By Andrew Jeong and Timothy W. Martin
SEOUL -- North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has exiled, imprisoned
and executed suspected opponents of his diplomatic outreach to the
U.S. and South Korea, while also targeting his country's moneyed
elite with asset seizures, according to a new report that details a
purge of some 50 to 70 individuals.
The crackdown, portrayed as an anticorruption campaign in
state-run media, suggests Mr. Kim is looking to silence critics and
shore up his regime's finances in the face of international
sanctions, said U.S. security analysts and former South Korean
intelligence officials.
Economic sanctions have pinched Pyongyang's traditional sources
of foreign currency, from exports to its access to the global
banking system, and the confiscations represent a way for the
regime to replenish much-needed funds.
The purge takes aim at officials who have used their powerful
positions to amass wealth illicitly -- albeit on a North Korean
scale, according to analysts and the report from the North Korea
Strategy Center, a Seoul-based think tank founded by a North Korean
defector. The report's findings are based on interviews with 20
current and former high-ranking members of the Kim regime.
In a widely watched Jan. 1 speech, Mr. Kim publicly declared a
war against corruption -- a rare statement by any North Korean
leader, according to former South Korean intelligence
officials.
Party and government organs "should intensify the struggle to
eradicate both serious and trivial instances of abuse of power,
bureaucratism and corruption, which would wreak havoc...and
undermine the socialist system, " Mr. Kim said.
The remarks came after senior officials of the North Korean
Guard Command -- responsible for the personal security of the Kim
family -- were purged late last year when the regime accused them
of managing a slush fund valued at tens of thousands of dollars,
according to authors of the North Korea Strategy Center report.
The Wall Street Journal couldn't independently confirm specifics
of the purge, although South Korean analysts expressed confidence
in the authors' findings about Mr. Kim's new crackdown.
The sweep, which took off late last year, seeks mainly to
confiscate foreign-cash piles amassed by the North Korean
establishment, and is thought to have netted the regime as much as
several million dollars, the authors of the North Korea Strategy
Center report said. The authors said they interviewed 14 former
North Korean officials, six current officials and five additional
North Koreans now residing outside the North for their report.
"Many of these purges are related to money," said Kim Jung-bong,
a former South Korean intelligence official.
Although the North Korean leader has condoned some degree of
corruption to satisfy loyalists for the sake of regime stability,
sanctions appear to have altered his thinking: Pyongyang now views
graft money as wealth taken from increasingly cash-strapped
government coffers, the former official said.
The crackdown differs from previous ones directed by Pyongyang
because it appears aimed at offenses involving unremarkable, if not
broadly practiced, types of bribery, said the U.S. and South Korean
security analysts.
Mr. Kim is thought to have purged around 400 individuals among
the Pyongyang establishment since taking over from his father in
late 2011, according to the authors, with a campaign against his
influential uncle in 2013 accounting for about half that
figure.
Researchers of the Kim regime don't see the latest crackdown as
evidence that Pyongyang is in political disarray, describing Mr.
Kim's grip as firm. But in the near term, Mr. Kim needs foreign
cash as international sanctions block much of the country's
potential trade. In anticipation of eventual sanctions relief, and
having publicly stressed the need to develop his economy, Mr. Kim
wants to clean up rampant graft to ensure economic projects aren't
undone by corruption, these people said.
The developments come as Mr. Kim prepares to meet President
Trump for denuclearization talks in Hanoi next week, when the North
is expected to push for relief from sanctions in return for
verifiable steps on disarmament.
Mr. Kim has said he wants to refocus his policy toward the
economy, which contracted by 3.5% in 2017, according to South
Korea's central bank, the worst performance in two decades.
Ken Gause, director of the adversary analytics program at CNA, a
Virginia-based nonprofit think tank, said Mr. Kim could be
concerned that widespread bribery is hurting growth, and in turn
his political legitimacy, given his desire to boost the
economy.
"He is trying to put together, within a country, an economic
plan that will actually take root," he said. "And if you have an
environment that is steeped in corruption, whatever you plant in
that environment will die."
The events separately reflect Mr. Kim's goal of taming the
hawkish military and solidifying his authority while empowering
doves within his cabinet as he continues diplomacy with Seoul and
Washington.
Among the victims of the latest arrests and executions,
according to the North Korea Strategy Center, are senior members of
powerful military units that Mr. Kim's father never touched, lest
he alienate the most ardent domestic supporters of the family's
rule. It is the first time that a North Korean leader has targeted
the 100,000-member Guard Command, according to the authors and
other experts on North Korea.
The sweep follows similar actions in 2017 against 10 members of
the General Political Bureau -- the political commissariat of the
North Korean military. They were executed for crimes related to
"foreign reserves bribery," according to the NKSC report.
--Warren P. Strobel contributed to this article.
Write to Andrew Jeong at andrew.jeong@wsj.com and Timothy W.
Martin at timothy.martin@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
February 19, 2019 13:15 ET (18:15 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.