U Tong-chuk

Korean spelling
Chosŏn'gŭl	우동 측
Hancha	禹 東 測
Revised Romanization	U Dong-cheuk
McCune- Reischauer	U Tong-ch'ŭk
See also : Korean name

U Tong-chuk (* 1942 in the P'yŏngan-namdo province ) is a North Korean politician of the Labor Party of Korea (PdAK) and general of the Korean People's Army , who was among other things First Vice Minister for State Security and until April 2012 a member of the National Defense Commission of Supreme People's Assembly of the People's Republic of Korea, the supreme leadership organization of the government, candidate of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the PdAK and a member of the Central Military Commission . He was also responsible for the operational management of the State Security between 2009 and 2012 and was a personal confidante of General O Kŭng-nyŏl and Jang Song-thaek , who was executed on December 12, 2013 . He has not appeared in public since 2012, apart from participating in the celebrations for the 60th anniversary of the end of the Korean War in July 2013.

Life

Promotion to First Vice Minister for State Security under Kim Jong-il

U Tong-chuk completed a degree in philosophy at Kim-Il-sung University and began his professional career in the late 1960s as an instructor in the Department of Organization and Management of the Central Committee of the PdAK. Eventually he was appointed head of the Counter-Espionage Section in the Central Committee's State Security Department by Kim Jong-il , and took part in working visits to Central and Eastern Europe . In the mid-1980s, he took on various functions within the monitoring and foreign departments of the Ministry for State Security and eventually became head of department. In the 1990s he finally became Deputy Minister for State Security and as such was responsible for relations between the People's Republic of Korea and foreign intelligence services. In 2003 he was responsible for the day-to-day business of the ministry and received special support from Kim Jong-il in the following years. In 2007 he became deputy director of the State Security Department.

In April 2009, U Tong-chuk became the Colonel-General conveyed and member of the National Defense Commission of the Supreme People's Assembly of the People's Republic of Korea. In this capacity, he and Kim Jong-il took part in an inspection tour of universities training senior officers of the State Security Service in May 2009 and was one of the guests at a dinner in honor of former US President Bill Clinton in August 2009 . According to a September 2010 report by Korean Central Television (KCTV), etr was appointed First Vice Minister for State Security in September 2009. In November 2009 he went on a one-week working visit to the People's Republic of China .

On the III. At the conference of the Labor Party of Korea , U was elected on September 28, 2010 as a member of the Central Committee of the PdAK, a member of the Central Military Commission and a candidate for the Politburo of the Central Committee of the PdAK. Afterwards he was one of the companions of Kim Jong-il and Kim Jong-un at a concert of the State Security Service's art and propaganda squadron of unit 10215. The concert was Kim Jong-un's first public appearance after the III. Party conference. He subsequently accompanied Kim Jong-il on further inspection trips and was the leading representative of the Ministry of State Security, even though the previous director of the Military Security Command, General Kim Won-hong, was appointed Minister of State Security in 2010. In May 2011, he accompanied Kim Jong-il to a meeting with leading Russian intelligence officers that he had prepared and also introduced Kim Jong-un to the Russian delegation. He was also responsible for preparing Kim Jong-il's visit to Russia in August 2011.

After Kim Jong-il's death in December 2011, U Tong-chuk was a member of the mourning committee when he was laid out in the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun and, according to official press reports on December 19, 2011, took 25th place on the National Funeral Committee. He was also one of eight party and security officials who escorted Kim Jong-il's hearse. After Kim Jong-un's funeral and appointment as Supreme Leader in late December 2011, he took a leading role in the dismissal of security and party officials who could have obstructed Kim Jong-uns's appointment, and those officials were imprisoned or executed.

Loss of power under Kim Jong-un

In March 2012, U Tong-chuk made his last public appearance as First Vice Minister. At the 4th Party Conference of the Labor Party of Korea and the 5th session of the 12th Supreme People's Assembly , U lost his functions as a candidate for the Politburo of the Central Committee, as a member of the Central Military Commission and as a member of the National Defense Commission. His functions were then taken over by General Kim Won-hong.

U Tong-chuk has not appeared in public since 2012, apart from participating in the celebrations for the 60th anniversary of the end of the Korean War in July 2013.

Web links

• Biography in North Korea Leadership Watch

Individual evidence

1. ^ Function (October 2009) in North Korea Leadership Watch
2. ↑ N. Korea purged senior intelligence official: source ( Yonhap News Agency of April 17, 2012)

Note: This article places the family name before the person's first name. This is the usual order in Korean. U is the family name here, Tong-chuk is the first name.