Speculation about Kim Jong-il's Health High as he Misses 60th Anniversary of North Korea

Kim Jong-il reportedly failed to show up for North Korea's 60th anniversary military parade. A US intelligence officer speculates that Kim Jong had a stroke in the past two weeks. Some are even speculating that the leader of North Korea is dead.

A couple of weeks ago I read an article stating that Kim Jong-il has been dead for since 2003 and has been replaced by a double. I was saving the article for a slow news day but I figure this is a good time to post it. Japan Today

Is Kim Jong Il dead? Yes, North Korea’s “Dear Leader” is no more, having passed away in the fall of 2003, writes Waseda University professor Toshimitsu Shigemura in Shukan Gendai (Aug 23-30).

A one-time Mainichi Shimbun journalist posted in Seoul, Shigemura is introduced by the magazine as a leading authority on the Korean Peninsula. His latest book, released this month, is titled “The True Character of Kim Jong Il.”

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Shigemura cites as sources (without naming them) several people close to Kim’s family. He hears from them that Kim’s diabetes took a turn for the worse early in 2000. From then until his supposed death three and a half years later he was confined to a wheelchair.

Was the flurry of diplomatic activity in which the world saw Kim engaged during those years mere sleight of hand? The “hermit kingdom” seemed all of a sudden to grow remarkably outgoing. In June 2000 Kim hosted the historic summit with South Korean President Kim Dae Jung. The following month, he received Russian President Vladimir Putin. In October his guest was U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. In January 2001 he visited China; in August, Russia. In September 2002 there occurred the first summit with Koizumi, culminating in Kim’s admission, after decades of denial from Pyongyang, that North Korean agents had kidnapped Japanese nationals. August 2003 saw the launch of the Six Party talks aimed at North Korea’s nuclear disarmament.

“Then suddenly,” writes Shigemura in Shukan Gendai, “the pace slows.”

The second Kim-Koizumi summit, in 2004, lasted all of 90 minutes. Scheduled meetings with other foreign dignitaries were abruptly canceled. Kim’s retreat from the public eye was almost total. State television in October 2003 showed him touring a collective farm, but mention of the date of the visit was conspicuously absent. Kim’s family, meanwhile, was in a state of upheaval. His wife died—of breast cancer, said official reports; assassinated, according to persistent rumors. His favorite sister, a high-ranking Communist Party official, suddenly moved to Paris. Her husband lost his post. Clearly something was afoot.

In the spring of 2006, says Shigemura, American spy satellites succeeded in photographing Kim. An analysis of the photographs led to an astonishing conclusion: Kim had grown 2.5 cm!