Kim Jong-il, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

    

Kim Jong-il

General Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea

Date of Birth: 16-Feb-1941

Place of Birth: Vyatskoye, Khabarovsk Krai, Russia

Date of Death: 17-Dec-2011

Profession: military personnel, politician

Nationality: North Korea

Zodiac Sign: Aquarius


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About Kim Jong-il

  • Kim Jong-il (officially transcribed Kim Jong Il; Korean: ???; Korean pronunciation: [kim.dz??.il]; 16 February 1941 or 1942 – 17 December 2011) was the second leader of North Korea.
  • He ruled from the death of his father Kim Il-sung, the first leader of North Korea in 1994 until his own death in 2011. In the early 1980s, Kim had become the heir apparent for the leadership of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and assumed important posts in the party and army organs.
  • Kim succeeded his father and DPRK founder Kim Il-sung, following the elder Kim's death in 1994.
  • Kim was the General Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK), WPK Presidium, Chairman of the National Defence Commission (NDC) of North Korea and the Supreme Commander of the Korean People's Army (KPA), the fourth-largest standing army in the world. Kim assumed supreme leadership during a period of catastrophic economic crisis amidst the dissolution of the Soviet Union, on which it was heavily dependent for trade in food and other supplies, which brought a famine.
  • While the famine had ended by the late 1990s, food scarcity continued to be a problem throughout his tenure due in part to the country's mountainous geography unsuited for high-yielding agriculture as well as externally-imposed sanctions due to concerns about the country's human rights situation.
  • Kim strengthened the role of the military by his Songun ("military-first") policies, making the army the central organizer of civil society.
  • Kim's rule also saw tentative economic reforms, including the opening of the Kaesong Industrial Park in 2003.
  • In April 2009, North Korea's constitution was amended to refer to him and his successors as the "supreme leader of the DPRK".
  • Outside observers have characterized him as a dictator and accused him of human rights violations.The most common colloquial title given to Kim was "Dear Leader" to distinguish him from his father Kim Il-sung, the "Great Leader".
  • Following Kim's failure to appear at important public events in 2008, foreign observers assumed that Kim had either fallen seriously ill or died.
  • On 19 December 2011, the North Korean government announced that he had died two days earlier, whereupon his third son, Kim Jong-un, was promoted to a senior position in the ruling WPK and succeeded him.
  • After his death, Kim was designated the "Eternal General Secretary" of the WPK and the "Eternal Chairman of the National Defence Commission", in keeping with the tradition of establishing eternal posts for the dead members of the Kim dynasty.

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