Kim Jong-nam: the life and tragic times of North Korea’s forgotten son

For North Korea’s heir apparent Kim Jong-un, October 10, 2010, was a glorious day. It was just two weeks since he had been unveiled before the nation as the successor to then-leader Kim Jong-il, his father, at a big conference of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea. That day, journalists from around the world, even the hated United States, descended upon Pyongyang to bear witness to the unity and might of the Workers’ Party on its 65th anniversary. There was a military parade and shutters clicked as Jong-un and his father waved down to the crowd from their dais. It all went according to plan and, to top it off, the Kim regime’s most hated critic, former politician and defector Hwang Jang-yop, had been found dead in his Seoul bathroom that very morning. Hwang’s death was a fortunate coincidence – assassins were forever chasing him, but it was age that got there first.

The next day, however, didn’t go nearly so well. And as is usual for the Kims, it was family who got in the way. An interview that Jong-un’s estranged half-brother, Kim Jong-nam, had recorded on October 9 was broadcast on Japan’s TV Asahi, in which he made candid comments about losing out on the leadership of North Korea (“I am not disappointed”), the choice of Kim Jong-un as successor (“It was my father’s decision”) and the speed at which the succession seemed to be proceeding (“I think there are internal reasons for it”). He demurred over his father’s health (“I have no comment”) but then added for good measure, “Personally speaking, I am opposed to the third-generation succession.” By the low standards of defiance in Pyongyang, this was throwing down the gauntlet.

It was neither the first nor the last of Kim Jong-nam’s incendiary comments about his family.

Like his father, Jong-nam had been brought up expecting a place at the top. His much older cousin Ri Il-nam, then a teenager, recalled playing with Jong-nam when he was a small child. It wasn’t a task Ri much relished.

In a florid memoir released 14 years after his 1982 defection to South Korea, Ri recalled one of his first meetings with Jong-nam, in 1977. Ri was dressed in the uniform of North Korea’s hyper-elite Mangyongdae Revolutionary School – but the six-year-old Jong-nam was sporting the attire of a senior military officer.

“My military uniform is better than yours,” Jong-nam declared precociously.