Magdy Mostafa
For North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to miss the celebration of the 108th anniversary of the birth of his grandfather, Kim Il Sung, the founding leader of the country, this means that there is a venerable speech that prevented this, especially as it is the most important occasion in that communist country.
This absence sets a historical precedent that the country has not known before, whether in the life of the founding grandfather or Father Kim Jong-il, the "second leader", or even the grandson himself since the "third leadership" of North Korea devoted to his late father nine years ago.
The event passed on April 15, and the leader did not register any attendance, but questions about the reason for the absence are present, awaiting Pyongyang's silent answer. American sources talked about "the deteriorating health of the young leader after heart surgery," while the southern neighbor is busy with verification. Likewise, Japan and the rest of the Region are concerned about the health of the leader, who withdrew part of the concern for the health of the world under the Corona pandemic.
Kim Jong Un's last public appearance four days before the occasion, as he chaired the ruling Labor Party political office meeting on April 11, discussed preventive measures against the Corona pandemic, and elected his sister as an alternate member of the office.
North Korea's official media reported that Kim "sent his regards to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad last week, and congratulated a North Korean woman for reaching her 100th birthday."
The North Korean media did not report any activities of the leader after this date, or publish any photo of him, which opened the door to frequent news received in the American media that talks about the deteriorating health of the North leader.
A CNN report quoted a US official who declined to be named, saying that Kim was "in poor condition after an unspecified operation." Another US official later told the network that "concerns about Kim's health are reliable, but it is difficult to assess their severity."
North Korea's "Daily In Kai" website, quoting a local source in Pyongyang, said that Kim Jong Un "underwent cardiovascular surgery on the 12th of this month."
The Associated Press quoted a US official as saying that before the reports emerged late Monday, the White House was aware that Kim's health "might be perilous, and the United States has information that Kim has undergone surgery, and that complications Maybe it made him powerless. "
But the official, who declined to be named, stressed that the United States "has no confirmation of the surgery or that any complications have occurred," and did not say where the information came from or when it received it, while the White House and the State Department did not comment on the matter.
The echoes of that news varied in the region, especially with the southern neighbor, where the Presidential "Blue House" announced in South Korea that he had no information about rumors about Kim's health, and the Unification Ministry in Seoul said, "There is nothing officially announced."
"As far as I know, Kim Jong-un has no ill health by referring to Kim's recently declared activity," said the government official responsible for dealing with North Korea. In Japan, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihid Suga said his government was "monitoring the situation."
| The Northern Leader, using a walking stick, after a 40-day absence in 2014 (Reuters - Archive) |
longest previous absence of the North Korean leader was in 2014, and was linked to health reasons as well, as Kim disappeared from the public eye for almost six weeks, which sparked a wave of speculation, including that he was excluded from the ruling in a coup arranged by some senior politicians.
Kim soon reappeared after 40 days leaning on a stick, and the North Korean media acknowledged at the time that he was suffering from an "uncomfortable illness", but she did not deny or confirm rumors that he had gout, and the South Korean spy agency said at the time that He removed a sack from his ankle.
The health of the young leader is one of the great secrets in this closed communist country. The utmost care, discretion and caution are necessary even when traveling abroad. In this regard, Lee Yoon Keol, a former member of the North Korean Guards Command Unit, says that Kim Jong-un is not using any bathrooms while traveling, and is instead resorting to "a personal toilet."
He explains to me that the reason behind this has nothing to do with hygiene, but rather because "the leader's secretions contain information about his health that cannot be left behind." In 2015, the South Korean News Agency reported that a custom bathroom had been built in one of Kim's convoy of armored vehicles.
| Flowers surround the statues of the founding grandpa (left) and the deceased father in the "Sun Palace" in the capital, Pyongyang (Reuters) |
In an early attempt to monitor and anticipate North Korea’s future in the event of a leader’s health deficit, analyst Chung Seung Chang of the Sejong Private Institute in South Korea ruled out political turmoil in North Korea “even if Kim becomes marginalized due to health problems.”
Chung said Kim Yong-jung, the sister of the Korean leader, is already exerting significant influence within the government, and that most members of the Pyongyang leadership are unanimous in supporting the Kim family and bypassing them in maintaining North Korea's order.
Sister Kim Yoo Jung seems to be the obvious choice, not only because she is descended from the same "sacred blood pecto streak" of the North Koreans to which the ruling dynasty belongs, but also because she has made headlines. Last month, she issued her first official statement, and she was seen - along with her brother - in the main summits he attended.
Tracking the developments and news of the North Korean ruling elite is extremely difficult, due to Pyongyang's strict control of its information. Until Pyongyang interprets or decides the current absence to end the monitoring of neighborhood and verify American media reports, the young leader's personality remains tempting to stop there after entering the country in the tenth year of his rule.
| Trump and Kim in the Demilitarized Zone between the two Koreas in the summer of 2019 (Getty-Archive) |
and unlike the late grandfather and father, the North Korean third leader appears to be less fit than them, compared to his age, as he was only thirty-six years old - according to estimates - but during the three meetings that he met with US President Donald Trump (73 years) in 2018 and 2019 The latter seemed more agile than the young leader of the world's poorest nuclear country, who clings ferociously to his country's right to a nuclear arsenal; then diplomatic efforts related to this file have since ceased.
Before those meetings, agility and age were the subject of the palpation and discord between Trump and Pyongyang, who described the American president as a "crazy old man". Trump did not, however, reply to Twitter - as usual - saying, "Why does Kim Jong Un abuse me and describe me as old, while I will not I would never describe it as a short fat? "
Talking about agility calls for the North Korean leader’s nutritional habits, as Western reports stated that he ate lunch "sushi" with a Cuban steak, a high-quality beef, and ate pizza with a large layer of meat and fat and pieces of pork.
This young man, who spent four years of adolescence a student in Switzerland, started in 1996, also loves other types of meat, such as "brochotto", meaning Italian pork grated in salt, and loves to eat a Spanish meal of ham called "hamon". As for smoking, he smokes expensive cigarettes and drinks imported wines.
These nutritional habits, along with obesity, suggest the validity of the novel that has not been officially denied or confirmed yet, namely that absence is due to health reasons related to the integrity of the heart and arteries, not Corona whose numbers of victims are not known in North Korea, with long land borders with China, the country of origin, and Korea The southern region, which has been affected by the epidemic, has left tens of thousands of deaths and injuries.