At a time when teenagers are usually pushing boundaries, Kim Jong Un was no party animal or playboy in training. Although a 9/11-type event did not happen, the regime made it clear through a cyberattack that insults against Kim and North Korea would not be tolerated and that the financial consequences for the perpetrators would be dire. Joao remembers Un as quiet but said that he was very decisive and capable of making his point. usciences parking permit. He reportedly urged the industry to be world competitive, praised the factory for helping women realize their dream of being beautiful, and offered his own comments on thepackaging. Our analysis and policy responses must also change and evolve and be prepared for all potential scenarios. Now more than ever, facts and research matter. After all, in many ways, Kims time in Switzerland reveals an adolescence and education that were not so different from typical Western ones: There was a love of basketball, a curriculum that required him to learn about Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela, and a wardrobe packed with brand-name tracksuits (jeans were still out of the question). Fujimoto claims that Jong-il had chosen his youngest son to succeed him as early as 1992, citing as evidence the scene at Jong-uns ninth birthday banquet where Jong-il instructed the band to play Footsteps and dedicated the song to his son: Tramp, tramp, tramp; The footsteps of our General Kim; Spreading the spirit of February [a reference to Kim Jong-il, who was born in February]; We, the people, march forward to a bright future. The pair soon became close, bonding because of their seat placement but also because neither was particularly academic. Their family photo albums contain pictures of the future leader of North Korea swimming in the Mediterranean on the French Riviera, dining al fresco in Italy, going to Euro Disney in Parisit wasnt Kim Jong Uns first trip there; his mother had already taken him a few years beforeand skiing in the Swiss Alps. There are but three generations from shirt sleeves to shirt sleeves. Or in other words, the first generation makes the money, the second generation maintains it, and the third squanders it. It could also be on track to have up to 100 nuclear weapons and a variety of missileslong-range, road-mobile, and submarine-launchedthat could be operational as early as 2020. Every day at 5 p.m., when the school bell rang, Kim Jong Un would head to the basketball courts at his school or at the high school in the nearby city of Lerbermatt, less than a 10-minute walk away. To a large extent, he has maintained the initiative on the Korean Peninsula, to the frustration of the United States and his neighbors. And if Kim Jong-un were to hold onto his position, what would happen to his country? But hes keeping the world guessing as he did as a kid studying under a fake name in a suburb of Bern, Switzerland. Kim Jong-chul was born in 1981. Kim Jong-Un, also spelled Kim Jong-Eun, (born January 8, 1984?, North Korea), North Korean political official who succeeded his father, Kim Jong Il, as leader of North Korea (2011- ). Once Kim did become the leader, and as such the personification of North Koreas national interest, he was endowed with all the tools of political repression that had consolidated his fathers and grandfathers supremacy. Hes staring unsmiling at the camera. Instead, he made a new start at the German-speaking public school in his neighborhood, Schule Liebefeld Steinholzli. In Switzerland, Kim Jong Un could live a relatively normal existence. This is required reading for CIA analysts. But the aliases were not new. The Primary Seven (P.7) pupils who sat for the 2020 PLE results, 102 pupils from Kitante Primary School attained division one (1). Mathematically, this translates to a percentage pass of 24.3%. He joined his older brother, who had been living in Liebefeld, a decidedly suburban neighborhood on the outskirts of Bern, for two years with their maternal aunt, Ko Yong Suk, her husband, Ri Gang, and their three children. andonKobo. Children who lived through the 90s famine are now soldiers in the Workers Party. The North Korean princeling emerged from his cloistered childhood into this new, open world. The combined weight of all these pressures, internal and external, on North Korea, coming precisely at a time of rising expectations within the country, may overwhelm the regimeunless Kim learns to dial back his aggression. Would he even want the burden of being North Koreas leader? He always wore the same outfit for basketball: an authentic Chicago Bulls top with Michael Jordans number23and Bulls shorts and his Air Jordan shoes. In November 2017, North Korea tested intercontinental ballistic missiles with a potential reach of 8,000 milesputting the entire United States inrange. This is technically a dialect, but to an outsider, it sounds so different that it might as well be Dutch. Their whole family would be punished. He offered no explanation for his sudden recall. But this might not have been as jarring to Kim as it sounds because he had encountered very few North Koreans and almost none in situations outside those that were carefully choreographed to show smiling citizens who beamed contentment at him. But he may be reaching a critical point where he has to make a strategic choice. First name Surname Country School Prize; Veda: Fernandes: UAE: Jumeirah Primary School: 1st: Martha Tendo: Nakirandha: Uganda: Kitante Primary School: 2nd: Aryav: Odhrani Yet, despite all the chest-thumping and bad behavior, Kim is not looking for a military confrontation with the United States. He reportedly turned up alive Friday after weeks of speculation that he. It even had a full bedroom onboard. His childhood was marked by luxury and leisure: vast estates with horses, swimming pools, bowling alleys, summers at the familys private resort, luxury vehicles adapted so that he could drive when he was 7 years old. The former classmate didnt believe it until his old friend surfaced as the Great Leader, the third in a succession of a weird, personality cult-driven autocrats, in 2011. Kim, his older brother, Kim Jong Chul, and younger sister Kim Yo Jong studied in Swiss schools in and around Bern between 1992 and 2000. In contrast with his battle-hardened elders, Kim Jong-un grew up in a cocoon of indulgence andprivilege. We lived in a normal home and acted like a normal family. A woman in Pyongyang walks past a billboard advertising North Koreas missile prowess. Did you know North Korean President @Kim Jong-un was a student at Kitante Primary school in Uganda? Kim was shipped to Switzerland where an older brother had already gone to study around age 12 in 1996 during the devastating North Korean famine that killed up to 3 million people. 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And his rule through terror and repressionagainst the backdrop of that pastel wonderland of waterparksmeans that the terrorized and repressed will continue to feed Kims illusions and expectations, his grandiose visions of himself and North Koreasdestiny. A class photo from that time shows the teenagers decked out in an array of 1990s fashion, with chambray shirts and oversized sweatshirts, assembled under a tree in the schoolyard. Source: Institute for National Security Strategy (INSS). These efforts also have the potential to undermine Kims ability to reward elites and suppress their ability to make money for themselves or raise money for loyalty payments to theregime. They enjoyed living in Europe and having money. North Koreas army of cyberdisruptorsoperating abroad in China, Southeast Asia, and other placescontinues to expand itscapabilities. The Kitante Hill School website provides visitors with a comprehensive view of our School Programs, Contact Information, Student Activities, Departments, Staff Members, Alumni, Current Students, Academics, Stories, Top Donors, School Events, Teaching Curriculum, Management board, Image and Photo Galleries, Tuition Fee Structure, Admission Requirements . Riesen said he often walked to school from the unassuming home he lived in with his aunt and other family members not far from the North Korean embassy. Intelligence analysis is difficult, and not intuitive. Kims teacher at the Liebefeld school, Michel Riesen, remembered Kim as a good-natured 14-year-old with a sense of humor. He joined his older brother at the International School of Berne, a private, English-language school attended by the children of diplomats and other expats in the capital. Editorial: FredDews, WilliamFinan BethRashbaum, and StrobeTalbott, Graphics and design: JessicaPavone and CameronZotter, Promotion: EmilyRabadi, BrennanHoban, and AshleySchelling. Top-of-the-line personal computers used floppy disks and ran on MS-DOS. They decided to abandon their charges and make a dash for freedom. We, too, must avoid edging towardhubris. The imagery suggests that, like a child, he is prone to tantrums and erratic behavior, unable to make rational choices, and liable to get himself and others intotrouble. Ko, in keeping with Korean practice whereby women keep their surnames after marriage, had paperwork naming her as Chong Yong Hye. More seriously, it is said that he had suggested that North Korea undertake policy reform and open up to the West, enraging hisfather. And lets not forget the famine and the drought of the 1990s, or the tightening noose of sanctions and internationalostracism. 10 Kirchstrasse. Fujimoto, the sushi chef, has described Jong-uns mother as not very strict about education and says that he was never forced to study. When North Korean statemedia reported in December 2011 that leader Kim Jong-il had died at the age of 70 of a heart attack from overwork, I was a relatively new analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency. The North Korean regime has often made reference to the fate of Iraq and Libyathe invasion and overthrow of its leadersas key examples of what happens to states that give up their nuclear weapons. His classmates wouldnt see him again for almost a decade, when he would appear on the balcony of a majestic building in the middle of Pyongyang with his father, having been crowned The Great Successor. Under Kim, North Korea has pressed the accelerator on nuclear and missile development and has codified its status as a nuclear-armed state by inscribing that description into the revised constitution it issued in 2012. Pupils walk around the school compound during break time at Kitante Primary School in Kampala, Uganda Monday, Jan. 10, 2022. . Trends in North Koreas internal affairs, such as greater information penetration from the outside world, loosening of state control over resources and markets, the rise of consumerism, and the growth of a moneyed class, will also place severe stresses on the Kimregime. When he was announced as his fathers heir in 2010, some analysts hoped that, having spent four years in Switzerland during his formative teenage years, Kim Jong Un would be a more open-minded leader of North Korea. He was fat and smoking all the time and outwardly jovial, like Kim. Once he finished in the preparatory reception class, Kim Jong Un joined the regular sixth-grade class. Kim Jong Un, 38, turned out to be a tyrannical dictator like his father and grandfather and hes still mysterious. He joined his older brother at the International School of Berne, a private, English-language school attended by the. We can also increase stresses on the North Korean regime by cutting off resources that fund its nuclear weapons program and undermine Kims promise to bring prosperity to North Koreans, and ramp up defensive and cyber capabilities to mitigate the threat posed by North Korea against the U.S. and its allies. All of them had been accredited to the North Korean mission to the United Nations in Geneva since 1991, and these diplomatic documents would have allowed them to travel freely in Europe. Just two weeks after North Korean negotiators agreed to the 2012 Leap Day deal with the U.S., which called for a moratorium on Pyongyangs nuclear and ballistic missile tests in exchange for food aid, the new Kim regime announced its intention to conduct a space launch, using the same ballistic missile technology banned by sanctions.