Bloody Purge in North Korea

The leader of North Korea, Kim Jung Un, has executed his uncle and mentor, Jang Song Thaek, in an apparent purge to dispose of potential rivals.

Previously when there was a purge among the leadership it was done discreetly. But the young and impetuous Kim Jong Un appears anxious to cement his authority and so has executed his uncle with unprecedented fanfare.

The blood curdling news announcement of Jang Song Thaek's execution from North Korea's KCNA, Traitor Jang Song Thaek Executed, is eerily reminiscent of previous bloody purges among authoritarian Communist regimes such as Stalin's Great Purge in the 1930s or Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution in the late 1960s in which high ranking officials were demonized as traitors to the nation and falsely accused of being covertly hostile to the leadership for decades.

The accused Jang brought together undesirable forces and formed a faction as the boss of a modern day factional group for a long time and thus committed such hideous crime as attempting to overthrow the state by all sorts of intrigues and despicable methods with a wild ambition to grab the supreme power of our party and state. ...

A decision of the special military tribunal of the Ministry of State Security of the DPRK was read out at the trial.

Every sentence of the decision served as sledge-hammer blow brought down by our angry service personnel and people on the head of Jang, an anti-party, counter-revolutionary factional element and despicable political careerist and trickster.

The accused is a traitor to the nation for all ages who perpetrated anti-party, counter-revolutionary factional acts in a bid to overthrow the leadership of our party and state and the socialist system.

Among the accusations that earned him execution by the North Korean authorities included not clapping with sufficient adulation.

[After Kim Jong Un became the leader Jang Song Thaek] behaved so arrogantly and insolently as unwillingly standing up from his seat and half-heartedly clapping, touching off towering resentment of our service personnel and people.

He also instructed that the current leader's words be memorialized in a shaded corner.

Jang turned down the unanimous request of the service personnel of a unit of the Korean People's Internal Security Forces to have the autograph letter sent by Kim Jong Un to the unit carved on a natural granite and erected with good care in front of the building of its command. He was so reckless as to instruct the unit to erect it in a shaded corner.

The regime also took advantage of this purging to blame him for the problems with a currency reform in 2009.

Also Jang "confessed" (possibly under extreme coercion) that he was guilty of what he was accused of and that he was plotting to overthrow the government. This is very similar to what Stalin did to various high ranking officials in the Communist Party by forcing them to falsely confess to plotting to overthrow Stalin's Soviet government for years.

He fully revealed his despicable true colors as a traitor for all ages in the course of questioning by uttering as follows: "I attempted to trigger off discontent among service personnel and people when the present regime does not take any measure despite the fact that the economy of the country and people's living are driven into catastrophe. Comrade supreme leader is the target of the coup."

As regards the means and methods for staging the coup, Jang said: "I was going to stage the coup by using army officers who had close ties with me or by mobilizing armed forces under the control of my confidants. I don't know well about recently appointed army officers but have some acquaintances with those appointed in the past period. I thought the army might join in the coup if the living of the people and service personnel further deteriorate in the future. And I calculated that my confidants in my department including Ri Ryong Ha and Jang Su Gil would surely follow me and had a plan to use the one in charge of the people's security organ as my confidant. It was my calculation that I might use several others besides them."

Asked about the timing of the coup and his plan to do after staging the coup, Jang answered: "I didn't fix the definite time for the coup. But it was my intention to concentrate my department and all economic organs on the Cabinet and become premier when the economy goes totally bankrupt and the state is on the verge of collapse in a certain period. I thought that if I solve the problem of people's living at a certain level by spending an enormous amount of funds I have accumulated under various names after becoming premier, the people and service personnel will shout "hurrah" for me and I will succeed in the coup in a smooth way."

Jang dreamed such a foolish dream that once he seizes power by a base method, his despicable true colors as "reformist" known to the outside world would help his "new government" get "recognized" by foreign countries in a short span of time.

It is horrific that the terrible dramas of Stalin's Great Purge and Mao's Cultural Revolution are being replayed in North Korea at this present time.