Kim Jong-il

 "I know I'm an object of criticism in the world, but if I am being talked about, I must be doing the right things"

     Kim Jong-il (born February 16, 1941) is the current leader of North Korea.  He succeeded his father Kim Il-sung, founder of North Korea, who died in 1994.  His other titles include: Chairman of the National Defense Commission, Supreme Commander of the Korean People's Army, and General Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea (the ruling party since 1948).  

     After graduating in 1964 from Kim Il-sung University, Kim Jong-il was "groomed for leadership" and he was officially designated successor to his father in 1980. At this time Kim assumed the title "Dear Leader", the government began building a personality cult around him patterned after that of his father, the "Great Leader.” Kim Jong-il was regularly hailed by the media as the "fearless leader" and "the great successor to the revolutionary cause". He emerged as the most powerful figure behind his father in North Korea.  In spite of this growing recognition and popularity, Kim did not hold any real positions of power until 1991, when, despite his lack of real experience he took over control of the armed forces.  Analysts believe he was given the position to counter potential resistance to his eventual succession. After the death of Kim Il-sung in 1994, it was three years before he took over the leadership of the ruling Korean Workers' Party.

     During the 1990s the loss of strategic trade agreements, strained relations with China, the devastating impact of several natural disasters (floods and drought), and only 18 percent arable land and an inability to import the goods necessary to sustain industry led to an immense famine and left North Korea in economic shambles. Faced with a country in decay, Kim adopted a "Military-First" policy" to strengthen the country and reinforce the regime. On the national scale, this policy has produced a positive growth rate for the country since 1996, and the implementation of "landmark socialist-type market economic practices" in 2002 kept the North afloat despite a continued dependency on foreign aid for food.

     In 1998, South Korean President Kim Dae-jung implemented the "Sunshine Policy" to improve North-South relations and to allow South Korean companies to start projects in the North. Kim Jong-il announced plans to import and develop new technologies to develop North Korea's fledgling software industry. As a result of the new policy, the Kaesong Industrial Park was constructed in 2003 just north of the inter-Korean border, with the planned participation of 250 South Korean companies, employing 100,000 North Koreans, by 2007. However, by March 2007, the Park contained only 21 companies - employing 12,000 North Korean workers.

     In 1994, North Korea and the United States signed an Agreed Framework which was designed to freeze and eventually dismantle the North's nuclear weapons program in exchange for aid in producing two power-generating nuclear reactors.  In 2002, Kim Jong-il's government admitted to having produced nuclear weapons since the 1994 agreement. Kim's regime argued the secret production was necessary for security purposes - citing the presence of United States owned nuclear weapons in South Korea and the new tensions with the U.S. under President George W. Bush. On October 9, 2006, North Korea's Korean Central News Agency announced that it had successfully conducted an underground nuclear test.

     Kim Jong-il has been routinely criticized by world governments and international non-goverment organizations (NGO) for human rights abuses carried out under his rule, as well as for North Korea's production of nuclear weapons, contrary to previous legal, international obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and his own commitment to make the Korean Peninsula free of nuclear weapons. Camp 22 is North Korea's largest concentration camp, where up to 50,000 men, women and children accused of political "crimes" are held. Reports of gross violations of human rights by the guards have been reported, such as murdering babies born to inmates.

     North Korea remains silent on the issue of an appointed successor. South Korean media have suggested that he is grooming his son, Kim Jong-chul; however, Kim Yong Hyun, a political expert at the Institute for North Korean Studies at Seoul's Dongguk University, believes any appointee would be outside the family.

 Information and images retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_jong-il and http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/783967.stm