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WORLD> Asia-Pacific
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Kim keeps active despite alleged illness
(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-07-15 07:39 Illness and war Further questions were raised about Kim's health after ROK broadcaster YTN, quoting intelligence sources, said on Monday he was suffering from pancreatic cancer. US and ROK officials would not confirm the report but have said Kim suffered a stroke a year ago and his health still appears to be poor. The DPRK's official TV showed a sickly looking Kim at a state event last week. Kim has not anointed a successor, but ROK officials said top military officials have been asked to pledge loyalty to his youngest son Jong-un, thought to be 25, in an apparent sign he Jong-il's successor. One problem for Kim is if the DPRK's people, and more importantly the elite, stop seeing his health as a matter that arouses sympathy and start imagining a DPRK not led by him. "When you are in that latter situation, the elite is naturally going to start aligning itself with whoever it thinks is going to take over," said B.R. Myers, an expert on the DPRK's state ideology. "It puts his leadership in a crisis regardless of what the average people might be thinking." Myers said he was concerned Kim's health could spark a full-fledged military crisis on the Korean peninsula. In the past few months, the DPRK has launched a barrage of missiles, threatened to attack the ROK and tested a nuclear device, which put it closer to having a working nuclear device. "It is completely logical and makes sense that he would make a gamble at this time," Myers said.
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