The execution of North Korean deputy trade minister and concurrent External Economic Cooperation Committee Vice-chairman Kim Mun Sung, 57, has recently been confirmed, according to sources familiar with North Korean affairs. Reputed as a top Pyongyang technocrat in external economic affairs, Kim was reportedly relieved of his posts in the latter half of last year on corruption charges, imprisoned and executed immediately thereafter. After his immediate boss Kim Jung Wu, EECC chairman, was relieved of his post late in 1997, Kim Mun Sung had taken charge, among others, of foreign capital inducement to the Rajin-Sonbong Economic and Trade Zone in his capacity as the committee's vice-chairman and chief secretary.

It has also been confirmed that Pyongyang relieved Professor Kim Su Yong of Kim Il Sung University, who played a leading role in introducing market economy theories into the North in the 1990s, from his post on charges of embezzling overseas lecture fees. Professor Kim was deeply involved in foreign capital inducement to the Rajin-Sonbong trade zone, delivering lectures in related seminars held in Tokyo in 1996.

Jun Kum Jin, 69, aka Jun Kum Chol, deputy chief of the Workers' Party Unification Front Department and Asia-Pacific Peace Committee vice chairman, who once headed a North Korean delegation to the North-South ministerial talks, was also learned to have been relieved about the same time as Kim Mun Sung was, and is still imprisoned. Pyongyang, said a source, has informally informed Seoul, "It would be safe to assume that Jun has been censured for a failure in the execution of North Korean strategies involving South Korea."

Former deputy head of the Workers' Party Unification Front Department and concurrent Committee for Aiding Overseas Compatriots vice chairman, Jun Kyong Nam, 60, real name Jun Yung Kun, was earlier learned to have been purged on charges of fostering "sectarianism" by making overseas Koreans his personal followers in the course of forming a pro-Pyongyang compatriots' organizations in the United States and Japan. He has been relieved of his posts only, without being imprisoned.

Commenting on the purging of senior North Korean officials involved in the North's economic relationships with the South, a source said, "National Defense Commission Chairman Kim Jong Il is learned to have been discontented with the alleged fact that the North Korean lineup dealing with the South, led by Asia-Pacific Peace Committee chairman Kim Yong Sun, was preoccupied with the Mount Kumgang tourism project last year, that could have been handled by counselor-level officials, instead of concentrating their efforts on pushing through such macroscopic strategies toward the South, such as the withdrawal of United States troops from South Korea and the repeal of the National Security Law."

The purge of external economic affairs technocrats like Kim Mun Sung and Kim Su Yong, observed the source, is apparently aimed at rectifying moral hazards prevalent among economic cooperation officials, such as receiving kickbacks from foreign businesses and businessmen including those from South Korea, as well as censuring the sluggish foreign capital inducement to the Rajin-Sonbong trade zone.

(Lee Kyokwan, haedang@chosun.com )