“Treason is very much a matter of habit, Smiley decided.”
- John le Carré, ‘Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy’
Who killed Kim Jong-nam is not as interesting a question as the one of why he was killed here.
North Korea has a history of assassination when it comes to those who displease the regime in power. The Washington Post helpfully summarised the high points of North Korean "international diplomacy", noting in this case - “Of course, the regime in Pyongyang hasn’t commented. But analysts say that the bizarre incident - which reads like something out of a spy novel - bears all the hallmarks of a North Korean hit.”
Anyone reading the Post’s list of assassinations (or attempts) will find parallels between the incident of the attempted assassination of defector Hwang Jang-yop, a secretary of the Worker’s Party, and the murder of the North Korean’s half-brother here in Malaysia -
“North Korean agents were said to have posed as defectors and then, once in the South, to have recruited three South Koreans in 2009 to manufacture drugs and assassinate Hwang, who had been highly critical of the regime in Pyongyang.
“They were said to have been paid about US$40,000 to kill Hwang, who was living under tight security because the South Korean government expected North Korea to try to kill him. But the plot never materialised as Hwang, then aged 87, died of natural causes in 2010.”
Which brings me to the question of why here? In many articles, I have made the case that our national security is compromised because of the tension between political operatives and their proxies in the security services and the assets on the ground who have a sincere desire to keep the country secure from threats, foreign and domestic.
The murder of Kim Jong-nam once again highlights the nexus between political power and criminal enterprise that threatens national security. I have written about this numerous times and the fact that a high-ranking veteran of Umno is complicit in the setting up of allegedly North Korean criminal and espionage structures in this country, and he is not investigated or charged with anything, is just another data point on how we are a state in failing.
Just to recap, when it comes to national security, criminal enterprise and radical Islamic terrorists, I wrote - “Add to this the complicated reality of security apparatus personnel navigating the petty fiefdoms and the allegiances of said fiefdoms to Umno warlords and potentates and the fact that Malaysia is a nexus for human trafficking, with the complicity - well-documented - of the security apparatus. This last part is extremely important because the unsanctioned flow of illicit human cargo is the conduit for Islamic extremists to leave and enter the country.”
So far, an unpublished UN report as reported by CNN claims that -
“1) - Through a network of front companies North Korea is ‘flouting sanctions through trade in prohibited goods, with evasion techniques that are increasing in scale, scope and sophistication.
“2) - Hitherto unreported items such as encrypted military communications, man-portable air defence systems, air defence systems and satellite-guided missiles" in Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
“3) - Diplomats, missions and trade representatives of (North Korea) systematically play key roles in prohibited sales, procurement, finance and logistics.
“4) - Around 45 boxes of military communications equipment sent from China to Eritrea were seized. All bore labels from ‘Glocom’, a shadowy company purportedly based in Malaysia which specialises in radios and other gear for "military and para-military organisations, the UN report said...