North Korean official whose propaganda helped build the Kim dynasty dies at 94

FILE – North Korea’s chief delegate Kim Ki Nam leaves after paying silent tribute to former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung during a memorial service at the National Assembly in Seoul, South Korea. South Korea, August 21, 2009. Kim Ki Nam, a North Korean propaganda chief who helped build a cult of personality around the country’s three dynastic leaders, has died at the age of 94, reports announced North Korean state media. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon, file)

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Kim Ki Nam, a North Korean propaganda chief who helped build personality cults around the country’s three dynastic leaders, has died at the age of 94, officials said. announced North Korean state media.

North Korea’s official Korean 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 family members. The agency said Kim Jong Un would head the state funeral committee for 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, “dedicated everything to the sacred struggle to defend and strengthen the ideological purity of our revolution and firmly guarantee the consistent victory of the socialist cause.” The agency said he died Tuesday after being treated over the past year for age-related illnesses and multiple organ dysfunction.

Kim Ki Nam’s role as the country’s leading propagandist earned 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 continued relations with the North and held a summit with the former North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, the father of the current leader. .

Kim Ki Nam was one of seven senior officials who joined Kim Jong Un in accompanying late leader Kim Jong Il’s hearse after 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 senior positions in the ruling Workers’ Party’s propaganda departments starting in the 1980s.