SEOUL, South Korea: A former North Korean propaganda chief credited with leading the personality cult around the ruling Kim dynasty has died, state media said on Wednesday, with leader Kim Jong Un attending his funeral.
Kim Ki Nam died on Tuesday due to old age and “multi-organ dysfunction”, which has been under treatment at a hospital since 2022, the official Korean Central News Agency said. He was 94.
Kim Jong-un visited the funeral hall early Wednesday morning, paid silent respects and looked around the coffin with “bitter grief over the loss of a veteran revolutionary who remained unstintingly loyal” to the regime, KCNA said.
A wreath in Kim Jong-un’s name was “placed in front of the coffin of the deceased,” KCNA said.
Kim Ki Nam is best known for heading a key North Korean propaganda department. In the 1970s, according to the North, he was in charge of Pyongyang’s official mouthpiece, the Rodong Sinmun newspaper.
He is credited with directing the cult of the Kim family dynasty, and Pyongyang’s state media described him on Wednesday as a “veteran of our party and the revolution, a prestigious theoretician and a prominent political activist.”
In 2015, images in state media showed the late official, then 80 years old, busily taking notes in front of a 50-year-younger Kim Jong-un.
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His role as the regime’s chief propagandist was eventually transferred in late 2010 to Kim Jong Un’s powerful sister, Kim Yo Jong. Her arrival at the Propaganda Department took place in 2018, according to Seoul’s Unification Ministry.
In 2009, the late Kim Ki Nam led a North Korean delegation to South Korea to attend the funeral of former dovish president Kim Dae-jung in Seoul. During the visit, they laid a wreath signed by the then leader of Pyongyang, Kim Jong Il.
In 2000, Kim Dae-jung made a historic visit to Pyongyang, where he met with Kim Jong Il, the predecessor and father of the current leader, Kim Jong-un.
During his visit to Seoul in 2009, Kim Ki Nam met with then Seoul President Lee Myung-bak.
