Kim Ki Nam, the regime’s former propaganda chief, dies

Kim Ki Nam died at the age of 94. He also served as vice chairman of the Workers’ Party of Korea and ambassador to Beijing in the 1950s.

North Korea’s former propaganda chief, Kim Ki Nam, considered the mastermind of the cult of personality around the Kim dynasty, died on Tuesday at the age of 94, it was announced on Wednesday 8 May the official agency KCNA. Kim Ki Nam, hospitalized since 2022, died due to his age and a “multiple organ dysfunction”the agency said.

Kim Ki Nam is best known for heading North Korea’s Agitation and Propaganda Department from 1989 to 2017, after serving as editor-in-chief of the state newspaper Rodong Sinmun in the 1970s. He also served as vice-chairman of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK) and ambassador to Beijing in the 1950s.

“North Korean Goebbels”

After studying in the Soviet Union, he began his career under Kim Il Sung, in power in Pyongyang from the end of the Japanese occupation in 1948 until his death in 1994, and was considered a close friend of his son and successor Kim Jong Il (1994-2011), the father of Kim Jong Un. He was the author of the main slogans of the regime and the speeches of its leaders. He had actively supported the hereditary transmission of power from Kim Il Sung to Kim Jong Il, then to Kim Jong Un.

Kim Ki Nam “is the North Korean equivalent of Paul Joseph Goebbels”the head of Nazi propaganda, Ahn Chan-il, head of the World Institute for North Korean Studies in Seoul, told AFP. “It can be said with certainty that all the propaganda and agitation strategies of the Kim dynasty were germinated in his brain”added this researcher, a former North Korean defector.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un prayed in silence early Wednesday morning in front of the former leader’s coffin. It showed “a bitter pain at the loss of a veteran revolutionary who remained unfailingly loyal” to the regime, according to the terms of KCNA.