‘N. Korea bombing plot claim effort to rally its people’


North Korea’s claim that it has captured a “terrorist” plotting to blow up a statue of its national founder Kim Il-sung appears to be part of its fledgling leader’s efforts to rally his people around him, experts said Friday.

They also noted that the claim reflects the level of insecurity Kim Jong-un feels while striving to tighten his control on the country faltering under poverty and international isolation resulting from its provocative behavior and nuclear ambitions.

“Highlighting the case through state media is apparently aimed at strengthening security control and giving a strong warning to those involved in any anti-Pyongyang activities,” said Yoo Ho-yeol, North Korea expert at Korea University.

“This case came as Kim is striving to consolidate power, make them coalesce around him and add more justifications to his control of the country.”

State Korean Central Television reported that the North held a news conference on Thursday in which Chon Yong-chol claimed he was directed by a group of North Korean defectors and Seoul’s spy agency to destroy the statue in a border city.

Chon, 52, defected from the North in April 2010 and entered the South in November of that year, according to Seoul’s Unification Ministry. He had since lived in Chuncheon, Gangwon Province.

During the conference at the People’s Palace of Culture, Chon claimed that agents from Seoul’s National Intelligence Service told him to carry out the mission with a thermos-shaped bomb and a remote control.

Chon initially planned to bomb the statute on Feb. 16, the birthday of the late leader Kim Jong-il, or on April 15, the centennial birthday of Kim Il-sung, but failed to carry it out on the days due to insufficient preparation, he said.

He finally decided to bomb the statue on July 27, the date when the Armistice Agreement was signed 59 years ago after the end of the Korean War. He was arrested after crossing the border into the North on June 18 to survey the site, he said.

Chon also claimed that the U.S. approved the bombing plan and offered financial support for it.

Seoul dismissed the North’s claim as part of its propaganda efforts.

“The claim is not true. It is North Korea’s sort of propaganda efforts. It is not a matter we should respond to,” Unification Ministry spokesperson Kim Hyung-suk told reporters.

“But what we are doing now is trying to verify the facts concerning the people and the group in the South Chon claimed (told him to carry out the bombing).”

The NIS also denied the claim.

“The claim that the South’s intelligence agency plotted to destroy the statue is not true. The NIS employee Chon mentioned does not exist in our organization,” said an NIS official, declining to be named.

Last month, the North’s state media reported a rare news conference in which a North Korean defector left the South as she was “disenchanted” with South Korean society.

The defector Park Jong-suk claimed that she defected to the South in 2006 as she was in a “wrong ideological state” and dragged into the South after Seoul’s operatives lured her.

As the new leadership tightened control over its people, the number of defectors drastically declined to 610 in the first five months of the year, compared with 1,062 recorded during the same period last year.

More than 23,700 North Koreans have defected here since the Korean War ended in a truce in 1953.

By Song Sang-ho (sshluck@heraldcorp.com)