North Korea is purging its military officer corps of personnel linked to leader Kim Jong Un’s executed uncle Jang Song Thaek, in a massive shake-up that has led to a freeze on military exercises and delayed replacement of cadres in the ruling party but raised promotion prospects for younger officers, sources inside the country say.
Jang, 67, who was the de facto number-two leader, was executed on Dec. 12, after being accused of plotting to overthrow the hard-line communist regime. The young Kim is moving to remove all those linked to his uncle, who was considered instrumental in his rise to power in December 2011.
The North Korean military has refrained from conducting “joint exercises” due partly to poor fuel supplies, but mainly because “an effort to replace those linked to Jang Song Thaek in the military is ongoing,” according to sources from the country’s military officer corps.
“Joint exercises during the winter this year were not even planned,” a military source in northern Yanggang province told RFA’s Korean Service. “The brakes have likely been put on such exercises because of large-scale replacements in the officer corps.”
According to the source, the North Korean authorities did not plan any joint exercises because they already expected in early December that a major personnel shake-up would occur in the military.
They were probably worried that any major shift in the military structure could lead to a military-led coup d'etat, the source said.
However, military exercises by individual divisions or brigades are taking place, said a military source in Jagang province, situated in the northern mountain area of the country.
“Joint target exercises, which took place frequently last year, have not yet happened.”
North Korea has one of the world's largest armies, with about 1.1 million soldiers, although it hasn’t fought since 1953, when an armistice suspended the Korean War.
Commanders replaced
The military source also said that officers at each military base with a rank lower than regiment commander and higher than battalion commander had been replaced in an apparent bid to weed out any of Jang's links.
New procedures have also been introduced to boost promotion prospects for younger officers in a move believed aimed at filling up positions as the military copes with the purge of those linked to Jang.
Under the new procedures, unmarried military officers can now be promoted to battalion commander or even become brigade political officers.
In the past, marriage was a requirement for such promotions. As a result, the military elite was largely devoid of younger officers because the Kim Il Sung Military Academy selected only those who had reached the rank of battalion commander or above, the source said.
According to the new regulations, unmarried military men not only can be promoted to battalion commanders but are also allowed to enter the Kim Il Sung Military Academy.
The source said that the regulation changes would considerably increase the number of younger officers among the military elite.
A Yanggang province source further said that moves to replace military officers as part of efforts to remove Jang's influence are continuing. “These replacements started from the bottom ranks and are now moving to the higher ones,” the source said.
“The focus so far has been on the military officers, so replacements of cadres in the [ruling Workers’ Party] or national institutions have not fully begun,” said the source. “After the military cadres are replaced, the regime will move onto these other areas of the government.”
Reported by Sung-hui Moon for RFA’s Korean Service. Translated by Robert Lauler. Written in English by Parameswaran Ponnudurai.