SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea announced on Monday the dismissal of Jang Song Thaek, the once powerful uncle of leader Kim Jong Un, for what it described as a string of criminal acts including corruption, womanising and drug-taking.
The sacking means Pyongyang is undergoing its biggest leadership upheaval since the death in 2011 of former leader Kim Jong Il, the younger Kim's father.
"Jang and his followers committed criminal acts baffling imagination and they did tremendous harm to our party and revolution," the North's KCNA news agency said in a report following a meeting of the ruling Workers' Party politburo on Sunday.
The meeting decided to dismiss Jang from all his posts and expel him from the Workers' Party, KCNA said. Kim Jong Un attended and "guided" the meeting, it said.
KCNA listed a series of acts committed by Jang that it said led to the decision to remove him, including mismanagement of the country's financial system, corruption, womanising and abusing alcohol and drugs.
"Jang pretended to uphold the party and leader but was engrossed in such factional acts (such) as dreaming different dreams and involving himself in double-dealing behind the scene," KCNA said.
"Affected by the capitalist way of living, Jang committed irregularities and corruption and led a dissolute and depraved life."
Jang is married to Kim's aunt, the daughter of the North's founding leader Kim Il Sung, and was widely considered to be working to ensure his nephew firmly established his grip on power in the past two years.
Last week a South Korean official said Jang was likely alive and in no immediate physical danger, as was his wife, Kim Kyong Hui.
Experts say Jang's removal will help the younger Kim consolidate his power base with a group of younger aides.
Jang had been a prominent fixture in many of the reports and photographs of Kim Jong Un's public activities, but his appearances have tapered off sharply this year and he has not been since in official media since early November.
South Korean media said on Friday that a man who managed funds for Jang had fled and sought asylum in South Korea.
The aide, who has not been not named, was being protected by South Korean officials in a secret location in China, cable news network YTN and the Kyunghyang Shinmun newspaper said, citing sources familiar with the matter.
That place has to be a carnival of power plays. When you have a leadership system that's purely driven by heredity and personality, there's got to be a lot of invisible power and backstage power struggles.
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Jang Song Thaek rose from a municipal bureaucrat to North Korea's No. 2 official — behind only leader Kim Jong Un.
But his ties were more than political: Jang was Kim's uncle, married to the leader's aunt, Kim Kyong Hui.
Jang's execution, announced early Friday, marked an unprecedented fall from grace of one of the most powerful figures in the country as well as its most serious political upheaval in decades.
The 67-year-old Jang held the posts of vice chairman of the National Defense Commission and member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party.
In late 2008, Jang was assumed to be serving in a regency role while the young Kim Jong Un was being groomed to succeed his father, Kim Jong Il. Jang often accompanied Kim Jong Un on guidance trips and stood at his elbow at public events.
A well-traveled operator with a network that spread to China, Jang was considered the chief architect of economic policy that focused on partnering North Korea with its neighbor and ally.
Rumors of Jang's dismissal began surfacing in Seoul earlier this month. On Sunday, he was fired from all posts at a special party meeting and dragged away by soldiers. Four days after his dramatic public arrest, Jang was tried for treason by a special military tribunal and executed, state media reported.
The list of crimes against Jang was long, with plotting to overthrow the leadership the most serious of the allegations. Jang confessed, according to Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency.
For the outside world, KCNA's 2,700-word treatise ripping Jang's reputation to shreds provided an intriguing and revealing glimpse into the murky, feudalistic world of politics in the secretive country.
For North Koreans, the shocking public pillorying of a man seen as a father figure to Kim Jong Un was designed to send a clear message about the intolerance of opposition in a totalitarian state that demands absolute loyalty to the leader.
Jang, a native of the far northeastern border city of Chongjin, had humble roots but was sharp enough to gain entry to prestigious Kim Il Sung University in Pyongyang. He started as instructor for the Pyongyang City Committee of the Workers' Party, and he rose post by post until reaching the top ranks.
He was purged and sent to a labor camp for two years in the mid-2000s, according to Kim Young-soo, a North Korea expert at Sogang University in Seoul. That purge was widely seen as a move to clip his wings.
It was after Kim Jong Il's stroke in 2008, as the regime began preparing Kim Jong Un to succeed him, that Jang began his meteoric rise to the inner circle, an ascension that gained speed after Kim Jong Il's death from a heart attack in December 2011.
Jang was not a career military man but was made a four-star general, and often appeared at state events in a trim white general's uniform. He was appointed director of the Administration Department of the party's Central Committee, a position that gave him power over security agencies as well as the judiciary.
And as a core member of the Political Bureau, he helped engineer a campaign to bring the once-powerful military into the party's fold.
Jang played a key role in shaping economic policy in the impoverished country, particularly in expanding international joint ventures, particularly with China. Under Kim, the government has made improving the economy one of two main party objectives, along with building nuclear weapons.
Jang had recently added a new title: chairman of the State Physical Culture and Sports Guidance Commission, one of Kim Jong Un's pet projects. Until his dismissal Sunday, he last was seen publicly in early November meeting a sports delegation from Japan.
A shrewd-looking man who wore tinted glasses, Jang had basked in his special status as the second in power. He displayed boldness at public events where the rest of the top officials sat at attention, applauding with the kind of ennui only displayed by one other man: Kim Jong Un.
In its sharply worded character assassination, KCNA castigated Jang for "unwillingly standing up from his seat and half-heartedly clapping" when Kim received an important title.
State media portrayed Jang as a power-hungry and ambitious challenger to the throne who resorted to nepotism and favoritism to build his "little kingdom" as he plotted a coup against his nephew.
In North Korea, opposition to the supreme leader is treated as a criminal, counterrevolutionary act.
State media accused Jang of destroying the economy for his personal benefit, blaming him for masterminding the 2009 currency revaluation that resulted in rare protests in North Korea. He was held responsible for the shoddy quality of construction materials, charged with secretly trading in rare metals and was criticized for encouraging private enterprise.
He was described as a libertine and secret capitalist who distributed pornography and blew 4.6 million euros ($6.3 million) on gambling, according to state media.
Some of the accusations seem petty: reportedly rejecting factory workers' proposal to erect a mosaic of the two late leaders and putting a sculpture featuring Kim's signature in the shade, not in a central spot. No act of disloyalty small or large was overlooked.
Jang's conviction was preceded by the reported executions last month of his two closest confidants. KCNA confirmed one ally's purge Wednesday, calling Ri Ryong Ha a "flatterer" and stooge who with Jang was building an anti-Kim faction within the party.
What Jang's execution means for his wife was unclear. Kim Kyong Hui plays a key role in a leadership structure that stakes its claim to legitimacy on blood relations to her father, North Korea founder Kim Il Sung. Frail and said to be in bad health, Kim Kyong Hui has not been seen in video and photographs of this week's proceedings.
Jang and his wife, who met at university and married in 1972, have no surviving children, according to the South Korean government-run Information Center on North Korea. Their only child, a daughter, committed suicide in 2006 at age 29 while studying in Paris, according to South Korean media.
Jang's execution also calls into question the future of his relatives. A brother-in-law who is the ambassador to Cuba, and his nephew, the ambassador to Malaysia, reportedly were recalled to Pyongyang, according to South Korean officials.
Another relative, the deputy tourism minister, canceled a trip to attend a tourism conference in Taiwan this week, Taiwanese officials told the island's state news agency, CNA.
I'm shocked at this - shocked, I tell ya. I would never have expected it from the same nation and leader who had his ex-girlfriend and her entire performance group executed by machine gun in front of their families, who were then shipped off to a life of hard labor, on trumped-up pornography charges, and was so pissed off at that other inner-circle rival that he had him executed by mortar shell, so that no piece of him remained.
Propaganda for the most part, if they want to kill off anyone important they can then write up a nasty article to explain to the people his crimes.
More propaganda comes out of the White House than Korea. If Obama wastes somebody he damn sure wont own it.
Alex Smith has been given several opportunities to win over the front office and fans of the San Francisco 49ers, but the former NFL first-round draft pick has been inconsistent throughout his career, and it could be time for a change in scenery.
The 49ers drafted a quarterback for their future and now are looking to bring in a veteran quarterback to lead the team for a year and let Colin Kaepernick learn the ropes from someone other than Smith.
The latest trade rumor has Smith being sent to the Kansas City Chiefs in a deal that will give Smith a fresh start, and the Chiefs badly needed backup to Matt Cassel. Kansas City now has just rookie fifth-round draft choice Ricky Stanzi as the teams backup, and an injury to Cassel could be harmful to the team's success in the upcoming NFL season.
The good news for Chiefs fans is that Smith would be a cheap acquisition, and it would give the team some much-needed insurance at the quarterback position. If San Francisco brings in a veteran in the next week or two, look for Smith to become a member of a different team before the season begins.
What is funny is the 49ers were talking about bringing in Culpepper. Even they think Culpepper is an upgrade over Smith to backup Kapernick.
That's because the fans hate him and chanted for Carr. Sort of like people here saying that no team would give up a pick for Cassel.
God, I hope Cassel can turn things around and show everyone he is a good QB this year playing the top defenses. But even if he didn't he already showed with the Patriots he can come in as a backup and not lose a game for his team. Alex Smith has never shown that. That is why the fans hate him so much and would rather he headbutt a flaming AIDS tree than play QB even as a backup.
Or the fact that the organization wants nothing to do with Smith because he didn't live up to his hype.
But after they went from Joe Montana to Steve Young it makes me sick to hear them complain about QB's.
Hahaha some guy named Larry writes an amateur article and it gets 8 pages of posts on here. What an astute bunch you all are.
McCown started 31 games in eight seasons in the NFL with four different teams. No matter what the depth chart says, I can't imagine he is ahead of Kapernick when the season starts.
But your claim was that they found Culpepper to be better. Are you saying that the new regime is deliberately passing over the better players in order to keep stiffs (that they didn't even draft) in the starting lineup?
I don't think very many people believed Smith would be on the team when the season started. The Smith experiment in San Fran hasn't worked. So looking at Culpepper, McCown or anyone else would be to backup Kapernick.
"The 49ers drafted a quarterback for their future and now are looking to bring in a veteran quarterback to lead the team for a year and let Colin Kaepernick learn the ropes from someone other than Smith."
He went to run over my dog, missed and hit a fire hydrant. I posted earlier I wouldn't even let him try and **** my mother cause he would fumble it up and then miss her by 5 yards.
51/53 really isn't that bad for a backup QB. Especially considering hes coming from such a bad and messed up organization. Odds are pretty good that Stanzi will throw more picks than TD's this year just like most rookies would just being thrown out to the wolves. I don't know what his contract is, but I wouldn't be against him being here for insurance for a year or two at MOST until Stanzi has a full grasp on everything. Even if Stanzi had a full offseason here, at least 9/10 times a rookie QB isn't going to be ready to take over.