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Kim Jong-un accused of violent North Korean power purge to grab scarce cash

North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un has launched a brutal crackdown on his hermit-nation’s wealthy elite, seizing their assets to shore-up his own coffers.

Jamie Seidel, AFP

News Corp Australia NetworkFEBRUARY 21, 20199:53AM

Kim Jong-un is once again moving to ensure he maintains a firm grip on North Korea. Some 70 members of the nation’s elite have been violently detained, and their assets seized.

Kim claims it’s an attempt to restore law and order. But US and South Korean security analysts have told the Wall Street Journal he’s attacking those he suspects of opposing his negotiations with the United States while at the same time topping-up his personal coffers.

Kim made a broadcast on state-controlled television earlier this year where he ‘declared war on corruption’.

Authorities “should intensify the struggle to eradicate both serious and trivial instances of abuse of power, bureaucratism and corruption, which would wreak havoc … and undermine the socialist system,” he said.

But he’s being accused of using it as a cover for his own political goals — namely funding his government amid tight international economic sanctions

KASH-STRAPPED KIM

The allegations are contained within a report by the North Korea Strategy Center, a group of analysts formed by a North Korean defector. It says details of the crackdown were revealed by some 20 current and former members of the regime.

Kim Jong-un is believed to have purged some 400 people from his Communist Party’s ruling elite since taking power in 2011.

DELVE DEEPER: How Kim’s power play sparked an international crisis

But his sanctions-choked economy has been in serious decline. Stocks of international currency are almost depleted. And efforts to kickstart business and manufacturing have so far failed.

“(Kim) is trying to put together, within a country, an economic plan that will actually take root,” CNA think-tank analyst Ken Gause told The Post. “And if you have an environment that is steeped in corruption, whatever you plant in that environment will die.”

https://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/world-economy/kim-jongun-accused-of-violent-north-korean-power-purge-to-grab-scarce-cash/news-story/0f3b8a1ca603b65f0e8e905bb98c9764