With Kim Jong-un, North Korea's youthful new leader having had, at most, two years of experience inside government, analysts in South Korea are probing photographs, speeches and official positioning to get a clue who the strongmen guiding Kim may be.
under Kim Jong-il's 'military first' policy, the Korean People's Army, or KPA, appears to have massively expanded its influence: A key message sent by Kim Jong-il's funeral and memorial ceremonies was the predominance of the military Photo: AFP
By Andrew Salmon
7:00PM GMT 31 Dec 2011
Whoever they are, their guidance needs to be sound.
Internationally, Kim faces sanctions and pariah status, a result of the nuclear arms programme he inherited from his father, and relations with South Korea are at a nadir following North Korea's 2010 naval and military attacks. Domestically, his national infrastructure is a wreck, his economy is a basket case and destitution and malnutrition stalk the countryside.
However, it is difficult to identify not only key power personalities, but even power mechanics in a nation where politics takes place, at best, behind closed doors, and at worst, ends in front of firing squads.
"We are going to see a lot of changes in personnel," said Dr Andrei Lankov, a North Korea expert at Seoul's Kookmin University. "In the case of Stalin and Mao, it took just a few months for the population to know a significant number of people were purged."
North Korea's governance structure is, itself, murky. While the Korean Workers Party and its highest organs, the Polibureau and the Politburea's Central Committee, officially oversee the armed forces, under Kim Jong-il's "military first" policy, the Korean People's Army, or KPA, appears to have massively expanded its influence: A key message sent by Kim Jong-il's funeral and memorial ceremonies was the predominance of the military.
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Moreover, the most powerful organisation in the state under the last constitutional revision of Kim Jong-il's regime was not a party committee, but the National Defense Commission, or NDC, a military-heavy body from which the late leader took his official title of "chairman" four years before ascending to the party headship.
Kim Jong-un is not – at least not officially – a member of the NDC.
Some had expected the currently leaderless NDC to become defunct after Kim Jong-il's death, but it appears to be alive and kicking: Pyongyang's first, strident statement on international relations since Kim's funeral originated in the body.
Still, with personalities and relationships trumping organisations in both the Koreas, South Korean pundits have focused their attention on the persons marching alongside Kim Jong-il's hearse with Kim Jong-nam during the funeral procession. These men have already been dubbed "The Gang of Seven" by Seoul media.
Not coincidentally, many are members of NDC, a body that officially or unofficially, remains a core group of power brokers.
"The members of the NDC are in charge of other power groups and organisations, so the members wield organisational power outside the NDC itself," said Park Chang-kwoun of the Korea Institute of Defense Analysis.
"But I think the organisation itself exists as, even though the chairman has gone, its vice chairman is there, and its members are there."
The man who marched behind Kim Jong-un is the NDC's Vice Chairman, Jang Song-thaek. Jang, 65 – a political survivor who has emerged from at least two purges and who is married to Kim Jong-il's sister, Kim Kyong-hui (herself a Politbureau member). Known as a hearty drinker and accordion player, Jang emerged in 2008 as a key adviser to Kim Jong-il after the latter was weakened by his stroke. He is believed to have been a mentor to Kim's first son, Kim Jong-nam (living in virtual exile in Macao), and now to Kim Jong-un.
"Kenji Fujimoto" a sushi chef (who some believe was a Japanese agent) and who worked in the Kim Jong-il household, and Hwang Jang-yeop, the highest ranking defector to come to South Korea, both opined that Jang would take over leadership after Kim Jong-il's death.
Though seen as a pragmatist, in a likely nod to the KPA, Jang – who is not known to have a military background himself – surprised South Korean pundits by appearing during Kim's lying-in-state in a four-star general's uniform, complete with ribbons on chest.
"After Kim Jong-il's death, Jang was the only one who was promoted," said Choi Jin-wook, chief North Korea researcher at Seoul's Korea Institute of National Unification, or KINU. "I am closely watching the change in Jang Song-thaek."
A fellow member of the NDC is KPA Chief of Staff, Ri Yong-ho, believed to be military tutor to Kim Jong-un. The generously padded physique of the "Supreme Leader" bears little resemblance to the wiry frame of KPA rank and file, indicating a lack of military training (and rations), but that did not prevent his promotion to four-star general last November.
More sinister figures are two NDC members, Generals U Dong-guk and Kim Jong-gak.
U, of the State Security Department, is behind the regime's powerful apparatus of intelligence and repression. While North Korea is sometimes mentioned in the same breath as dictatorships like Syria or Burma, so effective and pervasive is Pyongyang's control that a revolution like Syria's is virtually unthinkable and no opposition figure equivalent to Burma's Aung San Suu Kyi is known to exist.
It was General Kim, of the Army's General Political Bureau, who pledged the allegiance of the armed forces to Kim Jong-un during Thursday's memorial ceremony. That may have been a veiled warning: Kim's bureau monitors the loyalty of KPA officers.
Yet another NDC member is Defense Minister Kim Yong-chun, who allegedly thwarted a rumoured 1995 coup inside the military.
The "Gang of Seven" is rounded out by two non-NDC figures, party secretaries Kim Ki-nam and Choe Tae-bok.
Kim heads the state's formidable propaganda apparatus, which is likely to be busy in the months ahead.
"For the legitimisation of Kim, they will try to fabricate revolutionary achievements and idolisation," said Kim Tae-woo, president of KINU. "There will be a rush to make a cult."
Choe has been a core figure in Pyongyang's scientific and technological development – which, beyond missile and nuclear technologies, is unimpressive. This could put pressure on him next year, as 2012 – the centenary of the birth of state founder and "eternal president" Kim Il-sung – is the year North Koreans have been promised they will become "a mighty and prosperous nation." While nuclear weapons assure national might, prosperity is a distant dream in a state where one quarter of the population is malnourished.
With some analysts now comparing the Kim Dynasty to a monarchy, these are the men South Korean experts believe to be the key "regents" behind the young king's throne.
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