North Korea’s leaders have vanished from view before — and reappeared
While North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s two-week absence has inspired speculation and rumors that he is gravely ill, he is not the first member of the hermetic country’s ruling elite to disappear from public view.
Some absences were caused by real trouble, including deaths, illness or purges. But frequently the so-called disappearances have simply shown the disconnect between insatiable curiosity about what’s happening inside the isolated, nuclear-armed nation and the thick cloak of secrecy surrounding its leadership.
A look at past cases of missing North Korean officials and when reports about the demise of leaders were premature:
Kim Il Sung
Before his death in 1994, there was arguably no person South Koreans hated and feared more than North Korea’s founder, Kim Il Sung. His forces launched a surprise attack on the South in June 1950, triggering a devastating war that drew massive intervention by the United States and China and killed and injured millions of people before an armistice halted fighting three years later.
He also dispatched commandos in a failed attempt to assassinate the South Korean president in 1968 and sent agents to plant bombs that killed 21 people, including several South Korean Cabinet ministers, during a presidential visit to Myanmar in 1983.
There is no clear favorite in the in the race among those who might take over in North Korea if Kim Jong Un dies.
When South Korean newspapers reported him as dead in November 1986, the public, at least for a few hours, was overwhelmed with euphoria but also panic about instability on the border.
The reports began circulating Nov. 16 when the Chosun Ilbo published a short story by its Tokyo correspondent reporting rumors in Japan that Kim had died. Things took a strange turn the next day when South Korea’s military spokesman announced that the North Koreans used loudspeakers on the mine-strewn border to announce that Kim had been shot to death.
Chosun released an extra edition to report the story on Nov. 17 — a Monday when newspapers hadn’t usually published — before using seven pages to describe Kim’s assassination on Nov. 18, under the now-infamous front-page headline “Kim Il Sung shot dead.”
Other newspapers wrote similar stories, adding to a frenzy that abruptly ended hours later when Kim appeared alive and well at an airport in Pyongyang, North Korea’s capital, to greet a visiting Mongolian delegation.
North Korea’s isolation breeds endless speculation, this time about Kim Jong Un’s health and possible successors.
Chosun, South Korea’s biggest newspaper by circulation, never published a correction. But it formally apologized over the story last month while marking the 100th anniversary of its founding.
The newspaper also apologized over a 2013 report that said North Korean singer and senior ruling party member Hyon Song Wol had been executed. Hyon reappeared in public in May 2014 and is now considered one of the most powerful women in North Korea, accompanying Kim Jong Un to several international summits.
Kim Jong Il
Kim Jong Il, the famously reclusive son of Kim Il Sung and father of the current ruler, also was the subject of countless reports and rumors of his demise.
In 2004, a massive explosion at a North Korean train station on its border with China inspired rumors of an assassination attempt, as he had passed through hours earlier on his way back from Beijing. The collision of two fuel-carrying trains reportedly killed and injured thousands of people, but a link to the leader’s travel was never confirmed.
Chatter about Kim Jong Il’s death following his 2008 stroke became so frequent that it prompted South Korea’s financial regulator in 2009 to investigate whether the rumors were being deliberately spread to manipulate stock markets.
When Kim did die in December 2011, following years of deteriorating health and diminishing public appearances, the outside world had no clue until the North’s state media announced it two days later.
Recent satellite photos show a train probably belonging to Kim Jong Un at his compound amid speculation about the North Korean leader’s health.
His once-powerful sister, Kim Kyong Hui, has had her own share of premature reports about her death. CNN in May 2015 cited a North Korean defector in reporting that current leader Kim Jong Un had had his aunt poisoned to death. But the 73-year-old made her first public appearance in about six years in January, sitting near her nephew during a concert.
Kim Jong Un
Conflicting reports over the past week have said Kim Jong Un is either “gravely ill,” “in a vegetative state” or “perfectly fine” following heart surgery that may or may not have happened.
In 2014, Kim vanished from the public eye for nearly six weeks before reappearing with a cane. South Korea’s spy agency said he had had a cyst removed from his ankle.
In 2016, South Korean media quoted intelligence officials as saying Kim had had a former military chief executed for corruption and other charges. But months later, North Korea’s state media showed Ri Yong Gil alive and serving in new senior posts.
A South Korean official said there have been no ‘unusual developments’ in North Korea, suggesting rumors about leader Kim Jong Un’s health are untrue.
Kim was last seen in public April 11 when he presided over a ruling party meeting on coronavirus prevention. Unusually, he missed the April 15 anniversary celebration of his late grandfather Kim Il Sung’s birth for the first time since taking power in 2011. State media have since reported his engagement in routine, but non-public activities. They say he’s sent greetings to the leaders of Syria, Cuba and South Africa and expressed gratitude to citizens of merit, including workers building tourist facilities in the coastal town of Wonsan, which is where some speculate he is staying.
While it’s possible that Kim could pop up anytime, continuing a family tradition of resurrections, some experts say that his health will become an increasing factor in years ahead, considering his weight, smoking habits and other supposed health problems.
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