I am in the middle of moving back to the DC area, but I wanted to quickly post an article by Dr. Petrov: “What did Kim Jong-il want?”
Speculations about the Last Will and Testament of the late North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il, who died on 17 December last year, are mounting and raise many questions about the future of inter-Korean relations. Separate parts of the alleged document have been recently obtained by the South Korean think tanks, the Sejong Institute and North Korea Strategic Information Service Centre…
A Word version of the article is here.
If the will is real, it doesn’t seem too surprising. It is encouraging that he may have suggested peace initiatives with a new ROK president, but that is a long, long step from implementing a reconciliation plan. From the information Petrov gives us, it’s still hard for me to see anything good coming from this, considering Kim may still have wanted his country to continue the arms race, solidify economic power around his family, and continue the government’s general intransigence.
The best hope is that the new government will make internal changes, although that seems less and less likely as time passes.