North Korean House of Cards

In the months following the Party conference, Kim Jong-il began to focus
on ensuring the long-term survival of his heir. Since Kim Jong-il’s stroke in 2008,
it was widely speculated that any collective leadership that was built around Kim
Jong-un would be unstable at best and most likely would relegate the heir apparent
to a figurehead. To ensure that this could not happen, Kim Jong-il began to realign
the loyalties within the internal security apparatus to make it more difficult for any
other member of the senior North Korean leadership to assume more power than his
own chosen successor.
The first step of this strategy took place in January 2011 with the dismissal
and alleged execution of Ryu Kyong, the SSD’s Vice Director and Chief of Bureau
2 (Counter-espionage Bureau). Ryu oversaw approximately 50,000 counterintelligence
agents dedicated to identifying spies and dissidents within the regime. His
close ties to Kim Jong-il and his growing power were reflected in his promotion to
colonel general on the eve of the Third Party Conference. His rising status, however,
made him a natural rival of both Jang Song-taek and U Tong-chuk. In addition, his
pervasive presence within the secret police apparatus reportedly made it difficult to
carve out a role for Kim Jong-un, who became increasingly tied to the organization.
According to sources inside North Korea, Ryu was summoned to one of
Kim Jong-il’s residences, where he was arrested by the GC. He was later interrogated
and secretly executed. 498 His removal was followed by the purge of over 100 SSD
personnel. While some sources suggested that Ryu was removed for “being a double
agent,” the more likely cause was probably tied to succession politics. Senior defector
sources in South Korea suggest that Ryu’s sacrifice might have been tied to Kim
Jong-il and Kim Jong-un’s efforts to secure U Tong-chuk’s loyalty and support. 499 If
this speculation is true, it contradicted the general consensus at the time among
Pyongyang-watchers that U Tong-chuk belonged to Jang Song-taek’s patronage
network. 500 While he no doubt reported up to Jang in the formal chain of command,
U was also in a position to serve as a counterweight to Jang’s power within the
security apparatus or, at the least, to provide the heir apparent with situational
awareness of his uncle’s activities.
In 2011, both Kim Jong-un and U Tong-chuk were featured prominently
in SSD-related events profiled in North Korean media. On April 15, 2011, Kim
498 “Exclusive: DPRK Security Head Ryu Kyong Purged,” NKChosun.com, May 20, 2011.
499 Author’s discussions in Seoul in May 2011. According to defector sources, while the GC carried
out the arrest, U Tong-chuk oversaw the operation. These same sources contend that U had “recently
shifted his complete support to Kim Jong-un.”
500 Many South Korean and Chinese Pyongyang-watchers placed U Tong-chuk in Jang Songtaek’s
patronage network as late as 2010. They based this assessment on defector accounts and U’s rise in
prominence after Jang’s return from exile in 2007.
Committee for Human Rights in North Korea
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