North Korea
released dramatic images yesterday of the purge of leader
Kim Jong-un's
uncle, considered the country’s second-most powerful official, on charges of corruption, drug use, gambling, womanising and
leading a “dissolute and depraved life”.
Jang Song Thaek, who is married to Kim Kyong-hui, the younger sister of the late leader Kim Jong-il, allegedly "abused his power" and led a "depraved, capitalist life". State television showed his dramatic arrest at a meeting of the ruling Workers' Party on Sunday.
Mr Jang's purge had been on the cards. Last week, South Korean intelligence officials said two of his aides had been executed last month for corruption. Then a state documentary in the North had all images of Mr Jang removed.
Mentor
The young North Korean leader, who has ruled since his father's death two years ago, will now lead without the relative long seen as his mentor.
It is difficult to interpret whether the ousting means Mr Kim has more power or is under threat.
Tensions remain high on the Korean Peninsula following threats of military action in March and April against Washington, Seoul and Tokyo, including vows of missile and nuclear strikes and warnings that Pyongyang would restart nuclear weapon fuel production.
'Challenge to leadership'
The North's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported that the politburo of the Workers' Party had convened to dismiss Mr Jang and his top lieutenants for their "challenge to the communist regime's leadership".
Mr Jang’s fall from grace is the most significant in a series of personnel reshuffles conducted by Mr Kim in an apparent effort to bed down his power among North Korea’s elite.
KCNA’s release of footage of Mr Jang’s dismissal was the first time since the 1970s that it had broadcast such a high-profile arrest.
“The Jang Song Thaek group committed such anti-party, counter-revolutionary factional acts of compromising the unity and cohesion of the party and disturbing the work of establishing the party unitary leadership system, and perpetrated such anti-state crimes to harm the efforts to build a thriving nation and improve the standard of people’s living,” it said on its website.
Mr Jang was accused of being “engrossed in irregularities and corruption”, and taking drugs and squandering money at casinos while undergoing medical treatment in a foreign country. The dispatch also said he had “improper relations with several women and was wined and dined at back parlours of deluxe restaurants”.
“Jang pretended to uphold the party and leader but was engrossed in such factional acts as dreaming different dreams and involving himself in double-dealing behind the scenes,” the agency said.
Prof Son Tae-gyu at Dankook University told the Korea Times: "Both of Kim Jung-un's two predecessors, his grandfather and father, used purges to do away with any potential threats to the regime, and the third-generation ruler has also turned to the conventional traits of his family."