North Korea watchdog site Daily NK reported on Monday that the parents of a North Korean soldier have gone missing after questioning the official account of their son’s death at a labor camp where he was banished after allegedly showing “disrespect” to dictator Kim Jong-un.
Kim was visiting a special forces training site in September 2024 when about 20 of its soldiers were arrested for “violating his personal safety protocols.”
“Glancing towards the supreme leader during live-fire exercises is risky and could lead to accidents. Kim’s security personnel harshly criticized the soldiers for such inappropriate behavior,” a source in Pyongyang told Daily NK in October.
“It was a major problem that they unnerved even Kim’s security team, especially since they knew about the visit and had rehearsed. This led to accusations of insincere attitudes during the drill,” the source said.
Having an insincere attitude is a big problem in the psychotic North Korean dictatorship, especially when the dictator personally complains about it to the commanding officers of a unit, as was the case at the September training camp exercise.
While public statements from regime media claimed Kim was “assured and proud to see the soldiers and gave them high praise and honor,” he reportedly made disparaging comments about their performance behind the scenes.
“The unit’s commanders and those involved likely face severe punishment, as the authorities take such mistakes during the supreme leader’s visits very seriously. However, Kim must approve the final punishment,” Daily NK’s source predicted.
The punishment for offending Kim Jong-un by looking at him turned out to be quite severe indeed, as members of the special forces unit were subsequently arrested and sent to a labor camp.
A large number of North Korean special forces soldiers have been sent to Russia to help fight the Ukrainian invasion force in Kursk, where they reportedly played a pivotal role in recapturing villages from the Ukrainians, so Kim was probably extra-sensitive to displays of disrespect, disloyalty, or ineptitude from the troops he was reviewing.
“Twenty soldiers who showed dishonorable behavior during the Marshal’s visit were sent to a military-run labor camp after their investigation concluded in mid-January. The military’s state security bureau decided these soldiers would be transferred to an isolation zone after serving their time, instead of being sent home,” Daily NK’s sources in Pyongyang said.
This was considered shocking even for the brutalized and brainwashed subjects of the Kim regime, since the soldiers’ “offense” seemed relatively mild. Relatives of the vanished soldiers were even more shocked when the North Korean military claimed their sons had died under murky circumstances.
According to Daily NK, some of the wealthier and better connected families of the missing soldiers sought to learn the true fate of their sons. One couple from North Hwanghae province decided to raise money for a thorough investigation by selling off their possessions. They were rewarded for their efforts with an ominous visit from the military.
“Soldiers escorted the parents to Pyongyang on Feb. 15, and they never returned. Four days later, housing officials arrived to announce their home would be reassigned to another family. The entire neighborhood was stunned,”Daily NK reported.
The story has reportedly created “extreme anxiety” amongst both the public and North Korean soldiers, who worry their whole family might be eliminated for making the slightest mistake. Some of Kim’s subjects are apparently trying to convince themselves that the dictator did not know about the twenty vanished soldiers or the kidnapped family, even though earlier reports made it clear Kim complained about the behavior of the soldiers to their commanding officer in September.
North Korea Leadership Watch founder and Stimson Center fellow Michael Madden told the UK Guardian last week that the twenty special forces soldiers were probably scapegoated for failures by Kim’s personal guard.
“His bodyguards pride themselves on preparations and in this case something interfered with that. They need to justify their role and power which means they will do anything to retain that authority. If it’s their fault they will assign blame to other individuals or institutions to avoid accepting culpability,” he said.
Madden thought it was possible some or all of the missing soldiers were simply shipped off to Russia to “redeem themselves in battle” or conveniently die on the front lines, while others might have “got off with hard labor” by taking responsibility for whatever security problem cropped up during Kim’s visit to their training camp in September.
That security problem may have been more serious than Daily NK’s correspondents indicated. Madden pointed out that Kim’s bodyguards were wearing tactical gear and carrying assault rifles in September instead of their usual business suits, suggesting they had reason to fear the dictator might be attacked.
Ryu Seong-hyeon, a North Korean former sergeant who defected in 2019, told ABC News in early March that North Korean soldiers fighting for Russia have been told their families will be killed if they are captured alive by the Ukrainians.
“Most soldiers will kill themselves before they’re killed by the enemy, it’s the biggest shame to be captured,” said Ryu.
“If the soldiers are captured and tell information to the enemy, their families will be punished, go to a political prison camp, or worse, they will be executed in front of the people,” said another defector named Pak Yusung.
The Ukrainians have captured at least two North Korean soldiers alive, despite Kim’s incentives for his forces to commit suicide.
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