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News Analysis: N. Korea's rocket a gambit bid for attention
JEAN H. LEE - The Associated Press
Issue date: 4/6/09 Section: News
SEOUL, South Korea - With North Korea's rocket launch, Kim Jong Il has the world exactly where he wants it: with all eyes on Pyongyang and its defiance of international demands to call off the provocative liftoff.
The leaders of the U.S., Japan and other nations warned that a launch would come at a high price, including possible punishment by the U.N. Security Council. They accuse the regime of flouting a 2006 Security Council resolution that bans the North from any ballistic missile activity, including launching rockets.
For the North Korean dictator, the risk of censure may well be worth it. It's exactly the attention Kim is looking for as he looks to consolidate his power base at home and seeks to wrangle aid and other concessions from the new U.S. president.
The 67-year-old communist leader is scheduled Thursday to preside over his first parliamentary session since disappearing from the public eye for several weeks beginning last August.
Kim is believed to have suffered a stroke so serious it prevented him from appearing at a military parade celebrating North Korea's milestone 60th anniversary, a marked absence that prompted fears of a succession crisis in the totalitarian nation of 24 million people.
With the North built on a cult of personality encompassing Kim and his father, national founder Kim Il Sung, the regime denied rumors that diabetes or a stroke had struck Kim, a man credited in state media with such physical talent that holes-in-one are routine when he golfs.
But the top brass in Pyongyang who no doubt took over for Kim when he was bedridden are clearly spooked and want to show North Koreans, and the world, that Kim is back in charge.
None of Kim's three sons is considered polished enough to take the family dynasty into a third generation, so the "Dear Leader" - who has never inspired the reverence his father commanded - knows he has to foster unity.
The launch also provides a propaganda coup for Kim by pushing the North ahead in the space race with South Korea, which plans to put a satellite into orbit later this year. Inter-Korean relations are at their lowest point in a decade, and missiles are one of the only areas where the North can claim a lead over the far more economically strong South.
The leaders of the U.S., Japan and other nations warned that a launch would come at a high price, including possible punishment by the U.N. Security Council. They accuse the regime of flouting a 2006 Security Council resolution that bans the North from any ballistic missile activity, including launching rockets.
For the North Korean dictator, the risk of censure may well be worth it. It's exactly the attention Kim is looking for as he looks to consolidate his power base at home and seeks to wrangle aid and other concessions from the new U.S. president.
The 67-year-old communist leader is scheduled Thursday to preside over his first parliamentary session since disappearing from the public eye for several weeks beginning last August.
Kim is believed to have suffered a stroke so serious it prevented him from appearing at a military parade celebrating North Korea's milestone 60th anniversary, a marked absence that prompted fears of a succession crisis in the totalitarian nation of 24 million people.
With the North built on a cult of personality encompassing Kim and his father, national founder Kim Il Sung, the regime denied rumors that diabetes or a stroke had struck Kim, a man credited in state media with such physical talent that holes-in-one are routine when he golfs.
But the top brass in Pyongyang who no doubt took over for Kim when he was bedridden are clearly spooked and want to show North Koreans, and the world, that Kim is back in charge.
None of Kim's three sons is considered polished enough to take the family dynasty into a third generation, so the "Dear Leader" - who has never inspired the reverence his father commanded - knows he has to foster unity.
The launch also provides a propaganda coup for Kim by pushing the North ahead in the space race with South Korea, which plans to put a satellite into orbit later this year. Inter-Korean relations are at their lowest point in a decade, and missiles are one of the only areas where the North can claim a lead over the far more economically strong South.
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