Ri Yong-mu

Korean spelling
Chosŏn'gŭl	리용무
Hancha	李勇武
Revised Romanization	Ri Yong-mu
McCune- Reischauer	Ri Yongmu
See also : Korean name

Ri Yong-mu ( January 25, 1925 in P'yŏngan-namdo ; † January 27, 2022 ) was a North Korean politician of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) and Vice Marshal of the Korean People's Army (KPA). party conference in September 2010 as a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee (ZK) of the WPK and was Vice-Chairman of the National Defense Commission . He belonged to the first generation of North Korea's political elite and was the husband of one of Kim Jong-il 's aunts. He regularly attended government and party events and was a regular member of the podiums at meetings and other official events.

Life

Rise to Generaloberst and disempowerment in 1977

Ri Yong-mu joined the Central Guard Battalion in 1947 and served as a political officer during Kim Il-sung's campaign to impose political control on the People's Army in the 1960s. In June 1964 he was promoted to lieutenant general and appointed first deputy director of the Main Political Department of the Ministry of the People's Armed Forces.

At the Fifth Party Congress of the PdAK in November 1970, Ri was elected a member of the Central Committee and in December 1972 a deputy to the Fifth Supreme People's Assembly . He was also a member of the Qualifications and Credentials Review Committee. In 1973 he was promoted to Colonel General and appointed Director of the Main Political Department of the Ministry of the People's Armed Forces and thus the leading political officer of the People's Army. In June 1974 he was also elected a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee.

In October 1977, Ri was expelled from the Central Committee of the Labor Party and dismissed as head of the Political Department because of his links with opponents of Kim Il-sung and his newly introduced Chuch'e ideology , which was intended to replace Marxism-Leninism as a political ideology . After his deposition, he disappeared from public life and underwent re-education for several years .

Political comeback and rise to vice-chairman of the National Defense Commission

Ri Yong-mu only resumed an official position in January 1985, when he was appointed Vice-Chairman of the People's Committee of Ryanggang-do Province, where he was responsible for the provincial administration. In November 1988 his political role was restored with the election as a Central Committee candidate. This rehabilitation was confirmed by his re-election as a member of the Central Committee of the Labor Party in June 1989. At the same time he was appointed chairman of the State Inspection Committee in 1989 before becoming chairman of the Transport Commission in December 1991.

Ri Yong-mu, who was awarded the Order of Kim Il-sung in April 1992, was a member of the funeral committees at the funerals of Kim Il-sung in July 1994 and O Chin-u in February 1995, although he was of the hierarchy under the numbers 55 or 52 was not one of the top officials at these funerals.

During the opening session of the Tenth Supreme People's Assembly, Ri was elected Vice Chairman of the National Defense Commission. At the same time, in February 1998, he was awarded the Hero of Labor Order. In September 1998 he was promoted to Deputy Marshal. In 2003 and 2009 he was re-elected as a deputy to the Supreme People's Assembly. Most recently, on September 28, 2010, he was elected a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the PdAK.

web links

• Ri Yong Mu Passes Away , KCNA, January 28, 2022
• Biography in North Korea Leadership Watch
• CV (PDF; 16 kB) in NK Econwatch
• Biography on KBS World Radio
• N.Korean Parliament to Meet for 2nd Time This Year . In: Chosun Ilbo , September 6, 2012

Note: For this article, the family name is placed before the person's first name. That is the common order in Korean. Ri is the family name here, Yong-mu is the first name.