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Kim Jong Nam, the oldest half-brother of North Korean’s leader Kim Jong Un, was murdered in Malaysia more than a week ago. Initial report said that two unidentified women killed Kim Jong Nam at Kuala Lumpur’s airport with a poison needle and fled the scene. Kim Jong Nam, the eldest son of former leader Kim Jong Il, had lived outside the country for years. Jong Nam fell out of favour with his father after he was caught trying to enter Japan using a fake Dominican Republic passport in 2001. He had been also a vocal critic of North Korean present leader and had said that Kim Jong Un would not last long because of his youth and inexperience.
So the finger of suspicion points at Kim Jong Un. North Korea’s Kim has carried out a series of executions since taking power in 2011. He got 50 officials executed in 2014 on charges of graft and for other reasons. Two senior officials were executed with an anti-aircraft gun in August last year on Kim’s orders. But the most high profile killing was of his uncle and one-time deputy Jang Song Thaek in 2013.
For Pyongyang, killing Kim Jong Nam, who might have been seen as a potential threat to leader Kim Jong Un, would have been the clear priority that made any other consideration secondary. Although Jong Nam has been in exile and away from North’s politics, he is still the eldest son of Kim Jong Il. North’s leader might have felt Jong Nam a threat for his future. So Kim got Jong Nam killed as North’s leader wanted to remove any potential successors.
Although Malaysia has stopped short of directly accusing the North Korean government of being behind the attack, police warned they would issue an arrest warrant for a North Korean diplomat Hyon Kwang Song in Kuala Lumpur if he refuses to cooperate with the investigation.
But what’s baffling is the question over the real motive of Pyongyang’s use of VX nerve agent. Kim regime might have chosen the deadliest chemical at their disposal because they absolutely didn’t want to fail at killing Kim Jong Nam. Did North Korea want to demonstrate what it can do with chemical weapons? But why North Korea would want VX to be discovered? Pyongyang is already staggering under sanctions and is under immense pressure over its efforts to develop nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles. So, North Korea has little to gain by highlighting its chemical weapons. It would only bring harsher punitive measures. It’s also beyond the ken of reasoning why Pyongyang wanted to showcase its chemical weapons as a deterrent when it has never acknowledged their existence.
But South Korea believes North has one of the world’s largest stockpiles of chemical weapons with up to 5,000 tons that include sarin, mustard, tabun and hydrogen cyanide, in addition to V-type nerve agents. The overwhelming presumption that North Korea’s government organized a hit job on Kim only strengthened after Malaysian police announced they found VX on Jon Nam eyes and face. And if North indeed used VX to assassinate Jong Nam, it indicates a new level of sophistication in its handling of chemical weapons.
So far, there are only two possibilities seem to be plausible. First, North Korea didn’t directly use its own operatives as it had no plans to acknowledge its involvement. Second, Pyongyang might have expected that its use of VX would go undetected because only a tiny amount would have been needed to kill Kim. But nobody knows for sure ‘who done it’. And the mystery persists.