[AP/Yonhap News Photo]
SEOUL, Feb. 09 (Aju News) -- North Korea's military parade revealed a change in the order of ranks, confirming the elimination of a top military official who has acted as a guardian of leader Kim Jong-un since he took office in late 2011.
Film footage released by Pyongyang's state television showed Kim Jong-gak standing beside the North's supreme leader on the reviewing stand for top officials during a military parade Thursday.
Previously, the seat next to Kim Jong-un had been reserved for Vice Marshal Hwang Pyong-so, director of the General Political Bureau in charge of personnel management that exercises a broad influence over the military.
In a related article, the North's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) addressed Kim Jong-gak as General Political Bureau director for the first time. The bureau has been used by Kim Jong-un as a crucial channel to control the military since the sudden death of his father in December 2011.
Last week, the South's National Intelligence Service (NIS) said in a report to parliament that Kim Jong-gak, a vice chief of the Ministry of the People's Armed Forces, replaced Hwang.
NIS officials said the bureau has been under a three-month inspection led by Hwang's rival Choe Ryong-hae, a vice chairman of the ruling Workers' Party, who came back last year as the right-hand man of Kim Jong-un.
Hwang, his deputy Kim Won-hong and other senior officials have been purged due to "impure attitude", they said, adding Hwang was presumed to be taking an ideological education.
Kim Jong-un, the new chief of North Korea's military General Political Bureau, makes a speech before a military parade in Pyongyang.[Yonhap News Photo]
Pyongyang skipped the live broadcast of Thursday's military event, and observers in Seoul said North Korea kept it low-key in an apparent attempt to keep alive an inter-Korean thaw created by its participation in the Winter Olympics.
Kim Jong-un has been accused of resorting to the reign of terror. There have been sporadic reports of purges and executions involving senior party, government and military officials. The most notorious case was reported in December 2013, when the leader executed his influential uncle Jang Song-taek on charges including treason and corruption.
In 2016, the authoritarian ruler consolidated his deified one-man rule in name and reality by securing the stewardship of a new state body called
the Commission on State Affairs (CSA) that would replace the National Defense Commission (NDC), a transcendental junta-style organization.
The new commission had been supported by three vice chairmen -- Hwang, Choe, and Premier Pak Bong-ju.
reporter
Lim Chang-won
cwlim34@ajunews.com
