By Michael Burleigh
PUBLISHED 17 37 EST 4 April 2013 UPDATED 04 48 EST 5 April 2013
Power The West hoped that Kim Jong un's accession might bring reform to the barbaric regime. There was little chance of that
The execution took place less than a year after 28 year old Kim Jong un became the world s youngest leader on the death of his father in December 2011.
The condemned man was told to stand in a deserted spot on an army range where North Korean troops regularly carried out manoeuvres. As the man stood there mortar rounds zeroed in on him and he was blown to pieces or obliterated as the South Korean media reported it.
Kim Jong un had ordered that no trace of him down to his hair should remain.
The dead man was Kim Jong un s deputy defence minister Kim Chol. His supposed crime To have been found drinking and carousing during the mourning period for the new leader s father.
In truth the charges were almost certainly trumped up. Kim Chol was the victim of a purge of high ranking officials in the North Korean regime. Among the dozen or more senior figures who had also fallen from favour some of whom have been executed by firing squads were the head of the army and the governor of the North Korean central bank.
The purges had one aim in mind to shore up the standing of the fledgling leader a man desperate to impress his vast but poorly paid army as well as North Korea s poverty stricken population.
In order to boost his position Kim Jong un even underwent plastic surgery to copy the chubby cheeks and downturned mouth of his grandfather Kim Il Sung first ruler of North Korea and a man so revered he is still called The Eternal President 20 years after his death.
Western intelligence officials believe it is this desire to make his mark in the face of domestic and global concerns about his inexperience that lies behind Kim Jong un s seemingly unprovoked bellicosity towards America.
There is little doubt that this dumpy little man with the strange haircut is relishing the global attention.
As North Korea moved a mid range missile to its east coast and the U.S. moved anti missile defence systems to the Pacific island of Guam where it has a strategic base the questions the world was asking are whether Kim really could plunge us all into armageddon and what sort of man is he.
His father Kim Jong il was an Elvis lookalike with a gelled quiff and platform shoes (he stood 5ft 3in in his socks). He had 17 luxury palaces had live lobsters flown to a custom made train in which he used to move around the country to avoid being attacked and a prodigious sexual appetite.
Kim Jong il was attended by a retinue of 2 000 young women known as the Pleasure Brigade who had been rounded up at the age of 15 to serve his sexual whims. All had to be virgins and none could be more than 5ft 2in.
Western intelligence officials believe it is his desire to make his mark in the face of concerns about his inexperience that lies behind Kim Jong un's seemingly unprovoked bellicosity towards America
Kim Jong un's nuclear obsession has been clear for months now. Late last year North Korea launched a satellite with a rocket that could also function as an intercontinental ballistic missile
Kim Jong un the spoilt child of a privileged upbringing was sent to school in Switzerland. He had to pretend to be the son of the embassy chauffeur to disguise his identity calling himself Pak un.
As the third and youngest son Kim could have anticipated a life of purposeless indolence until his eldest half brother Kim Jong nam who was slated to succeed Kim Jong il was disgraced after being caught using a fake passport to enter Japan in order to visit Tokyo s Disneyland.
Such contact with the decadent West was intolerable and suddenly young Kim had to be quickly trained how to rule his country.
North Korea is a totalitarian dictatorship of 23 million people most of whom live in grinding poverty where loudspeakers pump out progaganda on the streets. Those who fall foul of the regime and sins include listening to South Korean radio attempting to flee to China to avoid starvation or failing to praise the leader sufficiently are thrown into one of six vast labour camps holding some 200 000 people where torture and starvation are rife.
Within months of his accession Kim had acquired the formal titles he needed to establish his leadership from general to 'Marshal'. By August 2012 Kim had become 'Supreme Leader' and the purges had started
Numbers in the camps are kept down by natural attrition. The forced labour on a diet so meagre that rats are considered a delicacy often proves fatal.
The West hoped that Kim Jung un s accession might bring reform to the barbaric regime. There was little chance of that.
Those who refused to weep copiously at the enforced hysterical mourning for Kim Jong il in December 2011 were thrown into the penal camps.
Within months of his accession Kim had acquired the formal titles he needed to establish his leadership swopping that of general for Marshal . By August 2012 Kim had become Supreme Leader and the purges had started.
In order to boost his position Kim Jong un even underwent plastic surgery to copy the chubby cheeks and downturned mouth of his grandfather Kim Il Sung (pictured)
Three key advisers Kim inherited from his father disappeared while several senior military figures were killed in a gun battle with the guards of officers sent to replace them. An uncle and aunt team who had been sidelined by Kim s father were brought back into senior positions. They now seem to be the biggest influence on the young dictator.
Kim also acquired a further asset in the shape of his pretty wife Ri Sol Ju whose hemlines are more daring than customary for North Korea and who sported a $1 594 Dior handbag when the young pair were seen in public.
This led some to imagine that the regime was about to liberalise some aspects of life in North Korea.
In fact it was a prelude to the global nuclear crisis we face today and Kim Jong un s declaration of martial law.
Kim Jong un s nuclear obsession has been clear for months now. Late last year North Korea launched a satellite with a rocket that could also function as an intercontinental ballistic missile.
In March the capital Pyongyang conducted an underground nuclear test its third in seven years.
The blast was in the 7 to 9 kiloton range which is about half the potency of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II.
The UN Security Council including Russia and China reacted unanimously by imposing tougher sanctions but the reaction from Pyongyang was predictably belligerent.
A top general and vice defence minister threatened to engulf Washington in a sea of fire using missiles fitted with miniaturised nuclear warheads. This was a ludicrous claim for North Korea has not succeeded in fitting such a warhead to a missile.
Kim Jong un then effectively declared a state of war with South Korea ratcheting up the tension. The trouble is that Kim Jong un can only cry wolf so often. This is why the situation now is so dangerous.
Brian Myers a professor at Dongseo university in South Korea who monitors the North s propaganda explained there is a real possibility of an attack from North Korea which could escalate into outright conflict.
The United States has deployed a battalion equipped to fight chemical and biological attacks in South Korea. Pictured soldiers watch a bomb disposal robot during a demonstration of their equipment
Preparation South Korean marines work on their K 55 self propelled howitzers during an exercise against possible attacks by North Korea near the border village of Panmunjom in Paju South Korea on Wednesday
They cannot let the rhetoric drop without coming through on some target he said. Kim Jong un came out on a limb three weeks ago and instead of walking back he is going forward and forward.
Professor Myers pointed out that one of the population s most common slogans is We don t speak empty words.
One factor making Kim Jong un more belligerent is the fact that several new leaders have come to power in the region including China s Xi Jingping and South Korea s Park Gue hye who models herself on Margaret Thatcher.
The young Kim is testing Mrs Park s resolve to resist his sabre rattling.
North Korea has 12 000 artillery pieces and missile launchers pointed at Seoul which lies only 60 miles south of the internal border. In theory these could fire half a million shells in an hour at one of the most modern cities on Earth a megacity of ten million people.
Call to arms Kim Jong un is a man desperate to impress his vast but poorly paid army as well as North Korea's poverty stricken population
Mrs Park has recently said that in the event of an attack her armed forces can respond without any reference to the political leadership. This increases the likelihood of a small incident triggering a larger conflict although as yet North Korean rhetoric has not been matched by mobilisation.
Adding further to the tension is the fact that since March 1 the U.S. and South Korea have been conducting a series of joint military exercises in the area exercises set to run until the end of this month leaving plenty of further scope for Kim to vow further acts of vengeance. Each threat ratchets up the pressure still further. So serious is the situation that American officials have reportedly decided to pause this show of U.S. force.
The concern was that we were heightening the prospect of misperceptions on the part of the North Koreans and that that could lead to miscalculations an unnamed administration official told the Wall Street Journal.
Be prepared David Cameron with Commander John Livesey on the Trident armed HMS Victorious off west Scotland yesterday
Meanwhile a spokesman for the Pentagon said the U.S. wanted to lower the temperature on the peninsula.
The fact is that it may now be too late. Russia yesterday said it was worried about the explosive situation on the Korean Peninsula.
In the current tense atmosphere it would only need an elementary human error or technical problem for the situation to go out of control and plunge into a critical dive warned Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Morgulov.
China too is extremely worried. In the present situation China believes all sides must remain calm and exercise restraint and not take actions which are mutually provocative said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei. Little wonder that U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel was in talks about North Korea with his newly appointed Chinese opposite number General Chang Wanquan.
In theory China is the country with the most leverage over Kim Jong un. It supplies North Korea with 90 per cent of its energy needs 80 per cent of its consumer goods and 45 per cent of its food virtually all of it destined for the North Korean armed forces and the ruling Communist Workers Party.
There are signs that China s Communist leadership are exasperated with North Korea particularly since Kim Jong un has so far not bothered to pay personal homage to the Chinese leadership in Beijing.
But China is famously cautious and at the moment is largely leaving the problem of Kim to the U.S. which so far seems only to be waving a bigger and bigger stick at this bumptious little man who may be so convinced of his might based largely on weapons that exist only in his imagination that he could do something really stupid.
The fact is that he could plunge the world into the biggest crisis since 1962 when Russian engineers on Cuba started building nuclear missiles and almost plunged the world into armageddon.
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Newest Oldest Best rated Worst ratedThe problem the Americans have is that if they are attacked by nukes thay cannot respond in kind. To do so would harm the majority of the innocent downtroden North Koreans with the fallout and bring world wide condemnation..I honsestly don't think the North Korean leadership has any real Idea of the awesum destruction the Americans can reek on their country by just using conventional weapons. They are just too indocrinated by their own properganda. Let us hop cooler heads prevail but don't bank on it.
Richard Westwell Hua Hin Thailand 05/4/2013 11 40
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I can't see this turning into a world crisis while it could be absolutely appalling for those living in Korea (both the democratic South and the poor masses under this despot's control in the North) and possibly other nearby nations like Japan if the worst did come to the worst I strongly suspect that China and Russia even though they'd make public protests as America flattened North Korea would secretly be very glad to have this persistent problem dealt with. The Chinese being pragmatic capitalists would also see great potential for profit in helping rebuild a newly unified Korea. I sincerely hope it doesn't come to that but to refute the end of this article this isn't the Cuban Missile Crisis all over again.
Alex London 05/4/2013 11 34
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Don't bother mentioning him in the media waste of space. Best place for him would be in the middle of the table for Sunday lunch with an apple shoved in his piggy mouth.
SW UK 05/4/2013 11 29
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Well tell me when I should hide under my bed then Now....no not yet...now Ok I am ready
122artinax Fife 05/4/2013 11 27
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A future war will emanate from the Middle East not from N Korea who just like to issue a lot of hot air when told off.
TW London 05/4/2013 11 27
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We are fostering these situations on ourselves by being part of this US axis of evil.
martin cranbrook 05/4/2013 11 23
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Put a Bounty on his head saves a lot of expense of War.
THE VOICE OF REASON NEWCASTLE 05/4/2013 11 12
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But But the world can not ignor him just in case the poor inocent starving people of North Korea I feel for Alice
TreeHugAlice77 Derbyshire United Kingdom 05/4/2013 11 08
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When are China going to pull their finger out and discipline their boy
Chris Glasgow. UK 05/4/2013 11 04
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Turn North Korea into a parking lot
Lucy3350 NYC 05/4/2013 11 03
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