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Pyongyang is believed to have launched a campaign to groom Kim Jong-il's second son, Kim Jong-chul, born to his wife Koh Young-hee, as the North Korean leader's heir apparent, the Monthly Chosun reported in its March issue that hit retailerts on February 18. The monthly made the report based on a People's Army document, which hails as mother and loyal subject a lady who North Korea experts in the South believe is Kim's wife Koh. Published in August last year by the People's Army Publishing Co., the ideological study material is titled "The Respected Mother is the Most Faithful and Loyal Subject to the Dear Leader Comrade Supreme Commander." The article does not identify who the "respected mother" is, but experts analyzed her to be Koh Young-hee.
"The document shows that a Koh Young-hee idolizing campaign has been underway in the North," said former Unification Minister Kang In-duk. "It's the first material verifying that the North Korean military has decided upon Kim's heir apparent." Ku Bon-tae, ex-unification policy director of the Ministry of Unification said, "Through the material the North Korean armed forces declare an end to an eight-year-long power struggle involving the dynastic heirs, waged since the death in 1994 of Kim Il-song. The military leadership that has upheld Kim Jong-chul as heir apparent has apparently defeated the Workers' Party executives who pushed Kim Jong-il's first son, Kim Jong-nam, born of Song Hye-rim, as heir apparent in the power struggle."
The propaganda material describes Koh thus; "She devotes herself to the personal safety of the comrade supreme commander," and "Accompanying the comrade supreme commander, she has climbed frontline hills for over eight years." But the description; "She assists the comrade supreme commander nearest to his body" leaves no room to doubt that she is his spouse. Were the document meant to idolize Kim Jong-suk, whom Kim Jong-il legitimately married in 1974, there would have been no need not to identify her.
A daughter of a Korean immigrant from Japan, Koh Young-hee came to the North accompanying her parents in the 1960s when the first wave of Korean residents in Japan emigrated to North Korea. She joined the Mansudae Art Troupe in, or around 1971 and worked as a dancer. Living with Kim Jong-il without taking formal marriage procedures, she gave birth to a son, Kim Jong-chul, in 1981. Nothing much is known publicly about Jong-chul, except that he studied at an international school in Switzerland and that he now serves as a key official at the Workers' Party Department of Agitation and Propaganda.
The current campaign idolizing Koh, said Kang In-duk, reminds one of the campaign elevating Kim's mother Kim Jong-sook to the pantheon of heroes, that preceded Kim Jong-il's ascension to power on his father's death. The descriptions that Koh, watching soldiers practice shooting, commented, "Your pistol firing is not right," and "You should hit a moving object" are similar to those used when they hailed Kim Jong-sook, Kang asserted. "In the course of praising Kim Jong-sook's marksmanship, Pyongyang hailed her even as a great strategist."
Hwang Jang-yup the former Workers' Party secretary for international affairs who became a political exile in the South in 1997, commented: "An heir must be the child of a women a king loves, and it is true that Kim Jong-il loves Koh Young-hee most." Legally Kim Jong-il married Kim Jong-sook in 1974; they have a 29-year-old daughter named Kim Sol-song. The widely known Kim Jong-nam is Kim's first son, born to Song Hye-rim, who died in Russia last year. Jong-nam, who was expelled from Japan in April 2001 for illegal entry, is known to be residing in China. "The fate of Kim Jong-nam has finished," observed both Kang and Ku. Kim Jong-il had also lived with Hong Il-chon, the ex-president of the Kim Hyung-jik Teaching University. An unconfirmed story has it that Kim and Hong have a 35-year-old daughter named Kim Hye-kyung.
(Kim Yeon-kwang, yeonkwang@chosun.com )
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