North Korea’s former propaganda chief, credited with masterminding the personality cult surrounding the ruling Kim dynasty, has died at the age of 94, state media said yesterday, with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un photographed bowing at his funeral bier.
Kim Ki-nam died on Tuesday due to old age and “multiple organ dysfunction,” having been treated at hospital since 2022, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.
Kim Jong-un visited the funeral hall early yesterday morning, paid silent tribute and looked around the bier with “bitter grief over the loss of a veteran revolutionary who had remained boundlessly loyal” to the regime, KCNA said.
Photo: AP
Kim Ki-nam is best known for having led North Korea’s key department for propaganda.
In the 1970s, he was in charge of Pyongyang’s official mouthpiece, the Rodong Sinmun newspaper, according to the North.
He is credited with masterminding the cult of the Kim family dynasty, and Pyongyang’s state media yesterday described him as “a veteran of our Party and the revolution, a prestigious theoretician and a prominent political activist.”
The Kim dynasty, established by founding North Korean leader Kim Il-sung, has ruled the nation with an iron fist and pervasive personality cult over three generations.
Kim Ki-nam “is the North Korean equivalent of Paul Joseph Goebbels,” said Ahn Chan-il, a defector-turned-researcher who runs the World Institute for North Korea Studies.
“It is safe to say that the propaganda and agitation strategies of the Kim dynasty all came from Kim Ki-nam’s mind,” Ahn said.
Kim Ki-nam’s role as the regime’s chief propagandist was passed on to Kim Jong-un’s sister, Kim Yo-jong, in the late 2010s.
In 2005, Kim Ki-nam led a North Korean delegation to visit South Korea’s National Cemetery, honoring soldiers who died during the Korean War.
In 2009, he led a delegation to the South to attend the funeral of former South Korean president Kim Dae-jung and met with then-South Korean president Lee Myung-bak.
Inter-Korean relations are at one of their lowest points in years.
It is regrettable that Pyongyang has made no mention of Kim Ki-nam’s efforts for inter-Korean cooperation following his death, said Yang Moo-jin, president of the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul.
“It seems to show the current state of inter-Korean relations characterized by confrontation and conflict,” he said.
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