Doubts about youngest Kim’s trendy, Christian look, as some see it as a publicity stunt
by Joseph Yun Li-sun
Source tells AsiaNews that pictures about the young Kim “might be real” or just “a publicity stunt to distract attention from the issue of nuclear disarmament.” Photos show a young man wearing a cross, claiming to be an unaffiliated Christian. After he was accepted by a Mostar college, media reveals that Hong Kong had turned down his visa application.
Seoul (AsiaNews) – Pictures and personal information about Kim Han-sol, grandson of North Korea’s dictator Kim Jong-il, maybe be fakes, a source working for the South Korean government told AsiaNews. “There is too much stuff,” the source said, “suggesting fakes, especially the pictures of a young man who does not look very much like a Kim.”
Han-sol, 16, was accepted by the United World College, in Mostar (Bosnia-Herzegovina), for the 2013 school year. In his school, he will study ways to reconstruct post-conflict societies. But beyond that, the choice is significant because all third-generation Kims, i.e. the children of North Korea’s ‘dear leader’, went to Swiss schools. The fact that a member of the fourth generation is going to a third country (with a special study programme) indicates a change in direction, signalling concerns within the regime about its own future.
At the same time, a European college might not be the original choice. Recent reports indicate in fact that the young man had applied to another United World College, this one in Hong Kong, but could not get in. According to the principal of the Li Po Chun Institute, Immigration Department’s decision to deny the young Kim a visa was a “mistake”. The Immigration Department had granted visas to two North Korean students now at Hong Kong University. And in 2009 Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe's daughter Bona was enrolled to study at the University of Hong Kong.
As news about his enrolment became public, media sought pictures of the fourth-generation Kim. Given the pathological secrecy that normally surrounds North Korea’s ruling family, South Korean papers were surprised to find three photos of a fashionably dressed young man with dyed hair.
A closer look even shows him wearing a cross, some papers said. In some social networks, he apparently described himself as an ‘unaffiliated Christian’. Finally yet importantly, he supposedly left some posts saying that he regretted that some of his compatriots were suffering from famine in the North.
All this information about the son of the dear leader’s first-born son would fit the profile of an average northern exile, albeit one with money. However, “This cannot be true,” the source told AsiaNews.
“Even though it is well-known that the current dictator’s grandmother was Christian, no one can believe that he was given a Christian education because Kim Jong-il holds tightly to the family’s purse strings and knows how to use them.”
“It could be just a publicity stunt,” the source noted, “to distract attention from the issue of nuclear disarmament. Pressured by Beijing, Pyongyang has accepted to return to the Six-Nation talks without preconditions. However, so far it has failed to take any concrete action in that direction.”
Han-sol, 16, was accepted by the United World College, in Mostar (Bosnia-Herzegovina), for the 2013 school year. In his school, he will study ways to reconstruct post-conflict societies. But beyond that, the choice is significant because all third-generation Kims, i.e. the children of North Korea’s ‘dear leader’, went to Swiss schools. The fact that a member of the fourth generation is going to a third country (with a special study programme) indicates a change in direction, signalling concerns within the regime about its own future.
At the same time, a European college might not be the original choice. Recent reports indicate in fact that the young man had applied to another United World College, this one in Hong Kong, but could not get in. According to the principal of the Li Po Chun Institute, Immigration Department’s decision to deny the young Kim a visa was a “mistake”. The Immigration Department had granted visas to two North Korean students now at Hong Kong University. And in 2009 Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe's daughter Bona was enrolled to study at the University of Hong Kong.
As news about his enrolment became public, media sought pictures of the fourth-generation Kim. Given the pathological secrecy that normally surrounds North Korea’s ruling family, South Korean papers were surprised to find three photos of a fashionably dressed young man with dyed hair.
A closer look even shows him wearing a cross, some papers said. In some social networks, he apparently described himself as an ‘unaffiliated Christian’. Finally yet importantly, he supposedly left some posts saying that he regretted that some of his compatriots were suffering from famine in the North.
All this information about the son of the dear leader’s first-born son would fit the profile of an average northern exile, albeit one with money. However, “This cannot be true,” the source told AsiaNews.
“Even though it is well-known that the current dictator’s grandmother was Christian, no one can believe that he was given a Christian education because Kim Jong-il holds tightly to the family’s purse strings and knows how to use them.”
“It could be just a publicity stunt,” the source noted, “to distract attention from the issue of nuclear disarmament. Pressured by Beijing, Pyongyang has accepted to return to the Six-Nation talks without preconditions. However, so far it has failed to take any concrete action in that direction.”
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