Kim Jong-un mourns death of N. Korea’s former propaganda chief

SEOUL, May 8 — North Korea’s former propaganda chief, credited with masterminding the personality cult surrounding the ruling Kim dynasty, has died, state media said today, with leader Kim Jong-un attending his funeral.

Kim Ki-nam died yesterday due to old age and “multiple organ dysfunction”, having been treated at a hospital since 2022, the country’s official Korean Central News Agency said. He was 94.

Kim Jong-un visited the funeral hall early Wednesday 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.

A wreath in the name of Kim Jong-un was “laid before the bier of the deceased”, KCNA said.

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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 on Wednesday described him as “a veteran of our Party and the revolution, a prestigious theoretician and a prominent political activist”.

In 2015, images in state media showed the late official, in his 80s at the time, taking notes diligently in front of Kim Jong-un, around 50 years his junior.

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His role as the regime’s chief propagandist was eventually passed on to Kim Jong-un’s powerful sister, Kim Yo-jong, in the late 2010s. Her arrival at the propaganda department took place in 2018, according to Seoul’s unification ministry.

In 2009, the late Kim Ki-nam led a North Korean delegation to South Korea to attend the funeral of Seoul’s former dovish president, Kim Dae-jung. During the visit, they laid a wreath signed by Pyongyang’s then-leader Kim Jong-il.

Kim Dae-jung in 2000 made a historic visit to Pyongyang, where he met with Kim Jong-il, the predecessor and father of current leader Kim Jong-un.

During his visit to Seoul in 2009, Kim Ki-nam met with Seoul’s then-president Lee Myung-bak. — AFP