy Foreign Minister Kang Sok Ju and Deputy Foreign Minister Choi Su Hon, both top foreign policy working officials; People's Army chief of staff Kim Yong Chun; 3rd corps commander Jang Song Yu; and central committee Operations Department Director O Kuk Ryol.

Starting his party career as a guidance officer at the Workers' Party Pyongyang chapter, Jang Song Taek, aided by his blood relationship with the Kim Il Sung family, rapidly climbed the party hierarchy. Charged with power abuse in the late 1970s such as holding a weekend party after the pattern of Kim Jong Il, Jang was severely reprimanded by him and demoted to foreman at the Kangsong Steel Co. in Nampo, South Pyongan Province, currently known as the Chollima Steel Integrated Business Establishment. Following over two years of hardship there, during which he sustained burns while on duty, he was permitted to return to the party headquarters in 1980.

While serving as the party headquarters' international department head, Kim Yong Sun, prompted by Kim Il Sung's instruction that "the international department staff, being engaged in diplomatic services after all, learn social dances like the polka," held a dancing party with his colleagues. But as his act invited serious criticism from other departments of the party headquarters he was relieved of his post for a year, during which he underwent ideological retraining at a mine. Kim Jung Ryin, a member of the top elite in the North's programs and activities toward the South, was relieved of his posts as central committee political bureau member and secretary in charge of South Korean affairs and suffered the humiliation of clearing excrements and raising pigs at a farm directly administered by the party headquarters. His disgrace came in the course of the then heir apparent Kim Jong Il's review of the North's espionage and other activities against the South in the mid-1970s.

In a conflict with the central committee international department over a diplomatic issue in 1993, Kang Sok Ju was criticized for neglecting party guidance, and was made to work for a month at an unpaid cooperative farm in Jungdsan County, South Pyongan Province, administered directly by the party headquarters. For his alleged failure to prevent the 70th IPU meeting from being held in Seoul in October 1983, Choi Su Hon was exiled to the Samsin coalmine near Pyongyang to do hard labor, in the course of which he had his fingers cut while pushing a cart. He suffered another "revolutionization" in 1993 because of wrangling with the Ministry of the People's Armed Forces on negotiations over joining the Chemical Weapons Convention.

Disgraced senior military officials have been demoted and relieved of their posts instead of being given hard labor. A power struggle developed in the mid-1980s between the old guard supporting People's Armed Forces Minister O Jin Yu and a rising group, headed by Chief of Staff O Kuk Ryol. Members of the latter group suffered bitter blows when Kim Il Sung sided with O Jin Yu. Chief of staff O Kuk Ryol was relieved of his post and underwent a six-month reeducation course at Kim Il Sung School for Party Seniors, following which he was assigned as civil defense department head at party headquarters.

His colleagues shared a similar fate. Chief Operations Officer Lieutenant-general Kim Yong Chun was demoted to the rank of colonel and to the post of regimental chief of staff. Chief Intelligence Officer Lieutenant-general Jang Song Yu was enrolled at the Kim Il Sung School for Party Seniors, along with O Kuk Ryol, but was later reinstated as the Social Security Ministry's political department head. Promoted to four-star general, Jang now serves as 3rd Army commander. Yi Yong Mu, who rendered outstanding services in the process of Kim Jong Il's gaining control of the military in the 1970s and who became the People's Army general political bureau chief, was demoted to the post of forestry administration deputy manager in Yanggang Province by Kim, who feared Yi's expanding power base. After languishing there for nearly a decade, Yi was reinstated as transportation committee chairman at the Administration Council (the cabinet). He is currently deputy chairman of the all-powerful National Defense Commission.

(Kim Kwang-in, kki@chosun.com )