From late 2010, Kim was viewed as successor to the leadership of North Korea. When North Korean statemedia reported in December 2011 that leader Kim Jong-il had died at the age of 70 of a heart attack from overwork, I was a relatively new analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency. To a large extent, he has maintained the initiative on the Korean Peninsula, to the frustration of the United States and his neighbors. That way, he wouldnt have to explain why his parents had changed. Kim Jong Uns mother lived for six more years, dying in a Paris hospital in 2004. But Kim Jong-il reportedly rejected Jong-nam as being unfit to lead North Korea. For example, in 2014, the regime said that the release of the movie The Interviewa comedy depicting an assassination attempt against Kimwould constitute an act of war; North Korean hackers threatened 9/11-type attacks against theaters that showed thefilm. As Mark Bowden wrote in a 2015 VanityFair profile, At age five, we are all the center of the universe. They also knew who her children were. He joined his older brother at the International School of Berne, a private, English-language school attended by the. Even as we parse every statement issued by North Korea, the countrys media content, the satellite imagery of its infrastructure, the state-sponsored videos, and the testimonies of defectors, we must remember that Kim is watching us as much as we are watching him. When he first enrolled at the school in Liebefeld, Kim Jong Un started in a reception class for children who did not speak German, spending several months learning his lessons in German but at a slower pace with simpler instruction. Kim had a temper, hated to lose, and loved Hollywood movies and basketball player MichaelJordan. The young Kim and his classmates at the military universitythe future military eliteno doubt celebrated that nuclear milestone, which probably also fortified their optimism about their countrys nuclear future and reinforced their belief in their role as the defenders of thatfuture. News of these events began to filter out to the international media through cell phones that had been smuggled in before Kim Jong-ilsdeath. He always wore the same outfit for basketball: an authentic Chicago Bulls top with Michael Jordans number23and Bulls shorts and his Air Jordan shoes. For all we know he may have been posturing then, but given recent developments and Kims likely increased confidence about his ability to call the shots, the U.S. and its partners and allies, including China, must be clear-eyed about the potential for Kim to shift his stated defensive position to a more aspirationalone. His classmate at the Liebefeld-Steinhlzli school in Bern in 1998, Joao Micaelo, described him as a reserved kid who could be temperamental and was obsessed with basketball, especially Michael Jordan. When I happen to glance at the purple book, I am reminded about how humility is inherent in intelligence analysisespecially in studying a target like North Koreasince it forces me to confront my doubts, remind myself about how I know what I know and what I dont know, confront my confidence level in my assessments, and evaluate how those unknowns might change myperspective. Not so for Kim. So after nightfall on Sunday, May 17, Kim Jong Uns aunt and uncle packed their three children into a taxi and went to the U.S. Embassy. It even had a full bedroom onboard. Many other diplomats kids arrived at school the same way. Prior to her work in national security, Pak taught U.S. history at Hunter College in New York City and studied in South Korea as a FulbrightScholar. Under this identity, Kim Jong Un settled in Liebefeld, where the architecture is more 70s concrete block than Alpine village. He went by the name of Pak Chol and teachers were told he was the son of North Korean diplomats. In addition to the beauty industry, the vision of economic development that Kim has been promoting includes ski resorts, a riding club, skate parks, amusement parks, a new airport, and a dolphinarium, perhaps because he considers these as markers of a modern state. Some North Korean experts say there is a strategic reason that Kim looks so plump. Kim Jongun has overseen four nuclear tests and debuted ballistic missiles of various ranges, launched from multiple locations. In response to the death, South Korea convened a National Security Council meeting as the country put its military and civil defense on high alert, Japan set up a crisis management team, and the White House issued a statement saying that it was in close touch with our allies in South Korea and Japan. Back in Langley, I remember being watchful for any indications of instability, as I began to develop my thinking on what was happening and where North Korea might be headed under the newly named leader. Kim, his older brother, Kim Jong Chul, and younger sister Kim Yo Jong studied in Swiss schools in and around Bern between 1992 and 2000. Hes a master at running the country but hes also trapped by the country and the mythology, Jung H. Pak, a former CIA analyst and author of the new book, Becoming Jong Un, told The Post. Their whole family would be punished. Welcome to our Official School Website. In private conversation, they called Kim Jong Chol the tall, skinny one and Kim Jong Un the short, fat one. But the new Swiss attorney general, Carla Del Ponte (who would later become chief prosecutor in the international criminal tribunals of Yugoslavia and Rwanda), had forbidden the Swiss authorities to monitor the children. The other kids in the school could only dream of having such shoes, said Nikola Kovacevic, another former classmate who often played basketball with Kim after school and estimates a pair cost more than $200 in Switzerland at the time. When one of its satellite launches failed in April 2012, the regime admitted the failure publicly, the first time it had ever doneso. 2023 NYP Holdings, Inc. All Rights Reserved, North Korea scrambles to address countrys worsening food shortage, Kim Jong Uns sister threatens to turn Pacific into firing range, US sends bombers up as North Korea touts fatal nuke capacity after missile test, North Korea threatens unprecedented action over allied military drills, kill and torture close friends and relatives. Just a few months after he became the leader of North Korea, on the 100th anniversary of his grandfathers birth, Kim delivered his first public address. Although that space launch failed, North Korea, despite international condemnation of the April test, had success with its next attempt, when it launched a satellite into orbit in December 2012. Given the steady drumbeat of internal purges, the sidelining of North Koreas diplomats since 2011 because of Kims focus on advancing his nuclear weapons program and conventional capabilities, and Kims apparent reveling in his recent war of words with President TrumpKim called Trump mentally deranged in response to Trumps personal attacks against Kim in his tweets and speech to the U.N. General Assembly in Septemberit would take a very brave North Korean official to counsel dialogue and efforts to mollify Washington and Beijing. His father and founder of the country Kim Il-sung had also died of a heart attack in 1994. The former classmate didnt believe it until his old friend surfaced as the Great Leader, the third in a succession of a weird, personality cult-driven autocrats, in 2011. Top-of-the-line personal computers used floppy disks and ran on MS-DOS. Reprinted by permission of PublicAffairs, New York, N.Y. All rights reserved. This was Kim Jong Uns home while he was in Switzerland. First name Surname Country School Prize; Veda: Fernandes: UAE: Jumeirah Primary School: 1st: Martha Tendo: Nakirandha: Uganda: Kitante Primary School: 2nd: Aryav: Odhrani Yet, despite all the chest-thumping and bad behavior, Kim is not looking for a military confrontation with the United States. For Kim, skiing in the Swiss Alps and swimming in the French Riviera must have seemed part of his birthright. He was quiet but he was also decisive, Micaelo said. Trends in North Koreas internal affairs, such as greater information penetration from the outside world, loosening of state control over resources and markets, the rise of consumerism, and the growth of a moneyed class, will also place severe stresses on the Kimregime. This 24.3% pass rate makes Kitante Primary School rank position 1736 in Uganda among all the Primary Schools. For the toiling masses as well as for the elite, Ri, the glamorous and devoted wife, is an aspirationalfigure. Would he even want the burden of being North Koreas leader? Under Kim Jong-un, the collapse of North Korea seemed more likely thanever. Tuition cost more than $20,000 a year. While his friend Joao remembered Kim Jong Un as ambitious but not aggressive, according to an unpublished interview with a Swiss journalist, other students remember the new kid being forceful because he had trouble communicating. The North Korean regime had bought six apartments in the building shortly after their construction in 1989 for a price of 4 million Swiss francsa little over $4 million at the timefor the family and some of the other North Korean dignitaries living in the Swiss capital. And the Kim family dynastya totalitarian regimecarefully created a cult of personality around the young boy, as it had done with his father and grandfather before him, reinforcing it through fear and intimidation and shows of force. His test scores were never great, but Kim Jong Un went on to pass the seventh and eighth grades and was there for a part of the ninth grade at the high school, the Koniz education authorities confirmed. Uganda's schools reopened to students on Monday, ending the world's . The U.S. must work to minimize the threat of North Koreas nuclear weapons program without fueling conditions that could invite unintended escalation leading to armed conflict. Kim Jong Un, 38, turned out to be a tyrannical dictator like his father and grandfather and hes still mysterious. He did that for people outside the regime but mainly for people inside the regime. But he seems determined to chart his own path. He is a grandson of Kim Il-sung, who was the founder and first supreme leader of North Korea from its establishment in 1948 until his death in 1994. He joined his older brother, who had been living in Liebefeld, a decidedly suburban neighborhood on the outskirts of Bern, for two years with their maternal aunt, Ko Yong Suk, her husband, Ri Gang, and their three children. Kim Il-sung, the countrys founder and Jong-uns grandfather who ruled for nearly five decades until his death in 1994, was a revolutionary hero who fought Japanese imperialism, the South Korean puppets, and the American jackals in a military conflict that ended only because of anarmistice. Perhaps even more importantly, he may be deploying these signs of affluence to craft an internal narrative about North Koreas material well-being at a time when his people are being exposed to more and more information about South Koreas wealth. The coexistence of these two sets of overlapping perceptionsthe ten-foot-tall babyhas shaped our understanding and misunderstanding of Kim and North Korea. We should be concerned about Kims hubris. One of his key points was that we tend to perceive what we expect to perceive, and that patterns of expectations tell analysts, subconsciously, what to look for, what is important, and how to interpret what is seen. The analysts established mindset predisposes her to think in certain ways and affects the way she incorporates newinformation. This is adapted from her recent book, The Great Successor: The Divinely Perfect Destiny of Brilliant Comrade Kim Jong Un. When he returned to Bern after spending the summer of 1998 in North Korea, Kim Jong Un did not go back to the private international school. virtual villagers origins 2 hearty stew virtual villagers origins 2 hearty stew He has relied on military demonstrations and provocative actions to get his way, and has no experience in the arts of negotiation, compromise, anddiplomacy. According to Fujimoto, Kim carried a Colt .45 pistol when he was 11 years old and dressed in miniature armyuniforms. David Guttenfelder/National Geographic Creative. Surely, someone in his mid-20s with no leadership experience would be quickly overwhelmed and usurped by his elders. North Korea is what we at the CIA called the hardest of the hard targets. A former CIA analyst once said that trying to understand North Korea is like working on a jigsaw puzzle when you have a mere handful of pieces and your opponent is purposely throwing pieces from other puzzles into the box. The North Korean regimes opaqueness, self-imposed isolation, robust counterintelligence practices, and culture of fear and paranoia provided at best fragmentaryinformation. Instead, Kim Jong Uns mother and aunt soon saw that basketball had become an addiction, toothe boy was sleeping with his basketball in his bedand one that came at the expense of his studies. The rhetoric has also extended to threats against those who create negative portrayals of North Korea in popular culture. North Koreas highly provocative actions in the summer and fall of 2017demonstrating ICBMs, conducting a test of a probable thermonuclear device, and threatening to detonate a hydrogen bomb over the Pacificsuggest that Kims confidence has grown over the past six years. After all, she arrived in the country in a Russian-made Ilyushin 62 jet bearing the insignia of Air Koryo, the North Korean state airline. Would the elites accept Kim? One unit was even called Happiness, Suffering, Life and Death. Students learned about Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, and Mahatma Gandhi. They left him in peace. Jong-un was apparently unbothered by his less-than stellar scores; as his classmate noted, He left without getting any exam results at all. Kims other friends received no such notice. Another photo taken around this time shows Kim with a smile, wearing a silver necklace over his black T-shirt and looking like a typical teenager. He was fat and smoking all the time and outwardly jovial, like Kim. It still sits on my shelf at Brookings, within arms reach. When the focus is on Kims appearance, theres a tendency to portray him as a cartoon figure, ridiculing his weight and youth. Theres an old tale that Korean mothers, North and South, like to tell their children: If you play basketball, youll grow taller. He found himself in a chocolate-box picturesque city that that felt more like a quaint town than an international capital. Riesen said he often walked to school from the unassuming home he lived in with his aunt and other family members not far from the North Korean embassy. It was public, gruesome and humiliating. Speaking directly to the people in April 2012 in that first public speech he gave as their leader, he confidently promised that North Koreans would no longer have to tighten their belts. It is clear that he sees the program as vital to the security of his regime and his legitimacy as the leader of North Korea. Pupils walk around the school compound during break time at Kitante Primary School in Kampala, Uganda Monday, Jan. 10, 2022. . Ko, in keeping with Korean practice whereby women keep their surnames after marriage, had paperwork naming her as Chong Yong Hye. 1,502 were here. He is rational, not suicidal, and given his almost-certain knowledge of the significant deficiencies in North Koreas military capacity, he is surely aware that North Korea would not be able to sustain a prolonged conflict with either South Korea or the U.S. Or in his naivet he may simply want his people to enjoy the things to which he has had privileged access. Joao Micaelo, then the 14-year-old son of Portuguese immigrants, clearly remembered the Asian boy in a tracksuit and Nike shoes walking into 6A, a class of 22 students at his small public school in Bern, Switzerland, in 1998. He also loved Jean-Claude Van Damme movies. Even if he wanted to reform a country where many go hungry and even the homes of the political elites rarely have more than one hour of electricity a day, he couldnt. Having rebuffed U.S., South Korean, and Chinese attempts to reengage, he has refused to meet with any foreign head of state, and so far as is known, since becoming leader his significant foreign contacts have been limited to Kenji Fujimoto, a Japanese sushi chef whom he knew in his youth and whom he invited to Pyongyang in 2012, and Dennis Rodman, an American basketball player, who has visited North Korea five times since2013. By portraying Kim Jong-un as a hands-on leader who personally ordered the rocket launch from a satellite command center, the state media framed their new leader as bold and action-oriented even in the face of widespread international censure. He reportedly urged the industry to be world competitive, praised the factory for helping women realize their dream of being beautiful, and offered his own comments on thepackaging. Did you know North Korean President @Kim Jong-un was a student at Kitante Primary school in Uganda? We can also increase stresses on the North Korean regime by cutting off resources that fund its nuclear weapons program and undermine Kims promise to bring prosperity to North Koreans, and ramp up defensive and cyber capabilities to mitigate the threat posed by North Korea against the U.S. and its allies. For the past six years, Kim has poked and prodded, testing and pushing the boundaries of international tolerance for his actions, calculating that he can handle whatever punishment is meted out.

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