Banished top N.K. official Choe could make comeback next year: U.S. expert

By Chang Jae-soon

WASHINGTON, Nov. 25 (Yonhap) -- Choe Ryong-hae, a top North Korean official believed to have been banished to a cooperative farm for "re-education," could make a comeback when the communist regime holds a rare meeting of its Workers' Party next year, a U.S. expert said Wednesday.

Choe, a secretary of the ruling Workers' Party, was sent to the farm early this month as punishment for mishandling a power plant construction project near the North's border with China, according to South Korean lawmakers briefed by the National Intelligence Service.

Choe's whereabouts have been under intense media highlight since he was found to have been omitted from a list of a committee that prepared for a state funeral of a North Korean military marshal. Despite the punishment, South Korean intelligence authorities believe Choe could be reinstated.

On Wednesday, Michael Madden, a North Korea expert, said that not only Choe, but also other senior officials could have ended up in similar fates as Choe's as they also failed to make the funeral committee list, such as O Il-jong, who had served for five years as director of the Workers' Party's military affairs department, and Pak Jong-cho, vice chief of the North Korean military's general staff.

The expert also noted that Choe's punishment came after the North announced it will hold the seventh Congress of the Workers' Party in May next year, which would mark the first party congress since 1980, when Kim's grandfather and national founder, Kim Il-sung, was in power.

"The Party Congress is the WPK's supreme power organization, and its upcoming meeting allows Kim Jong Un the best opportunity to make his own policies and pick the people to implement his policies," Madden said in an article on the website 38 North.

"That congress convenes in six months, the average length of time a senior official undergoes the re-education curricula at the Kim Il Sung Higher Party School. Perhaps at that time, Choe Ryong-hae and other disappeared elites will reappear at the Party Congress after successfully completing their re-education," he said.

Since assuming power, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has purged dozens of top officials as he sought to consolidate his power, including the executions of his powerful uncle Jang Song-thaek in late 2013 and Defense Minister Hyun Yong-chol earlier this year.

The expert also said the power plant project must have been not the only reason for Choe's banishment.

"Someone of Choe Ryong-hae's status is not dismissed or sent for re-education over one peccadillo," he said. "The power station project was not the primary reason, but instead a last straw that led to their banishment."

jschang@yna.co.kr
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