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HAS ANYONE SEEN THE DEAR LEADER KIM JONG IL?

Catherine Philip

The Times, September 10, 2008

Kim Jong Il, North Korea's reclusive and much lampooned leader, failed to attend a big military parade for the first time yesterday, as reports emerged that he may have suffered a crippling stroke.

The parade, traditionally a showpiece for North Korea's arsenal, was held to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the impoverished communist state.

In place of the usual phalanx of tanks and missiles, a much reduced artillery display trailed through the streets under the eyes of North Korea's titular number two, Kim Yong Nam, while the regular army, navy and air force stayed away. It was the first major parade that Mr Kim had missed since becoming Commander-in-Chief in 1991.

The absence of the “Dear Leader”, North Korea's supreme dictator, came amid growing speculation that he was seriously ill; an unnerving development in an unstable and paranoid state with a penchant for nuclear technology but no clear plan for succession.

Mr Kim took over power from his father Kim Il Sung - the “Great Leader” - in 1994; the first dynastic succession in the communist world, although his father remains “Eternal President”, the only dead person to hold such office. The younger Mr Kim has three sons with two different mothers, Jong Nam, 37, Jong Cheol, 27, and Jong Woon, 25, but has never named or even hinted at a successor.

An American intelligence official said yesterday in Washington that Mr Kim was believed to have suffered a stroke in the past two weeks, while a respected South Korean newspaper reported that its country's Embassy in Beijing had been told by Chinese intelligence that Mr Kim collapsed on August 22.

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