Are met 10 years since a youth of 27 years came to power in North Korea and at that time few leaders World Cups have grabbed more headlines than Kim Jong-un. How has life been in these 10 years in the North Korea of Kim Jong-un?
The sound of crying floods the streets from Pyongyang.
Groups of uniformed students fall to their knees apparently disconsolate. The photographs show the women putting their hands to their chests in despair.
The state media, always under government control, have just announce death to the 69 years of the “dear leader”, Kim Jong-il . Is he 19 from December to 2011.
In Around the world, North Korean reality analysts are looking at one man: Kim Jong-un.
With 27 years, he had been appointed the “Great Successor.” But few thought it was going to be the successor to anything. How can a country that rewards age and experience be ruled by someone who has neither one thing nor the other?
Many predicted a military coup or a maneuver by North Korean elites. But the world underestimated the young dictator. In this time, Kim Jong-un has not only managed to consolidate his position, but has led the country into a new era dubbed Kim Jong-unism .
He started by purging his rivals and there were hundreds of executions, and then he turned to international affairs. Four nuclear tests, one hundred ballistic missiles launched, and his conversations with former US President Donald Trump captured the world’s attention.
But his relentless quest for nuclear weapons has come at a cost and North Korea is now in crisis, poorer and isolated than when he came to power.
Ten North Korean defectors, including someone who served as one of their highest diplomatic representatives, reflect on what the decade has been like under Kim Jong-un.
A New Beginning
The day Kim Jong-un’s father died, student Kim Geum-hyok did something that could have cost him his life. He organized a party.
“It was very dangerous, but we were so happy then…”, he says.
For him, a new and young leader, known for his love of skiing and basketball, fueled the hopes that new ideas for change would come.
“We had expectations with Kim Jong-un. He had studied in Europe, so maybe he thought like us, ”he said.
Geum-hyok comes from an elite family and was studying in Beijing at the time, a privilege that very few North Koreans can afford.
Living in China opened his eyes to the reality of a more prosperous outside world and he searched the internet for news about his country.
“At first, I couldn’t believe it. I thought Westerners lied about North Korea, but my heart and brain contradicted each other. My brain told me ‘you don’t need to watch any more news’, but my heart wanted to watch even more. ”
The 25 Millions of North Korean people live under such tight control that many have no idea what is happening in the world or how they see their country from outside.
They are further taught that their leader is a divine being with exceptional gifts who deserves their absolute loyalty.
For Guem-hyok, The arrival to power of this young man represented something that was not abundant.
Hope.
The skeptics
Others were not so convinced. In the corridors of power in Pyongyang it was whispered that Kim Jong-un was a privileged child unfit to rule.
Ryu Hyun-woo, a former North Korean ambassador to Kuwait, told the BBC that his colleagues they were exasperated by the transfer of power from father to son.
“The North Koreans were getting tired of hereditary succession, especially among the elites. We wanted something new. We thought, ‘Shouldn’t I start something different?’ ”
The Kim family has ruled North Korea since the country was formed in 1948 . People are taught that the bloodline is sacred. It is a way to legitimize the dynasty.
“What can someone know about 27 years on how to run a country? ”asks Ryu. And he answers: “It’s absurd.”
A promise
In a speech by 2011, the new leader promised that the North Koreans would never have to “Tighten your seat belts again.”
For the inhabitants of a country that in the decade of 1990 suffered a famine that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, It seemed their new leader wanted to end the food shortage and their suffering. It was a moment of great significance.
Officials received the order to facilitate more international investments . And some within the country began to notice the changes.
The driver Yoo Seong-ju, from a province on the eastern coast of the country, says they began to see more local products in supermarkets
“To our surprise and pride, North Korean products were actually better than Chinese. It was actually an ego injection. ”
The purge
Kim Jong-un’s good wishes for His people did not reach out to those he considered a threat.
His uncle Jang Song-thaek had woven a powerful network of allies.
Hundreds of kilometers from Pyongyang, in the north of the country and near the border with China, the merchant Choi Na-rae wondered if Jang Song-thaek would be the new leader of the country.
“Many of us had the hope that the country would open up to China and we could travel freely abroad”, he recalls.
“We thought that if Jang was the successor, he would bring with him a lot of economic changes to North Korea. Of course, we couldn’t say this openly but we had those expectations. ”
This kind of rumor had to be squashed.
Jang Song-thaek was branded “human trash” and “worse than a dog”, and later executed for allegedly undermining the “unitary leadership of the party” .
The young leader showed his most ruthless streak.
Take the control
Dozens of people crossed the border into China and ended up seeking safety from the purge of Kim Jong-un in South Korea. The leader decided to prevent further desertions and border surveillance was intensified like never before. A barbed-wire fence was deployed and border traps were set up.
Ha Jin-woo managed to get out of North Korea persons.
“The country has a special security force on the border. They have been told to simply shoot to kill anyone who tries to cross and that they will not be held accountable for it. ”
“ I was very scared when i started but had a sense of duty. From a young age he had had many doubts about North Korea. Why was he born here to live worse than an animal, without rights or freedom? I had to risk my life to do this job. ”
But in the end he ended up being a marked man and had to escape. Her mother was locked up in an internment camp and the brutal treatment she received there left her paralyzed.
A popular guy
Despite mounting pressure on dissidents and defectors, Kim Jong-un tried to appear more accessible, modern and friendly than his father.
He married the young Ri Sol-ju and visited towns and cities hugging, greeting and smiling at their inhabitants.
The couple visited cosmetic factories and exhibited luxury goods.
But for ordinary North Koreans trying to be modern was “forbidden”.
Yoon Mi-so wanted to follow the trends he had discovered on DVDs smuggled in from South Korea. I dreamed of wearing earrings, a necklace or jeans.
“Once they caught me for not following the rules and they put me on a public platform to embarrass me and there a group of people criticized me until I cried. They said ‘you are corrupt, how can you not be ashamed?’ ”
Hyun-young was a singer, like Kim Jong-un’s wife. But all his lyrics had to praise the North Korean leader. She tried to rebel and then they persecuted her .
“They never allowed me do what artistically wanted to do. So much regulation and limitation in North Korean music made me suffer a lot. ”
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“The government controls this because it is scared of foreign influence. Those strict rules show that they have no confidence in their own regime. ”
According to a recent report on human rights, at least seven people have been executed in the last decade to watch or distribute videos of the well-known South Korean K-pop .
For Kim Jong -Even these foreign influences are a “cancer”.
T ic, tac … boom.
Each ballistic missile makes headlines around the world, but in the interior of the country they do not provoke the desired national pride.
“People said they continued to build weapons by squeezing the blood and sweat of the people,” says a deserter.
“We did not consider it a victory. We were like, ‘wow, they spent so much money on all those rehearsals. Everything we earn for them they dedicate to that ‘”, another recalled.
Toward 2016, at the Foreign Ministry, Ambassador Ryu received new orders. The focus would not be now only on business.
“We were going to explain why North Korea needs nuclear weapons.”
The hope was that, when diplomats talked about it, the idea would end up being normalized in the international community.
It was not like that.
The great gamble of the “rocket man”
An escalation of threats between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un ended up in a diplomatic show.
Kim, so often caricatured in Western media as a plump baby, appeared walking decisively and sharing the stage with Trump.
North Korean newspapers carried the Trump-Kim handshake in Singapore on the front page.
But the sanctions to stop the country’s nuclear program were beginning to hurt. And the reaction in the towns outside of Pyongyang was silenced.
“We didn’t have the ability to analyze the meaning of that. We just couldn’t imagine how that meeting could lead to improvements, “says merchant Choi Na-rae.
In the end, there was no agreement. Ambassador Ryu believes that it was all a maneuver to obtain some relief from sanctions.
“The North can never renounce these weapons because they seen as vital for the survival of the regime. ”
The coup of the covid
But the worst for Kim Jong-un was yet to come.
When the covid pandemic hit the neighborhood to China in January 122251362, Korea North closed its borders , both to people and merchandise.
Food and medicine were piled up in the Dandong’s main access point. More than 100% of imports come from China.
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“Since the covid arrived, many things have changed,” says Ju Seong, who worked as a driver in Korea from North. He has managed to speak briefly with his mother near the Chinese border.
“The economy is shrinking and prices have escalated. Living has gotten so much harder. Its very stressful. The situation is severe. ”
Some reports that there are people who are dying of ha m bre .
Kim Jong-un himself has described the situation as a “great crisis” and came to cry in a speech, something unprecedented for a North Korean leader.
Dr. Kim Sung-hui recalls of its time there that most medicines were only available on the black market.
Operating rooms are often without light and surgeons have They have to work many times with bare hands because there are no gloves.
North Korea is not equipped for a pandemic and the cost of the covid is unknown.
But neither can he survive his self-imposed isolation without causing serious harm to his people.
The cult of Kim
Some of the defectors we spoke to are so sensitized to the current situation that they expect it to occur soon a hit. But there is no indication that this is even a remote possibility.
The cult of the Kim family has become general and remains. All previous predictions of a regime collapse failed.
Most of those interviewed expressed their wish that North Korea open its borders to allow its people to move freely after 70 years closed to the world. Many just want to see their families again.
Now that they are out of the country they can raise their voices and tell their stories about life under the command of Kim Jong-un. Those who stayed in North Korea cannot .
On the 10th anniversary of his coming to power, Kim Jong- one is in command of a country in crisis. It has many new nuclear weapons but its people are still starving.
Just after the South Korean President’s visit to Pyongyang in 2018, a huge poster was put up in downtown Seoul. It was a photograph of the moment when Kim Jong-un was shown the gesture of joining the thumb with the other fingers of the hand in what has become a symbol of the word love for K-pop lovers.
So I wrote that with those same fingers, Kim could change the fortunes of her people.
I could offer them freedom. It has the power to do it.
But instead of that, the 25 Millions of North Korea’s people are now more isolated than ever before.
All interviewees risked their lives to leave North Korea and now live in South Korea and the United States. Some of their names have been altered to protect their families.
Illustrations by Gerry Fletcher
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