Who Is Kim Jong Il?
S E O U L, South Korea, Jan. 8 -- He may be the most reclusive, enigmatic, unpredictable dictator in the world today. But, just how much does the world really know about Kim Jong Il?
The most common images of North Korea's "Great General" show him looking down on Pyongyang's main square, saluting, as columns of soldiers and artillery parade through the capital of perhaps the world's most sealed-off society — a society dominated by Kim's bizarre personality cult. But there is more to the North Korean leader than this traditional Cold War snapshot.
It is difficult to separate fact from fiction when it comes to deconstructing Kim Jong Il — he presides over an impoverished, hermetic country where brainwashing, brutal repression and a fanatical military are very much a part of everyday life.
Kim and his government have little contact with the outside world, and few Westerners have visited Pyongyang. Much of the West knows Kim simply as the odd-looking dictator in the Mao suit who seems once again determined to turn his country into a nuclear power.
Kim is far more complex a character, however, than the eccentric front he reveals to West would indicate.
‘A Ruthless, Powerful Leader’
"He is a ruthless, powerful leader, who ultimately holds the destiny of North Korea, and by extension, how peace or war could come to the Korean Peninsula," said Lee Chung Min, an associate professor of international relations at Seoul's Yonsei University.
Lee and others who have studied and met the North Korean leader describe him as a cunning politician who has a clear strategy in place.
Even if he may appear at times to be acting irrationally, there is nearly always a method to Kim's madness, they say. Unpredictability, many believe, is North Korea's most potent weapon.
Donald Gregg, a former U.S. ambassador to South Korea and CIA station chief in Seoul, visited Pyongyang as recently as November and said he sees a rational motivation in Kim's decision to fire up North Korea's nuclear reactors.
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