North Korea rarely airs its dirty laundry in public, but Kim Jong-un’s latest purge of a senior military official was staged for maximum visibility – a warning, analysts say, to generals growing too comfortable with their expanding economic power that they answer to him alone.
“Kim is effectively telling military and party leaders: ‘Don’t even think about it. You are under round-the-clock surveillance,’” said Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies.
On Friday, Kim convened a rare joint meeting of the party, state and military – the first of its kind devoted specifically to corruption among senior officials, according to observers – to denounce former major general Pak Hui-chol in unusually public terms.
Pak was, until recently, deputy director for organisational affairs in the Korean People’s Army General Political Bureau, a powerful institution tasked with enforcing ideological conformity, loyalty and ensuring the military stays subordinate to the Workers’ Party through an extensive network of political commissars and instructors.
He was accused of running a four-year scheme that sold promotions, extracted bribes and filled key military posts with loyalists, all while embezzling state funds.