North Korea says goodbye to the main composer of the symphony that has cemented the power of the Kim dynasty since the Cold War. Kim Ki-nam, the propaganda mastermind who helped forge the cult of personality of the country’s supreme leaders, died on Tuesday at the age of 94, the North Korean central news agency KCNA reported on Wednesday. Despite sharing a last name, Kim Ki-nam had no blood ties to the ruling lineage. The official newspaper Rodong Sinmun praises his great loyalty to the Workers’ Party and the leaders who have ruled the most secretive nation on the planet since 1948 with an iron fist. In the obituary, he is described as a “prestigious theorist and prominent political activist” who dedicated his life to the “sacred struggle to defend and strengthen the ideological purity of our revolution.”
Born into a family of dockworkers, Kim rose up the social ladder thanks to his involvement in political activities, according to the official biography published by local media. He was a professor at Kim Il-sung University, where he “dedicated himself to training competent talents who would contribute to the sacred cause of building a powerful socialist country,” KCNA describes. Thus he gained the trust of the founder of the regime, Kim Il-sung, and, in 1956, he became part of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party. Ten years later, he became deputy head of Pyongyang’s propaganda machine, where he worked hand-in-hand with Kim Jong-il, father and predecessor of current president Kim Jong-un. In 1985, Kim Ki-nam was promoted to the director of the Propaganda and Agitation Department, a position he would hold for 32 years and which Kim Yo-jong, sister of Kim Jong-un, would take over from him in 2017.
Analysts agree that Kim Ki-nam was one of the main architects of shoring up the legitimacy of the regime for three generations and that he exerted great influence on the country’s policies. His role as the chief architect of official state narratives earned him notoriety in South Korea, where the media dubbed him the “[Joseph] North Korean Goebbels,” in reference to Nazi Germany’s propaganda minister, known for his mantra “a lie repeated a thousand times becomes a truth.”
Kim Ki-nam dedicated six decades to “consolidating the ideological and theoretical foundations of the Party,” highlights the newspaper Rodong Sinmun, of which he was appointed editor-in-chief in 1976. The aforementioned newspaper carried his portrait on the front page this Wednesday, accompanied by an obituary, and relegated the photo of Kim Jong-un attending the wake to the second page. The North Korean leader will chair the state committee in charge of his funeral, which will take place tomorrow, according to KCNA. The gesture highlights the close relationship between the North Korean president and the former propaganda chief, as well as the importance that Pyongyang gives to his figure. Kim Ki-nam was one of seven senior officials who accompanied Kim Jong-un to the hearse of his late father in 2011.
Kim Jong-un’s decision to personally lead the funeral preparations also sends a message to party cadres, encouraging them to remain loyal to their government. State media claim that Kim Ki-nam “will live forever” thanks to his “contributions,” as they did in the obituary published after the death of Kim Jong-un’s mentor, Hyon Chol-hae, whom they said had achieved “eternal life” for his service to the leader.
Kim Ki-nam was one of the few North Korean officials to visit South Korea. In 2009, he led a funeral delegation following the death of South Korean President Kim Dae-jung, and met with then-South Korean President Lee Myung-bak. Kim Dae-jung was the driving force behind an era of reconciliation between Seoul and Pyongyang known as the “Sunshine Policy” that lasted from 1998 to 2007. The Korean War (1950-1953) ended with the signing of an armistice instead of a peace treaty, which, in theory, means that the two Koreas have not formally put an end to the Cold War conflict. In 2000, Kim Dae-jung made a historic visit to the North that raised hopes for peace on the peninsula. That same year, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
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The death of Kim Ki-nam occurs at a time when Pyongyang is making important changes in the discourse, both nationally and internationally, in addition to increasing its bellicosity. In late 2023, North Korean authorities announced that the country would henceforth treat South Korea as a hostile enemy state, and this year the idea of peaceful reunification was removed from the Constitution.
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