Kim Ki-namNorth Korea’s former propaganda chief, a key figure in building the personality cults of the country’s three dynastic leaders, has died at age 94, state media reported.
The Korean Central News Agency (KNCA) reported that the country’s current leader, Kim Jong-un, was present at the farewell, in a funeral hall in the capital, Pyongyang, this Wednesday. Kim Ki Nam will be buried this Thursday.
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The ACNC said the former secretary of the central committee of the North Korean Workers’ Party “dedicated everything to the sacred struggle for defend and strengthen the ideological purity of our revolution and firmly guarantee the sustained victory of the socialist cause.
The agency reported that he died on Tuesday after being treated for the last year for age-related illnesses and several multiple organ dysfunctions.
Kim Ki-nam’s role as the country’s main propagandist led the media in neighboring and rival South Korea to mention him as the “North Korean Goebbels“, in reference to the propaganda minister of Nazi Germany, Joseph Goebbels.
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The deceased official led the delegation to South Korea that attended the funeral of the former South Korean president in 2009. Kim Dae-jungwho had sought rapprochement with North Korea and held a summit with the former North Korean leader Kim Jong Ilfather of the current ruler.
Kim Ki-nam was one of seven senior officials who accompanied Kim Jong Un on the hearse of leader Kim Jong Il after his death in 2011.
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Graduated from Kim Il-sung University and trained in Soviet party schools, he worked in the diplomatic service and in his youth was ambassador in Beijingthe capital of China.
Then he started working at Department of Propaganda and Agitation and was appointed director of the state newspaper Rodong Sinmun. He wrote numerous articles and essays praising and elevating ruling dynasties to the status of cult.
Already as director of the regime’s propaganda area, starting in 1989, he became the head of the coordination and control of the press, communication in general and also of artistic activity in the country.
In the late 2010s, Kim Ki-nam’s duties as Pyongyang’s chief propagandist were taken over by Kim Yo-jongthe influential sister of the current leader.
The Kim dynasty, established by Kim Il-sung, ruled North Korea with an iron fist for three generations.
“The propaganda and agitation strategies of the Kim dynasty They are all born from the mind of Kim Kinam“said Ahn Chan-il, a defector turned researcher in charge of the World Institute of North Korean Studies, in statements to the agency AFP.
AS./LT
