North Korean House of Cards

of communication to Kim Jong-un likely went through Jang Song-taek.
Following Jang’s purge, he now most likely works directly with Kim
or through Pak Pong-ju. He was ranked eighteenth on Jon Pyong-ho’s
Funeral Committee list.
• Kim Pyong-hae (74) has been an alternate member of the Politburo,
KWP Secretary for Personnel, and Director of the KWP Cadres
Department since 2010. He is one of several provincial Party secretaries
to be brought to Pyongyang, not only as part of a generational turnover,
but also to bring a better technical understanding of regime operations
at the regional level into the central leadership. Kim replaced the long
serving holder of the personnel position, Kim Kuk-tae, 706 who was
moved over to the Central Control Commission (CCC). This portfolio
will be critical in the coming years as the inevitable turnover of the
Party membership takes place. 707 Kim Pyong-hae’s relationship to Kim
Jong-un is unclear. He allegedly belonged to a group of Party leaders
that followed Jang Song-taek. 708 His ties to North Pyongan Province,
where he was Party Secretary, suggest this possible link to Jang. In 2002,
during the regime’s brief brush with economic reform, the Sinuiju
Special Administrative Region was set up in the province. In the years
since, Jang had ties to the province in terms of economy and political
control. That said, Kim Pyong-hae survived Jang’s purge and remains in
place. He was ranked 18th and 17th respectively on Kim Kuk-tae’s and
Jon Pyong-ho’s Funeral Committee lists.
• Colonel General O Il-jong (61) is the Director of the KWP Military
Affairs Department (MAD). 709 He is the son of O Jin-u, one of Kim
Il-sung’s closest associates and former Minister of the People’s Armed
Forces. O Il-jong was appointed to his current post in 2010 at the
Third Party Conference, suggesting that his fortunes are closely linked
to Kim Jong-un. He was promoted the next year to colonel general. As
706 Kim Kuk-tae still had ties to the leadership by virtue of his role as the head of the KWP Central
Control Committee. He was also the son of Kim Chaek, the former Premier and his daughter, Kim
Mun-kyong, a vice director of the KWP International Department. Kim Mun-kyong worked with Kim
Kyong-hui, when the latter served in the International Department in the 1990s.
707 “North Korea Says Certain Party Members Profiting from State Commodities,” Dong-A Ilbo,
August 10, 2013. Reportedly internal North Korean documents are being circulated, which express Kim
Jong-un’s dissatisfaction with Party cadre for irregularities and corruption.
708 Lee Kyo-Duk et al. Study Series 13-01: Study on the Power Elite of the Kim Jong Un Regime
(Seoul: Korea Institute for National Unification, July 2013).
709 According to some South Korean reporting, O Il-jong is the Director of the KWP Civil
Defense Department. If this is true, he replaced Kim Yong-chun most likely in 2013 or 2014.
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