North Korea leader Kim Jong Un criticized the “pathetic” management of an amusement park in the capital for neglecting its upkeep in an unusual public rebuke of officials in the totalitarian state.
Kim toured the Mangyondae Funfair in Pyongyang and pointed out broken pavement and chipped paint on rides while picking out weeds, the official Korean Central New Agency said today. Improving the facility should be “an opportunity to remove outdated ideological views from officials’ heads and end their old work-style,” KCNA quoted him as saying.
Kim, believed to be under 30, became head of the country after his father Kim Jong Il died in December, inheriting an economy isolated through global sanctions and wracked by malnutrition. His condemnation of the conditions at the amusement park may be the latest effort to bolster his image and shore up his power base, said analysts including Park Young Ho.
“This is Kim’s blatant effort to appeal the public as a young leader thoroughly engaged in improving the people’s economic lives,” said Park, of the state-run Korea Institute for National Unification in Seoul. “The strong words he uses to censure the officials show just how desperately he’s trying to gather public support.”
Kim assigned Choe Ryong Hae, director of the General Political Bureau of the Korean People’s Army, to spruce up the park, KCNA reported. Choe is the son of a revolutionary who fought against Japanese colonial forces alongside Kim Il Sung, North Korea’s founder and grandfather of the current leader.
Koh Yu Hwan, a professor of North Korean studies at Dongguk University in Seoul, said Kim’s comments are intended more to convey warmth to his people than to scold officials. The comments deviate from Kim’s father and grandfather and show how circumstances for the new leader have changed, Koh said.
‘Never Needed’
“Kim Jong Il and Kim Il Sung have never publicly shown such detailed interest in weeds or chipping paint because they never needed to justify themselves to the people like that,” he said.
North Korea’s isolation has deepened since the United Nations expanded sanctions and the U.S. scrapped a food aid deal after Kim’s government defied global condemnation and launched a rocket that disintegrated within minutes. The failure prompted speculation the regime will detonate a nuclear device to regain face.
North Korea remains technically at war with South Korea since the 1950-53 conflict ended without a formal peace treaty. The North’s bellicose rhetoric against its southern neighbor has heightened since the botched rocket test, last month threatening to turn South Korean President Lee Myung Bak and his administration “to ashes in three or four minutes.”
The North Korean economy is one-fortieth the size of South Korea’s, leaving the government dependent on handouts from China, its biggest ally.
Kim toured the Mangyondae Funfair in Pyongyang and pointed out broken pavement and chipped paint on rides while picking out weeds, the official Korean Central New Agency said today. Improving the facility should be “an opportunity to remove outdated ideological views from officials’ heads and end their old work-style,” KCNA quoted him as saying.
Kim, believed to be under 30, became head of the country after his father Kim Jong Il died in December, inheriting an economy isolated through global sanctions and wracked by malnutrition. His condemnation of the conditions at the amusement park may be the latest effort to bolster his image and shore up his power base, said analysts including Park Young Ho.
“This is Kim’s blatant effort to appeal the public as a young leader thoroughly engaged in improving the people’s economic lives,” said Park, of the state-run Korea Institute for National Unification in Seoul. “The strong words he uses to censure the officials show just how desperately he’s trying to gather public support.”
Kim assigned Choe Ryong Hae, director of the General Political Bureau of the Korean People’s Army, to spruce up the park, KCNA reported. Choe is the son of a revolutionary who fought against Japanese colonial forces alongside Kim Il Sung, North Korea’s founder and grandfather of the current leader.
Koh Yu Hwan, a professor of North Korean studies at Dongguk University in Seoul, said Kim’s comments are intended more to convey warmth to his people than to scold officials. The comments deviate from Kim’s father and grandfather and show how circumstances for the new leader have changed, Koh said.
‘Never Needed’
“Kim Jong Il and Kim Il Sung have never publicly shown such detailed interest in weeds or chipping paint because they never needed to justify themselves to the people like that,” he said.
North Korea’s isolation has deepened since the United Nations expanded sanctions and the U.S. scrapped a food aid deal after Kim’s government defied global condemnation and launched a rocket that disintegrated within minutes. The failure prompted speculation the regime will detonate a nuclear device to regain face.
North Korea remains technically at war with South Korea since the 1950-53 conflict ended without a formal peace treaty. The North’s bellicose rhetoric against its southern neighbor has heightened since the botched rocket test, last month threatening to turn South Korean President Lee Myung Bak and his administration “to ashes in three or four minutes.”
The North Korean economy is one-fortieth the size of South Korea’s, leaving the government dependent on handouts from China, its biggest ally.
