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He served 18 months behind bars before being returned to the United States in a comatose state. college student, allegedly for stealing a propaganda poster in a hotel in the North Korean capital Pyongyang. In another sign of the his cruelty, the regime imprisoned Otto Warmbier, a visiting U.S.
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Kim also executed five senior government officials with anti-aircraft guns, according to the government here. More recently, he is suspected by South Korea's government of ordering the killing of his exiled half brother, Kim Jong Nam, a potential rival who was poisoned with a toxic nerve agent in Malaysia in February. Kim ordered his uncle, Jang Song Thaek, executed about a year after coming into power, according to the South Korean intelligence service. “His early moves were geared toward trying to establish his own power base.” “There were a lot of expectations and a lot of doubts about who he was,” Town said. He proved ruthless in knocking off rivals and consolidating power. He only emerged as a public figure a year before the death of his father, Kim Jong Il, and had to move quickly to establish control over the country his father had ruled for 17 years. Watch Video: Why is North Korea the erratic menace of Northeast Asia? “The caricature, cartoonish image of him is easy for people to believe.” “The idea that Kim Jong Un’s decisions, particularly about his nuclear weapons program, are irrational is a myth,” Town said. Bush claimed as justification for invading Iraq. Saddam did not have nuclear weapons or any other weapons of mass destruction, as President George W. Kim, the third generation of his family to rule the isolated country, is mindful that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was ousted by a U.S.-led coalition in 2003, said Jenny Town, assistant director of the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. Yet analysts and South Korean government officials who track North Korea closely describe Kim as a clever and rational, if brutal, figure who has solidified control over his country since assuming power in 2011.ĭeveloping nuclear weapons that threaten the United States is his insurance policy against being overthrown by a U.S.-led coalition, said Joo Seong-ha, a defector who was imprisoned in North Korea before escaping to South Korea.Ī nuclear weapons program is “the most powerful bargaining chip that North Korea has,” said Joo. SEOUL - Kim Jong Un's pursuit of nuclear weapons, incendiary rhetoric and odd appearance often cast the North Korean leader as an erratic, even deranged dictator. Watch Video: North Korea threatens to annihilate U.S.