Key facts about Kim Jong Il

    KIM JONG IL was born on Feb. 16, 1942. In 1960, he began to study at the politics and economics department of Kim Il Sung University and graduated four years later.

    Kim Jong Il started working for the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK) in 1964. In 1973, he was elected secretary of the committee and in February the next year, member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee.

    Since October 1980, Kim Jong Il has beena member of the Presidium of the Politburo and secretary of the Central Committee of the WPK and member of the Central Military Commission.

    From 1982 to 1998, Kim was elected deputy to every Supreme People’s Assembly.

    From December 1992 to April 1993, he was successively Supreme Commander of the Korean People’s Army, First Vice Chairman and later Chairman of the National Defense Commission.

    On Oct. 8, 1997, Kim Jong Il was elected General Secretary of the WPK.

    Kim Jong Il was given the honorary title “Hero of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea” in 1975 and 1982.

    In April 1992, he was given the title of Marshal of the DPRK. He has also received the Kim Il Sung Order three times and many other awards and honors.

    (Xinhua)

    A reclusive life

    NORTH Korea’s late leader Kim Jong Il, commander of one of the world’s largest standing armies, remains a mysterious leader.

    Son of his country’s founder, Kim Il Sung, and the leader of North Korea for 17 years since 1994, he has in recent years tantalized the United States and its allies by appearing to seek rapprochement and then withdrawing from negotiation table once more.

    Few detailed accounts have emerged of his life.

    His official biography says Kim Jong Il was born in February 1942 in his father’s military camp on Baekdhu Mountain in northern Korea, the base for the armed struggle against Japan. His birth was apparently greeted by the appearance of a double rainbow and a new star, according to official accounts.

    Kim had built his reputation long before he succeeded his father in 1994. He was head of special forces in the country in the 1970s and 1980s.

    Kim had made many visits abroad despite his reclusive reputation, keeping himself informed about international events through TV networks.

    Last year, rumors began circulating over his health following his apparent disappearance from public view, but the United States and South Korea have since said he had recovered and was in full control.

    Increasingly reclusive since a reported stroke in 2008, Kim began taking actions to transfer power to his youngest son, Kim Jong Un, who in September 2010 was appointed a four-star general in the People’s Army. In February 2011, his son was named vice chairman of the National Defense Commission, the country’s most powerful body led by his father.    

    On the world stage

    Under Kim Jong Il, North Korea followed a consistent policy of swinging between confrontation against South Korea and the United States and periods in which it pursued negotiations toward closer ties.

    In 2000, a summit meeting was held in Pyongyang with the South Korean leader Kim Dae-jung. That same year Kim met with U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and hinted broadly at a thaw. But when the Bush administration concluded that North Korea had been cheating on a nuclear agreement it signed with U.S. President Bill Clinton, Pyongyang reacted fiercely, then returned to negotiations before setting off its first nuclear explosion in 2006. A deal reached the next year has seemed perpetually ready to fall apart.

    In August 2009, Kim sent a message of improving ties with South Korea through his high-level delegation, which met with the South’s president, Lee Myung-bak, in the first major political meeting between the two Koreas in nearly two years. The North Korean delegation flew to Seoul to pay its respects to former President Kim Dae-jung, who died Aug. 18.

    The trip was widely seen as an opportunity for Kim Jong Il to reach out to Seoul. After months of raising tensions with nuclear and missile tests, North Korea appeared to be shifting its tone.

    However in 2010, the North undertook a series of actions, including the alleged sinking of a South Korean naval vessel and the shelling of a South Korean island outpost. Observers tied the incidents to Kim’s desire to establish Kim Jong Un’s credibility with the military.

    At the same time, Kim had been facing external and internal pressures. His government’s disastrous currency revaluation in November 2009 — meant to curb free markets — sparked inflation and deepened food shortages. United Nations sanctions, tightened after North Korea’s nuclear test in 2009, had already curtailed the country’s ability to earn hard currency abroad.

    In May 2011, Kim met with officials in Beijing, his first visit outside North Korea since his stroke, and said his government would try to restart six-party talks on ending its nuclear weapons program.

    In late August 2011, Kim went to Russia, where he met with President Dmitri A. Medvedev. During their meeting, Kim agreed to consider a moratorium on nuclear weapons tests and production, and said he wanted to return to the stalled talks on the nation’s nuclear program.

    Both Seoul and Washington had called for the resumption of the talks with North Korea. But after a South Korean warship sank March 26 in an explosion many South Koreans attribute to North Korea, Seoul has insisted on finishing the investigation of the sinking before engaging the country in denuclearization-for-aid talks.

    Kim visited China seven times. He stopped at Shenzhen for a short visit in January 2006.

    (SD-Xinhua)