Because of the secrecy surrounding Kim Jong-il and discrepancies between
his official biography and other accounts of his life, there is little
reliable information about the North Korean leader.
He succeeded his father as leader of the ruling Korean Worker’s
Party in 1997, three years after Kim Il-sung’s death. While official
accounts elevate him to mythical proportions, Kim is rumoured to be a
cruel, vain playboy.
Some analysts say Kim was born in Siberia in 1941, while his father,
Kim Il-sung was in exile, but official accounts say he was born in a log
cabin at his father’s guerrilla base in North Korea.
Career highlights
- Graduated from Kim Il-sung University in 1964.
- Worked his way through the ranks of the Korean Worker’s Party,
rising from the party's elite Organization Department to be named a member
of the Party Politburo in 1968
- Promoted to deputy director of the Propaganda and Agitation Department
of the Party Headquarters in 1969.
- Designated successor to his father in 1980, Kim didn’t assume a
role of power until 1991, when he took over North Korea’s military.
North Korean accounts portray Kim as the stuff of legend, a man with
an IQ of 150 or 160 who composed six operas in two years and whose birth
was marked by a double rainbow and the appearance of a bright new star
in the sky.
South Korean diplomats and dissidents who escaped from the North describe
Kim as a vain man who wears platform shoes and a permed, bouffant hairstyle
to appear taller than his 1.6 metre stature.
He is suspected of being behind a 1993 bombing in Rangoon that killed
17 visiting South Korean officials, as well as the 1987 bombing of a Korean
Airlines plane that killed 115.
Reportedly a huge movie fan with a library of over 20,000 films, Kim
kidnapped South Korean film director Shin Sang-Ok and his actress wife
in 1978.
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