North Korea says Kim Ki Nam, the propaganda chief who helped build personality cults around the country’s three dynastic leaders, has died at 94.
Seoul, South Korea. Kim Ki Nam, a North Korean propaganda chief who helped build personality cults around the country’s three dynastic leaders, has died aged 94, the North’s state media said.
North Korea’s official Central News Agency said the country’s current leader, Kim Jong Un, visited Kim Ki Nam’s body at a funeral hall in the capital, Pyongyang, early Wednesday and expressed his condolences to his relatives. . The agency said Kim Jong Un will head the state committee for the funeral of Kim Ki Nam, who will be buried on Thursday.
KCNA said Kim Ki Nam, former secretary of the central committee of the ruling Workers’ Party, “devoted all his efforts to the sacred struggle to defend and strengthen the ideological purity of our revolution and firmly guarantee the constant victory of the socialist cause.” The agency said he died Tuesday after being treated for age-related illnesses and multiple organ dysfunctions over the past year.
Kim Ki Nam’s role as the country’s chief propagandist gained him notoriety in South Korea, where the media dubbed him the “North Korean Goebbels,” after Nazi Germany’s propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels.
He also led the delegation to South Korea in 2009 that attended the funeral of former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung, who had sought compromise with the North and held a summit with former North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, the current ruler’s father. .
Kim Ki Nam was one of seven senior officials who joined Kim Jong Un to accompany the hearse of late leader Kim Jong Il following his death in 2011.
Kim Ki Nam was a professor at Kim Il Sung University and editor-in-chief of the state-run Rodong Sinmun newspaper before taking on leadership roles in the propaganda departments of the ruling Workers’ Party starting in the 1980s.