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North Korea

The Tyrant and the Bomb, Part II

By Wieland Wagner, Erich Follath, Georg Mascolo and Gerhard Spörl

In the second of a two-part DER SPIEGEL feature on North Korea's nuclear ambitions, we follow dictator Kim Jong Il on his odyssey from an unhappy childhood to Communist movie mogul with his own Stalinist Hollywood to megalomaniac with a nuclear bomb.

Kim was born in a Soviet military camp near Khabarovsk in the Russian Far East, and his early years were anything but happy. After his mother's death in 1949, Kim suffered under the intrigues of his power-hungry stepmother, Kim Song Ae, who wanted her own son to be raised as heir to Kim Il Song. Kim grew up essentially without a mother, while his authoritarian father paid virtually no attention to him.

It was not until 1974 that, after surviving internal power struggles, he managed to secure his claim to succeed his father. Two years earlier, a notation describing the phrase "line of succession" as a reactionary practice of exploitative systems had been removed from a North Korean dictionary.

At first, Kim was placed in charge of the secret service, a position that apparently enabled him to become the de facto ruler of North Korea by the 1980s. Nevertheless, he constantly felt under pressure to prove his worth to his father, whom the Soviets had trained as a partisan fighter against Japan, then a colonial power, and after World War II had essentially installed as the leader of the northern part of Korea. By contrast, Kim Jong Il was unable to claim any military successes.

Kim attempted to make up for this deficit by transforming himself into a propaganda expert, turning his penchant for directing films into a political tool. While the "Great Leader" was still alive, Kim constructed an impressive PR machine in all facets of culture, including music, film, architecture and education.

Kim is obsessed with the cinema, and to fuel his passion he maintains an enormous studio on the outskirts of Pyongyang. In this Stalinist Hollywood, Kim, a fan of Liz Taylor, rules the entire world, from the streets of Japan to British country houses. Tour guides proudly point out which films were directed by the "Dear Leader."

Kim has even committed crimes to support his hobby. In 1978, he had his agents abduct South Korean actress Choi Un Heu in Hong Kong and, a few months later, South Korean director Shin San Oak. The two only managed to flee North Korea years later.

The titles of Kim's revolutionary blockbusters sound like the kinds of phrases used in Pyongyang's daily television news program, titles such as "Sea of Blood" and "The Immortal Soldier." Kim also gleans many of his impressions of the West, especially the hated US imperialists, from movies. He is said to own 20,000 videos, and is especially fond of James Bond films and horror flicks like "Friday the 13th." However, he had his propaganda machine lodge protests against "Die Another Day," because the film's villains were North Koreans.

Successor Kim has been untiring in his efforts to follow in the footsteps of his legendary father. But it's a daunting task. The founder of the nation, whose portrait continues to hang next to that of his son, could at least lay claim to having satisfied his subjects' basic needs for clothing, food and shelter during his first years in office. By contrast, Kim junior has little to show for himself but failures.

North Korea's demise has been accelerating rapidly under the control of Kim the Second. It seems difficult to believe that the north was at first far more developed industrially than the traditionally poorer south. It was not until the 1960s that capitalist South Korea abandoned North Korea's outdated communist model. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Kim made the arms sector his priority, to the point where military defense has now become more important in North Korea than meeting the basic needs of citizens.

Signs of the country's economic decline already became apparent in the 1980s. After Pyongyang's falling-out with Soviet Communist Party leader Mikhail Gorbachev over his Perestroika reforms, the country's former ally drastically reduced its shipments of raw materials and urgently needed spare parts to North Korea. Even students at the elite Peoples' Defense Academy were forced to live without heat. One of Kim's former bodyguards, who fled to South Korea, reports that the students would drink schnapps and spend their days in bed to escape the cold. According to the bodyguard, the only room at the academy that was always heated was one devoted to the teachings of the two Kims.

Beginning in the mid-1990s, Kim's unproductive realm also fell victim to an unusually harsh series of floods and droughts. However, the omnipotent dictator proved to be as incapable as he was unwilling to reform his system. Instead, he simply isolated many hard-hit regions from the outside world. It's estimated that about 2 million of Kim's subjects have died of starvation since 1995. The survivors have produced a generation of physically weak and mentally deficient children.

Despite occasional sparks of resistance, Kim has little to fear in the way of revolt. Although North Koreans are increasingly fleeing to the south by way of China, including a recent wave of defections by privileged party functionaries and high-ranking military officers, the dictator has an iron grip on his country. North Koreans are even required to submit a request to visit relatives in a neighboring village.

The "Dear Leader's" life dream

Because he knows full well that a North Korean collapse would be entirely against the interests of its neighbors, Kim's politics are based on coolly staged threats. Despite Kim Jong Il's obsession with having the citizens of North Korea live as if they were on some outlandish planet stuck in the Middle Ages, he pays close attention to maintaining his own international profile -- at least when it comes to weapons of mass destruction.

Like his father, the dictator knew that Pyongyang would need help to achieve the ultimate objective of worldwide recognition and his life's dream: a nuclear bomb. The weapon is the one thing that brings 22 million North Koreans (with annual GNP per capita of about $800) on par with 290 million Americans (GNP per capita of $35,400).

The official route was relatively unproductive. The Yongbyon ("Project 9559") research reactor the Soviets built for the "Great Leader" went into operation in 1965. North Korean scientists acquired their expertise in Moscow and with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna. By becoming a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1985, North Korea agreed to use nuclear power exclusively for peaceful purposes.

But the megalomaniac from Pyongyang managed to find others in the world who wanted to break out of the club of nuclear have-nots and build the bomb themselves. Israel became a nuclear power in the 1960s, largely on its own steam, and was later followed by India. But more interesting to North Korea was the fact that a man in Pakistan who was building the ultimate weapon seemed willing to pass on his know-how. Abdul Qadir Khan saw himself as a sort of "Robin Hood of the nuclear age," who was interested in helping Islamic states and Third World countries acquire something that would enable them to stand up to the Big Five (United States, Soviet Union, China, Great Britain and France). He also happened to be a man who was very receptive to monetary gifts.

Incidentally, the gifted Pakistani nuclear scientist acquired his expertise in Berlin and in the Netherlands, where in 1983 he was sentenced in absentia to four years in prison for industrial espionage, but was acquitted in 1985 on a technicality.

A black market of horror developed around Khan and his Rawalpindi Research Laboratory; its extent has yet to be fully clarified, and it also involved German "dealers of death." In addition to the host country, this nuclear bazaar revolves around three countries: Iran, Libya and North Korea.

Western intelligence experts are now certain that Pakistan and North Korea already began entering into secret deals by the late 1980s. They say that Khan's role was to supply key components for building nuclear bombs: high-speed centrifuges (which Khan allegedly transported in Pakistani government aircraft on more than a dozen trips to North Korea), construction plans and other components used in the uranium enrichment process. In return, the North Koreans supplied Pakistan with prototypes of their Nodong medium-range missile (with a range of 1,500 kilometers), which can be fitted with nuclear warheads.

The swaps strengthened both states. Pakistan's missile technology experienced a major step forward in the mid-1990s. The country's new Ghauri missiles, proudly displayed in military parades, look almost identical to the Korean Nodongs. And since the mid-1990s, North Korea has had nuclear technology with which it managed to produce weapons-grade uranium in facilities unknown to Western intelligence agencies.

Although the CIA had its suspicions on many occasions, the Americans remained unaware of the deals for many years. In October 1994, then US President Bill Clinton signed a treaty with Kim meant to eliminate the risk of North Korea acquiring nuclear weapons once and for all. Under the treaty, North Korea agreed to shut down its graphite-moderated reactor in Yongbyon, from which nuclear weapons-grade material had already been diverted at that time. The Americans promised to build two light-water reactors and supply 500,000 tons of heavy oil to help alleviate North Korea's chronic energy shortages. In an interview with DER SPIEGEL in 2003, North Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Choe Su Hon claimed that Washington had deliberately violated this treaty. "The new reactors," he said, "should already be operating at full capacity, but serious construction hasn't even begun yet. Washington bears the responsibility for children freezing and starving." His conclusion? "The Bush administration wants to subjugate us. It wants to demilitarize us and extinguish our political system. We are not the aggressors. We are fighting for our very existence."

In contrast, the Americans believed that this assessment could at best be attributed to Pyongyang's bunker mentality. In truth, they claimed, North Korea had deceived the world and, under the cover of cooperation, expanded its nuclear weapons program.

An irate confession from Pyongyang

The CIA has credible evidence showing that Pyongyang, despite all assurances, has been continuing its nuclear weapons program since the summer of 2002, and that it acquired centrifuge technology from Pakistan.

When US envoy James Kelly confronted North Korean negotiators with irrefutable evidence in October 2002, Kim's representatives, to the great astonishment of the Americans, admitted to their nuclear weapons program in a fit of rage. Washington discontinued its aid shipments immediately. The disturbing news about North Korea's revelation was kept from the American public for almost two weeks. Indeed, America was more interested in another rogue state. On October 11, 2002, the Bush administration received congressional approval for its Iraq campaign, forcing problems with Pyongyang onto the back burner.

Confronted with the American revelations and criticism from the United Nations, North Korea withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and ceased cooperating with the IAEA in early 2003. All UN inspectors were expelled and the UN's monitoring cameras were removed. For the past two years, there has been no independent information on the status of North Korean nuclear armament. Dictator Kim has done everything in his power to confuse the rest of the world. At one point he denied having any interest in the bomb at all. On another occasion, he invited US politicians to visit Pyongyang to verify the existence of highly enriched uranium. And he has repeatedly reiterated, through spokespeople, what the deputy foreign minister told DER SPIEGEL: "We have exactly the same right to nuclear weapons as the United States, and we have exactly the same right to wage preventive wars."

Such declarations are repeatedly underscored by the martial threat to "drown any foreign aggressor in a sea of blood." According to official North Korean statements, "8 million young North Koreans are prepared to turn themselves into suicide bombers."

How much of this is flowery rhetoric and how much of it is merely a bluff? At what point should North Korea's threats be taken seriously?

Many experts believe that North Korea could already have two to five basic nuclear weapons today. It seems clear that Pyongyang still lacks the capability to arm its missiles with nuclear warheads. Only then would Japan and later perhaps Alaska and northern California be within range. Would that trigger a maximum threat level?

However, some US experts, including Selig Harrison of Washington's Woodrow Wilson International Center, believe that the North Koreans are a long way off from building a nuclear weapon, because they still lack the "technical prerequisites."

But as long as no one knows what to assume and what to rule out, dictator Kim possesses the full threat potential offered by nuclear weapons, as well as the ability to use this potential for blackmail. The world is forced to assume that he has nuclear capability. It must also attempt to determine whether the nuclear crisis can be resolved with concrete aid or whether the "Dear Leader" is beyond help.

Washington opted not to threaten war, instead trying a noose-tightening approach with Pyongyang. Energy shipments remained frozen, but on the condition that North Korea agreed to abandon its nuclear ambitions, the Bush administration signaled that it would provide generous economic aid.

But dictator Kim wanted more than that. He wanted a formal non-aggression pact, signed by the US president, and direct, one-on-one negotiations with Washington. Bush rejected both demands, even though many senators, including Republicans, believed that he could certainly afford to yield to Kim's demands as a last compromise.

Last Friday, the US president offered the erratic dictator another series of six-party negotiations. In the wake of Kim's claim that he now has nuclear weapons, direct negotiations would give the impression that the superpower is yielding to the demands of a blackmailer. But is there any other alternative? Can Kim be allowed to prevail, and could Pyongyang be the source of an even greater threat, namely the further proliferation of nuclear weapons into the hands of al-Qaida terrorists?

Will North Korea become the world's next clandestine nuclear parts dealer?

Western intelligence agents and some IAEA experts have told Der Spiegel that they are concerned that North Korea could become a new source of proliferation. Kim Jong Il could open a dangerous nuclear bazaar for the highest bidder, essentially becoming the new Khan, only greedier, more unpredictable and thus even more dangerous than the Pakistani inventor of the nuclear black market.

Khan has been under house arrest for the past year. The pinnacle of his career came in May 1998, when Pakistan indisputably became a nuclear power when it conducted a nuclear weapons test in the Chagai Mountains. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf was forced to pull his national hero out of circulation in early 2004, when the CIA and the IAEA uncovered his black market dealings.

Despite the arrest of some of its principal players, such as Buhary Sayed Abu Tahir -- the Sri Lankan man believed to be the managing director of the operation -- the intelligence agencies believe that the Khan network still exists, and that Dubai has become the key market for the dangerous, internationally shunned nuclear material.

For the first time in its history, the IAEA has deployed its own task force, but the black market has proven difficult to destroy. Khan also made trips to Indonesia, Sudan and Egypt. Saudi Arabian financiers visited his laboratories, including a high-ranking visitor, Saudi Defense Minister Sultan Ibn Abd Al-Aziz, the only high-profile foreign politician to have done so.

But parts of Khan's shipments are still missing. Nuclear experts have calculated that the centrifuge parts seized to date in Malaysia, South Africa and Libya are insufficient for building high-tech facilities. About half of the material needed to produce nuclear weapons is still missing, including an especially important component, rotors. Is this controversial material still floating around the Mediterranean or the Persian Gulf in some container?

American studies have shown that the almost two tons of uranium hexafluoride Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi handed over to the Americans last year were probably produced in North Korea. However, experts disagree over the expertise of the nuclear laboratory at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where US authorities had the material taken. The IAEA, which is also analyzing the material, is not yet willing to reach a clear determination as to its source. However, US President Bush has been so disturbed by the issue that he dispatched a handwritten letter to fill in his South Korean counterpart, Roh Moo-hyun.

For weeks now, intelligence agencies have been searching for further indications that Kim is selling banned technology for hard currency. The CIA is looking into whether enriched uranium may have been sold to Syria. European intelligence services are investigating regular trips to Tehran by North Korean delegations.

President Bush has boldly vowed to "hunt down everyone who is involved in this nuclear black market," fearing proliferation to other so-called rogue states as well as to terrorist organizations. There is no doubt that a few of Khan's associates, both Pakistani nuclear scientists and high-ranking members of Pakistan's ISI, which has been infiltrated by Islamists, have already been in contact with al-Qaida. Moreover, Osama Bin Laden has issued a directive to his supporters to endeavor to acquire weapons of mass destruction.

North Korea's dictator may not be particularly partial to al-Qaida ideology, but he is not exactly known for his scruples, and it's certain he would be willing to sell to the highest bidder.

The magnitude of nuclear deals is evident in a statement made by a former Pakistani energy minister who claims he rejected an Iranian request for nuclear secrets a few years ago. He says: "they offered $8 billion."

What makes Kim Jong Il tick?

But what will Kim Jong Il really do? Is he just hungry for international recognition? Is the bomb he claims to possess simply a negotiating tool for a non-aggression pact as well as emergency aid to help his people survive? North Korea depends on the international community. Without food shipments from the United States, Europe and, most importantly, South Korea (which supplies the north with hundreds of thousands of tons of rice each year), the country would be doomed to total collapse. For this reason, South Korea and the Peoples' Republic of China are both in good positions to exert their influence over the dictator. North Korea currently imports 80 percent of its consumer goods from China, its main trading partner. But despite the fact that China's leaders have shown their displeasure over Kim in recent months and have urged him to cooperate on nuclear issues, the dictator in Pyongyang is apparently unconcerned about pressure from its big neighbor to the north. Kim speculates that China is as worried about a collapse of the Pyongyang regime as South Korea, causing millions of refugees to flow across North Korea's borders and destabilize neighboring states.

King Jong Il presumably believes he has reached the zenith of his fame. He has managed to frighten the world, while at the same time gaining its recognition.

The "Dear Leader's" megalomania is beginning to border on paranoia. In North Korea, it has manifested itself in ever more gigantic monuments. In an idyllic mountain setting near Hyangsan, not far from the apparently reactivated Yongbyon nuclear facility, stands the Museum of International Understanding, an especially bizarre embodiment of the cult surrounding Kim the son and Kim the father.

Larger-than-life sculptures of the leader are housed in two enormous palaces. An eerie light powered by a backup generator illuminates 200 enormous rooms. 49,808 gifts delegations from 170 states have presented to the two Kims are meant to attest to North Korea's geopolitical significance. The collection includes a hunting rifle from Vladimir Putin, a mother-of-pearl box from Yasser Arafat, a crocodile handbag from Fidel Castro and a basketball from Madeleine Albright. The museum also houses historical material and a stuffed bear shot by Nicolae Ceausescu, as well as all kinds of knick-knacks from obscure friendship clubs from all over the world.

The buildings and their interiors alone must have cost millions, money sorely needed by ordinary North Koreans, especially in the countryside. Beyond the country's few highways and ostentatious capital Pyongyang, North Korea's infrastructure is falling apart. It's a land of impassable roads and of entire districts where the lights have literally gone out. Decrepit smokestacks rise into the sky like accusing fingers. UN officials estimate that only about 20 percent of North Korea's industrial plants are currently in use. The only institution that does work is the military, with its force of 1.1 million people. The only exports in demand are missiles.

In the country's coal-mining region, children work the shafts with bare hands. Their blackened faces look like the faces of old people, and their bodies are emaciated. Old women trudge into the mountains, desperately searching for anything that can be burned or eaten. Some are so weak that they crouch listlessly by the side of the road next to bundles of brushwood, leaves and roots. International aid organizations estimate that hundreds of thousands are dying of starvation, but their employees are unable to reach all the country's provinces.

Nevertheless, preparations for the 63rd birthday of the "most famous person in the world," a title Kim Jong Il likes to use, are in full swing in Pyongyang. The tyrant who had his scientist build the bomb is busy visiting factories and military units, in which a propaganda campaign dubbed "One person can take on hundreds of soldiers" has supposedly met with great enthusiasm. Kim presents his soldiers with binoculars and automatic rifles.

Even in its heyday, the Soviet Union was referred to as an Upper Volta with nuclear weapons. North Korea is even more bizarre and possibly more dangerous -- a starving nation with an unstable dictator playing with nuclear weapons.

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan

Click here to read Part I.