The 13 graves that symbolize the controversial past of Kim Jong-un’s family

In the middle of a field of tall grass on the island of Jeju (South Korea), 13 graves illustrate the most controversial family roots of Kim Jong Unthe dictator who rules with an iron hand North Korea.

It is necessary to travel to a lost corner of this South Korean tourist island to find the graves of the Ko family, the ancestors of Ko Yong-hui, the mother of the current president of North Korea.

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Kim Jong Un is the third of the kim dynasty in presiding North Koreaafter succeeding his father Kim Jong-il and grandfather Kim Il-sung.

The official North Korean account calls these three leaders the “Paektu lineage”, referring to a sacred mountain in the north of the country.

This photo taken on April 22, 2022 shows a tombstone of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s maternal great-grandfather who was named Ko Yong-ok. (ANTHONY WALLACE / AFP).

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Given the national mystification of the presidential family, the trajectory of the maternal family of Kim Jong Un.

His mother Ko Yong-hui was born in Osaka in 1952 to a family from Jeju who immigrated to Japan in 1929 after the Korean Peninsula was colonized by the Land of the Rising Sun.

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The remains of Kim Jong-un’s relatives, such as his maternal great-grandmother, rest in very modest tombs in Jeju, a simplicity that contrasts with the splendor of the Kumsusan palace of the sun, where the tombs of Kim Jong-il and Kim Il are located. -sung.

After the coming to power of Kim Jong UnSeveral experts referred to this disturbing past, but the regime did not confirm this information.

“It would weigh down its legitimacy”

The North Korean authorities “fear that a confirmation would undermine their legitimacy,” Cheong Seong-chang, a researcher at the Sejong Institute, told AFP.

The kim dynasty bases its power on the role of Kim Il Sung during the Korean Liberation War against Japanese occupation, which ended in 1945.

“A Korean-Japanese Heritage Directly Questions the Myth of North Korean Leadership,” Cheong highlights, on one of the reasons why Kim Jong Un does not want to recognize his maternal family roots.

His mother spent her childhood in Osaka, before returning to her country thanks to a repatriation plan.

So, this initiative forced Koreans to settle in North Korea in order to “claim supremacy” of Pyongyang over Seoul, explains the writer Park Chul-hyun, who lives in Tokyo.

This photo taken on April 22, 2022 shows a man looking at tombstones bearing the surname Ko, relatives of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. (ANTHONY WALLACE / AFP).

A past hidden by the official press

The Ko family had a relatively normal life until the day their eldest daughter became romantically involved with the likely successor to the North Korean presidency.

The dancer Ko met Kim Jong Il in 1975 and they had three children. She passed away in 2004.

“The official media doesn’t talk about Ko Yong-hui,” recalls Rachel Minyoung Lee, head of the 38 Nord program at the Stimson Center in Washington.

According to this expert, the North Korean press only refers to the ancestors of Kim Jong Un to exalt the “Paektu lineage” and ignore the rest of his family.

South Korean media discovered the Ko family tombs in Jeju in 2014.

Then, a plaque honored Kim’s maternal grandfather, deceased and buried in North Korea.

But this was no longer in that place during the visit in April by AFP, having been removed by a relative tired of the media interest it aroused and who feared possible acts of vandalism.

Source: Elcomercio