Korean dictator Kim Jong Il dies at 69

Former Communist leader Kim Jong Il passed away at 8:30 a.m. Korea Standard Time, state television broadcasts in Pyongyang, Korea, announced Dec. 19. While the cause of his death has yet to be confirmed, South Korean government officials believe that the North Korean president may have suffered a heart attack brought on from complications with diabetes and heart disease.

The news comes during a time of political upheaval in the communist state where power had been shakily transferred to Kim Jong Il’s heir Kim Jong Un.

Reactions to his death varied among Korean students in the Penn community.

“His death was quite shocking because I didn’t expect him to die so early. His death will have an enormous impact on South Korea’s economy and international relations including the soaring won [South Korean currency] to dollar exchange rate,” College freshman Paul Baek said.

For Baek and other international Korean students like him, the news is especially important since South Korea’s government requires all healthy men to fulfill 21 months of mandatory military service. The conscription is a vestige of the Korean War that ended in a truce between both Koreas after the Korean War, which resulted in the deaths of millions.

Now, with Kim’s death, the chances of war may be more likely. Some students are rethinking going back to Korea to fulfill the service next year and possibly postpone it for later.

Kyungmin Kim, a Wharton freshman, said, “I … hope that there could be a possibility that Korea can unite by taking advantage of his death so that men wouldn’t have to serve in the military, and we wouldn’t have to worry about what North Korea would do every day.”

Kim added, “I’m just worried about the future of Korea and those, especially my friends, who are serving in the military.”

Baek, however, thinks news of Kim Jong Il’s death also bears tidings of hope. “I don’t think there will be a war in the near future,” he said. “As long as there is no radical political breakdown in North Korea, the reign will continue. But if there is a war, I will definitely join the army.”

Vincent Park, a junior in the College and president of the Korean Student Association, was a bit more ambivalent.

“While his death allows us to rethink the possibilities of South-North reunification in the near future, it also means greater military threats to the Korean peninsula, a concern magnified by the fact that many Korean nationals, friends and peers to many of us here at Penn, are currently serving in the military right now,” he said.

Park added, “I feel like this could also mean that many Korean students who were originally planning on doing their mandatory two-year military service after this year might be reluctant to do so depending on how the event unfolds in the next couple of weeks.”

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