A one-time Mainichi Shimbun journalist posted in Seoul, Shigemura is introduced by the magazine as a leading authority on the Korean Peninsula. His latest book, released this month, is titled “The True Character of Kim Jong Il.”
If true, the implications are potentially vast. Among them: former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s summit partner during one or both of his landmark visits to Pyongyang in 2002 and 2004 was not Kim himself but a dummy—the stand-in Shigemura claims has been fooling the world for at least five years.
A dictator having one or multiple doubles is a familiar notion since Iraq’s Saddam Hussein was shown to have deployed them. But Saddam was alive at the time. Kim, in Shigemura’s scenario, was not manipulating a look-alike; he was replaced by one.
Of course it’s fantastic—but in North Korea, says Shigemura, fantasy and reality are not mutually exclusive. “Japanese common sense cannot take the measure of North Korea’s uniqueness,” he writes. “For example: Kim came to Tokyo six times in the 1980s.”
Then as now, North Korea and Japan had no diplomatic ties. Kim, then heir to the throne under his father, “Great Leader” Kim Il Sung, apparently traveled incognito by ship. His purpose: to take in the magic shows staged by magician Hikita Tenko at the upscale Cordon Bleu show pub in Akasaka. More...
See also:
No comments:
Post a Comment