Dear Leader (5 page)

The work of Office 101 was never confined to a single genre or medium. It employed speeches, video, music and other forms of cultural expression – all under the names of South Korean or foreign authors – that could be used to infiltrate and influence the values of Koreans.

In April 1998, for example, four months before the start of my work at UFD, Office 101, Section 1 (Newspapers) produced an article that received praise from Kim Jong-il. The piece was written under
an assumed outsider’s name and declared our Great Leader Kim Il-sung to be the Sun of the World. The evidence in question was the sinking of the
Titanic
. The date on which the RMS
Titanic
sank, 15 April 1912, also happens to be the date of Kim Il-sung’s birth. Using this coincidence as a form of historical proof, Section 1 explained that ‘As the Sun set in the West, it rose in the East’. Such creations of the United Front Department were then published in the Party newspaper, the
Rodong Sinmun
, or broadcast on television – which only shows state-run channels – as the works of foreign authors, journalists and intellectuals. The North Korean people could never have imagined that all these apparently foreign works were produced by Office 101 in the very heart of their capital, Pyongyang. Isolated from the outside world, it’s not surprising that they believed that the people of the world, including South Koreans, admired our country’s strong leadership and many achievements.

After Kim Il-sung’s death in 1994, epic poetry became the chief vehicle of political propaganda with the publication of a poem by Kim Man-young of the Writers’ Union Central Committee. The work took the form of a prayer for the eternal life of Kim Il-sung. Kim Jong-il published that lengthy poem in the
Rodong Sinmun
and proclaimed Kim Man-young the most loyal worker in North Korea. Soon afterwards, the poetry of Shin Byung-gang was promoted by the military’s Propaganda Department in order to demonstrate their loyalty to Dear Leader. Kim Jong-il declared Shin’s works, along with those of Kim Man-young, to be ‘People’s Literature’; and the two poets were presented with imported cars and household appliances, as well as extravagantly decorated luxury apartments whose furnishings included sets of gold-plated cutlery.

Within my department, a panic ensued. Although the UFD also employed poets, it had not been able to satisfy Kim Jong-il with a single epic poem – a serious omission that could potentially lead to an accusation of insufficient loyalty on the part of the United Front
Department as a whole. It had become an increasingly worrying concern to my colleagues by the time I joined the Department.

The problem had been exacerbated by the type of personnel they employed. Due to the constraints of psychological warfare under which the UFD operated, operatives were highly trained in ideological persuasion but had not invested much thought in the literary qualities of the work they produced. It was perhaps the tragic and inevitable consequence of making art anonymously, as Supervisor Park Chul had suggested when he described not being able to publish his works in his own name. Moreover, UFD writers had to accommodate two lies unique to them in the writing process: they had to pretend to be South Koreans in their feelings of adoration for Kim Jong-il, and this had to be expressed in a fabricated South Korean way of writing.

Although I was the youngest writer on board, at twenty-seven, the onus of rectifying this situation fell on me. When I was summoned to UFD headquarters to receive orders from First Deputy Director Im Tong-ok, I could hardly believe my own ears. Im Tong-ok was the highest authority in the UFD, and even the head of Office 101 could not meet him without being explicitly summoned. The UFD has several sections, and more offices under each section. Office 101, to which I belonged, was part of the policy-making section of the UFD. Between me and Im Tong-ok was the head of Division 19, then that of Section 5, as well as the other various heads of Office 101. To be summoned outside of this chain of command was a striking anomaly.

The headquarters of the UFD lies in Jeonseung-dong of Moranbong District in Pyongyang. The long, three-storey building, privy to the secrets of the history of the Workers’ Party and our nation’s history of espionage, looked even more imposing than Office 101. As if to hide its secrets from the world, the building faced north, away from the sunlight, and was covered in ivy.

The Deputy Policy Director of Office 101 led me to the door of Director Im Tong-ok’s office, on the first floor of the building. The wooden floorboards creaked beneath our feet with every step. The majestic old building seemed to be in built in an old Russian style, with its high ceilings and large windows, and the imposing double doors to Director Im’s office added to the sense of grandeur.

My guide knocked and entered, revealing another open door. He mumbled something into the room, and a loud voice answered from within.

‘Ask him to come in. Come in!’ said First Deputy Director Im Tong-ok.

His title of First Deputy Director meant that he acted with the absolute authority of Kim Jong-il in one of the nation’s key ministries. There were only six institutions considered important enough to be headed by a First Deputy Director: the Organisation and Guidance Department (Kim Jong-il’s executive chain of command, which sits above the constitution and has unrestricted jurisdiction to intervene in any sphere), the Propaganda and Agitation Department (whose First Deputy Directorship was left vacant until 1998, after which Jung Ha-chul was appointed to the post by Kim Jong-il), the United Front Department, Office 38 (in charge of Kim Jong-il’s personal wealth), Office 35 (conducts intelligence activities overseas) and the Ministry of State Security (the secret police).

Director Im came to meet me at the door. His piercing gaze and countenance suggested that he indeed had authority over all matters related to South Korea and to the external presentation of North Korea, as the representative of Kim Jong-il. However, perhaps he was dumbfounded by the situation he found himself in, assigning such a critical task to an inexperienced young man, or perhaps he was just at a loss for words. He wiped his wide forehead, mustered all the concern he could gather into his deep wrinkles, and made it clear, in his long-winded way, that this task was not one he was assigning
lightly. Then he suddenly stood to attention, saying with utmost conviction: ‘Now the General’s order will be communicated.’

Whenever Kim’s words are disseminated in an order, letter or certificate of appreciation, the speaker must stand to attention and make sure his appearance is properly respectful, that his uniform is impeccable and that all his shirt buttons are done up properly. Loyalty to Kim Jong-il had to be demonstrated even in the smallest action as well as through one’s overall attitude. As Director Im stood to attention, I instinctively did the same, waiting for his next words.

‘The General has issued an order for an epic poem to be used in the conducting of psychological warfare,’ he continued. ‘This work must promote the notion that our
Songun
policy has been formulated to protect South Korea. The United Front Department assigns this operation to Comrade Kim Kyong-min,’ he said, using my assumed South Korean name.

Director Im looked as if he were about to continue speaking, but paused when he noticed that I was biting my lip in consternation. The
Songun
or ‘Military-First’ policy was supposed to unify the entire Korean peninsula under Kim Jong-il through the superior might of our military force, and to defend our Socialism. I now had to write a poem based on the premise that such a policy
protected
the South. Without realising it, I had grimaced at the evident impossibility of such a task. Director Im assumed a severe expression, but seemed to be at a loss for further words. ‘You have two months,’ he said, and the meeting was over.

It was mid-December 1998. From that day on, I worked round the clock on the task that had been assigned to me. The basic argument was straightforward: it was my job to praise Kim Jong-il as the master of the gun, the bringer of justice and the People’s Lord who knew only victory. But the essence of the task was to find evidence for these truths and shape them into a literary form. To help me accomplish
this, I spent an entire month reading South Korean literature, identifying themes that supported the argument I was to expound.

I decided on a comparison of South Korea’s
Mangwoldong Memorial for the Martyrs of Democracy
with North Korea’s
Sinmiri Memorial for Revolutionary Martyrs
, with a pun linking
Gukgun
(the name of South Korea’s National Army) and
Songun
(the Military-First policy of North Korea). This allowed me to compare South and North as two sides of the same coin: while the democratic martyrs of South Korea had been killed by the bullets of their
Gukgun
, the revolutionary martyrs of North Korea would be looked after even in their afterlife by our policy of
Songun
. My poem portrayed South Korea’s military as aggressive, and that of North Korea as concerned solely with defending the Korean people. When I submitted my proposal, Director Im and the other UFD officials heaped praise on the approach I had chosen.

On 16 May 1961, a military coup ended civilian rule in South Korea and ushered in the military dictatorship of Park Chung-hee. His long rule of eighteen years was ended by his assassination by an associate, but in the instability that followed, Cheon Doo-hwan positioned himself as the new military dictator. In this way, the divided peninsula was ruled by a military dictator not only in North Korea, but also in the South.

On 18 May 1980, however, South Korean democratic activists rose up in protest in the provincial city of Gwangju in South Korea. They were violently suppressed in the streets by South Korean soldiers, whose authoritarian leader claimed that the protesters, who were armed and were damaging government property and the police station, were North Korean agents who had infiltrated the country. Taking my inspirational starting point from the fact that the South Korean military had once massacred its own citizens, I wrote in the passionate voice of a South Korean poet visiting Pyongyang in May.

To the poet, a Korean spring could not come about through
Nature’s will alone. It could only be brought about and sustained by the committed protest of the people rising for their rights. The South Korean poet, knowing only a blood-soaked spring, recognises in Pyongyang a true Korean spring: here, both Koreas are protected by Kim Jong-il’s policy of
Songun
, as he wields the very gun handed to him by his father, Kim Il-sung, who once used the weapon to free the Korean people from Japanese rule. This is how the poet concludes his praise of that gun:

So this is the Gun

that in the hands of an inferior man

can only commit murder,

but, when wielded by a great man,

can overcome anything.

As history has shown,

war and carnage belong

to the weak.

General Kim Jong-il,

the General alone,

is Lord of the Gun,

Lord of Justice,

Lord of Peace,

Lord of Unification.

Ah, the true Leader of the Korean people!

The poem was presented to Kim Jong-il in time for the anniversary of the Gwangju Uprising on 18 May 1999.

After publication, I received the moving news that Kim Jong-il had read my poem many times, underlining key phrases as he went. He even wrote next to the title of the poem in his own hand, ‘This is the artistic standard of the
Songun
Era.’ It was a historic moment of triumph for the UFD in establishing itself above the military and the Party’s propaganda departments in the sphere of literary arts.

Most importantly for me, I gained the personal approval of the single most powerful man in our country. The personal endorsement from Kim Jong-il was followed by an order for nationwide publication. Four days after my submission of the poem, on 22 May 1999, ‘Spring Rests on the Gun Barrel of the Lord’ was distributed throughout the nation in the
Rodong Sinmun
newspaper. This led to my invitation to become one of the ‘Admitted’ of Kim Jong-il.

My entry into this circle changed the course of my life in the way that winning the lottery might do in a capitalist nation. My career ahead was full of opportunities from which I could cherry-pick as I chose. But most importantly, my new status guaranteed a privilege of immunity that was powerful beyond imagination: not even the highest authorities of the DPRK could investigate, prosecute or harm one of the Admitted. The only way prosecution could possibly occur was for the crime to be treason and for the Organisation and Guidance Department to receive explicit permission from Kim Jong-il himself. Nobody wanted to push too far and risk the ill will of the General himself, so such a process was rarely pursued.

The Party’s Organisation and Guidance Department, responsible for the protection of Kim Jong-il, operated a special section dedicated to serve those who were Admitted. The criteria were strict and the circle small. As was the case with me, Kim Jong-il had personally to request your presence and spend time with you behind closed doors for more than twenty minutes. Bursting with pride at my admission to this tiny and exclusive elite, I felt like a new man each day. My first year of work at the UFD passed by very quickly.

In North Korea, the anniversary on 8 July of Kim Il-sung’s death – referred to as the Celebration of Kim Il-sung’s Eternal Life – is a field of battle among cadres desperate to demonstrate their loyalty to the cult of Kim. Director Im Tong-ok announced during the UFD’s
agenda meeting for the year 2000 that we would be the ones to offer the best epic poem to Kim Jong-il, outshining the military and Party’s propaganda departments once again. As I was now one of the Admitted, there was no question of the glorious task falling to anyone other than me, and my primary task for the year was the completion of this assignment.

Director Im took the reins with great gusto from the start of the first thematic planning meeting.