Continuing Executions in North Korea

General Hyon Yong Chol, North Korea’s defense minister, was executed at a military academy near Pyongyang “around” April 30th, at least according to South Korea’s National Intelligence Service.

Some analysts contend the NIS report is implausible, but, whether it is accurate or not, there has been an evident acceleration in the pace of executions. The deaths suggest to others that the Kim family regime is no longer stable.

There are experts who believe Hyon is still alive. He was featured in a documentary aired by North Korean state media on May 14th. Normally, the airing would be proof the NIS report was false. As Sue Chang of the Wall Street Journal’s MarketWatch site explains, “That Hyon was not edited out of that production raised eyebrows in light of the regime’s habit of expunging officials from public materials once the officials have been eliminated.”

Moreover, Cheong Seong-Chang of the Sejong Institute in Seongnam, South Korea, points out that Hyon’s name appeared in Rodong Sinmun, the main newspaper of the Korean Workers’ Party, on April 30th, the day he might have been put to death. Cheong argues it is unlikely for Hyon to have been both detained and executed the same day in the absence of extraordinary circumstances. NIS stated that the general was put to death for disrespecting Kim Jong Un—snoozing at a public event—and for disobedience, not offenses that would appear to merit such fast action.

The website Daily NK contends references to Hyon have not been deleted because the regime wanted to avoid the negative foreign publicity following the mysterious death of Ri Yong Ho, Army chief of staff, in 2012. Hyon’s execution, Daily NK reports, is a topic of conversation around the country and is used as a precautionary lesson in the military.

In any event, Hyon has not been seen in public this month, and the controversy will continue until he appears or is confirmed dead by state media.

Whether true or not, the report of Hyon’s execution attracted wide attention for many reasons, among them the gruesome method of killing—by antiaircraft fire—and the semi-public spectacle—he was supposedly put to death in front of hundreds. The story also came amid reporting of other executions.

The speculation about Hyon preceded a report of follow-up purges and came after a May 12th CNN interview of a defector, speaking anonymously, claiming Kim Jong Un, North Korea’s youngish leader, had his aunt, Kim Kyong Hui, poisoned. Moreover, on April 29th two South Korean lawmakers released a NIS assessment that Kim had ordered the execution of 15 senior officials this year. And in February there were reports that an army four-star general, Pyon In Son, had been put to death, perhaps as early as November.

Kim, from all accounts, has had a bloody reign. NIS believes 68 senior officials were killed from 2012 to 2014. Among the total is his aunt’s husband, Jang Song Thaek. Add in junior officials and officers, and the total could be closer to 500 according to Angelo State University’s Bruce Bechtol, the author of North Korea and Regional Security in the Kim Jong-un Era: A New International Security Dilemma. “Most of these executions are not public,” he notes. “Guys disappear or they end up in a camp where they die.”

As Bechtol explains, Kim has shuffled and reshuffled the people “in the three key institutions—the party, the military, and the security services.” He attributes the constant changes to Kim Jong Un’s attempts to consolidate his position. The purges, Bechtol says, are signs that Kim’s position is not secure.

Not every analyst agrees with Bechtol that Kim is killing subordinates out of weakness. For instance, Andrei Lankov, one of the most widely quoted experts on Korea, sees “little sign of any real opposition to Kim’s rule among the Pyongyang elite.” NIS also does not perceive Kim to be in jeopardy.

Yet whether one is a member of the Bechtol school or the one headed by Lankov, it is clear that more executions would tend to destabilize the regime. As Lankov and Bechtol agree, anyone under suspicion knows that the alternatives to almost-certain execution are fleeing North Korea or killing Kim.

The spilling of blood creates a dynamic that is hard to stop. There are bound to be more deaths in Pyongyang whether or not the defense minister was killed late last month. 

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