A South Korean newspaper today reported that Kim Jong Eun is now the director of the National Security Agency, one of North Korea’s security services and its main intelligence organ.
A South Korean administration official apparently revealed the news to Chosun Ilbo, saying, “Our signals intelligence captured Kim Jong Il being referred to as ‘Director Kim,’” and adding, “It appears that Kim Jong Eun has started by seizing control of the North Korea’s security organs as director of the NSA.”
The NSA is the organ responsible for tracking down and eliminating anti-regime elements and for monitoring the people. Recently, it has been stepping up its surveillance of the families of defectors and cracking down hard on those caught making overseas calls.
Meanwhile, the role of director has been officially vacant since the death of Lee Jin Su in 1987, but one defector who was an NSA agent in North Korea for many years has confirmed that Kim Jong Il had been overseeing operations until recently, telling The Daily NK, “Even though at that time the position of NSA Director was vacant, everybody internally regarded Kim Jong Il as the director.”
If true, directing the NSA would put Kim Jong Eun in a good position to monitor and eliminate any threats to the third generation succession.
As Cheong Seong Chang, a North-South Korean relations researcher at the Sejong Institute explained, “It is hard for the North Korean power elite to oppose the regime in the short term at times of Kim Jong Il’s incapacitation because Kim Jong Eun is keeping a very close eye on them.”
Meanwhile, at the Party Delegates’ Conference in September last year, NSA First-Vice Director, Woo Dong Cheuk, and political head Kim Chang Seop both became candidate members of the politburo, a move which showed the growing stature of the NSA. Two visits by Kim Jong Eun to NSA headquarters in October last year also back this presumption.
