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NYT: "Cheating Death, and the Rumor Mill, in North Korea"

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작성자 최고관리자 작성일14-05-24 06:40 조회5,093회 댓글0건

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Cheating Death, and the Rumor Mill, in North Korea


SEOUL, South Korea — Hyon Song-wol is not quite North Korea’s version of Beyoncé. But as a popular singer and leader of the nation’s best-known girl band, which often performs in miniskirts, she attracts plenty of attention. Last Friday, millions watched on national television as she saluted the country’s leader, Kim Jong-un, for his “heavenly trust and warm care” in promoting the arts.

Yet to many across the border in South Korea, Ms. Hyon’s performance was most surprising because she appeared at all. Voluminous news reports there, and throughout much of the world, asserted months ago that she had been machine-gunned to death on orders of the North Korean leader, said to have been her onetime boyfriend.

It was unclear whether her appearance, at a national gathering of artists, was meant as a message that more than just her execution was fiction. But it was a reminder of the near impossibility of saying with certainty what is happening in North Korea, the world’s most opaque country.

“The rumor mill about North Korea is out of control,” said Bill Richardson, the former governor of New Mexico, who has visited North Korea several times. It is a problem, he said, “more now than ever, since we know so little about Kim Jong-un and his true intentions and governing style.”

It is not as though the executions of those closest to Mr. Kim is an outlandish accusation. North Korea’s own state news media has in some ways nurtured the image of him as a vicious dictator, confirming that his own uncle and mentor was executed last December for seeking to usurp power and other crimes, including personal enrichment and debauchery. Mr. Kim also has threatened the United States with nuclear weapons, and a United Nations inquiry into the country’s human rights record has accused him of overseeing a system of gulags where prisoners are beaten and starved.

Sometimes the fears about Mr. Kim’s intentions are derived from scientific evidence. For weeks, intelligence officials in South Korea and the United States have been reporting what could be an imminent nuclear test by North Korea, based partly on satellite imagery of a test area that shows increased activity. But nobody really knows.

Obtaining accurate information of the hierarchy surrounding Mr. Kim is, at best, guesswork, with many once thought close to him purged or replaced.

Mr. Kim, grandson of North Korea’s founder, Kim Il-sung, has remained such a mysterious figure since his ascent more than two years ago that any supposed detail about him can quickly assume the trappings of fact. It was widely reported last year, for example, that when Mr. Kim purged his uncle, Jang Song-thaek, he had him ripped apart and eaten by hungry dogs. The origin of that story turned out to be an unattributed Chinese blog post.

In August last year, the conservative South Korean daily Chosun Ilbo reported that Mr. Kim had ordered the executions of a dozen North Korean performers, including Ms. Hyon, for making videos of themselves performing sex acts and then selling the recordings.

The Japanese daily Asahi Shimbun added credibility to the story, later reporting that Mr. Kim had ordered the executions to prevent the spreading of rumors that his wife, Ri Sol-ju, had engaged in similar acts when she was a singer.

Nam Jae-joon, director of South Korea’s National Intelligence Service, helped fuel such reports by telling lawmakers in Seoul that his agency was aware of them, although he did not specify who was executed.

North Korea called the reports “an unpardonable hideous provocation hurting the dignity of the supreme leadership.” Other newspapers in South Korea continued to carry similar articles, quoting the earlier reports or anonymous sources.

It was not until Friday, however, that the North Korean government seemed to find a way to push back, showing Ms. Hyon, in a crisply pressed green military uniform, addressing the National Meeting of Artists in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, about the beneficence Mr. Kim bestowed on her and her group of female singers, Moranbong, known for their short skirts and performances of such icons of American pop as “My Way” and the “Rocky” theme song.

“Today’s Moranbong Band is possible only because of the heavenly trust and warm care of the Dear Marshal,” Ms. Hyon said on the television broadcast.

North Korea has long been a breeding ground for lurid gossip, including gratuitous methods of execution. Recently, for example, South Korean news media said one of Mr. Jang’s co-conspirators — and later Mr. Jang himself — had been executed by flamethrower. A few years ago, when Mr. Kim was mourning the death of his father and predecessor, Kim Jong-il, they also reported he had an intoxicated military officer killed with mortars for showing disrespect.

South Korean intelligence services often get things right in their guesswork, correctly interpreting changes at the top by noting who is standing where in official photographs and televised images. They first suspected Mr. Jang was in trouble, for example, when he was missing from group photographs of important occasions. An official announcement by the North Korean government later confirmed he had been executed for treason and corruption in December.

“It takes time before a report on North Korea is proven right or wrong, and even if a story turns out to be wrong, there is little disadvantage for reporting it,” Lee Won-sup, a former journalist who is now a professor of news media studies at Gachon University in South Korea, said during a seminar last week.

“That’s why we repeatedly see incorrect, sensational and fictional news reports quoting anonymous sources,” he said.

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