Ri Tu-ik

Korean spelling
Chosŏn'gŭl	리두 익
See also : Korean name

Ri Tu-ik (* 1921 in Jilin , China ; † March 13, 2002 ) was a North Korean politician of the Labor Party of Korea (PdAK) and Vice-Marshal of the Korean People's Army , who was a member of the Central Military Commission .

Life

Ri Tu-ik joined Kim Il-sung's partisan struggle in the late 1930s and was part of his security escort. After training in guerrilla warfare in northeast China, as a member of the 88th Special Reconnaissance Brigade of the Soviet Red Army, he led reconnaissance missions against the Japanese occupying forces in Jilin and North Hamgyŏng . In 1945 he was first platoon leader and then in 1948 company commander in the security escort of Kim Il-sung.

During the Korean War , the so-called "Victorious Liberation of the Fatherland", Ri was commander of a battalion in 1951 and then completed military training between 1954 and 1958 in the areas of joint warfare and special operations in the Soviet Union . On his return in 1958 he became commander of the 3rd regiment and later deputy commander of the 9th Division, before being appointed commander of the 9th Division in 1962. On October 8, 1962, he was also elected for the first time as a deputy of the Supreme People's Assembly. In 1963 he was promoted to lieutenant general and appointed head of the operations department of the General Staff of the People's Army. He then acted as commanding general of the VII Army Corps between 1965 and 1973 and was an advisor to the Viet Cong , the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam , during the Vietnam War between 1967 and 1968 .

At the end of the 1968s Ri Tu-ik had a significant share in purges within the People's Army and was promoted to Colonel General himself in 1968 . At the fifth party congress of the PdAK in 1970 he became a member of the Central Committee of the PdAK for the first time. After he was the commander of the 2nd Army Group between 1973 and 1976, he served as the commanding general of the II Army Corps from 1977 to 1980 and then became the commanding general of the IV Army Corps in 1980. On the VI. At the PdAK party conference, which took place in Pyongyang from October 10-14, 1980 , he was also elected a member of the Central Military Commission. He was promoted to general in 1985 and served as commanding general of the Pyongyang Defense Corps from the late 1980s to 1992.

Ri was promoted to Vice Marshal in April 1992 and remained active in political life as a member of the Central Military Commission and Kim Jong-il's advisor after Kim Il-sung's death and his son Kim Jong-il's inauguration in 1994. After undergoing medical treatment in the People's Republic of China in 1997, he ceased to appear in public after 1999. After his death on March 13, 2002, he was buried on September 13, 2002 on March 15, 2002 in the Patriotic and Revolutionary Martyrs Cemetery on Mount Taesongsan, according to reports from the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) .

Web links

• Biography in North Korea Leadership Watch

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Weekly Report on North Korea (March 25, 2002)

Note: This article places the family name before the person's first name. This is the usual order in Korean. Ri is the family name here, Tu-ik is the first name.