U.N. Sanctions Aim To Thwart N. Korean Leader’s Expensive Tastes
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
BEIJING — From imported lobsters to cognac and Mercedes-Benz cars, the expensive tastes of North Korea’s secretive leader Kim Jong Il have never failed to stagger those who have witnessed his conspicuous consumption.
However, his love of the finer things in life, in a country where his people have been allowed to starve, is now being challenged by the U.N. sanctions imposed at the weekend. They include a clause banning the export of luxury goods to North Korea and aim to cut off or at least greatly diminish the dictator’s supplies, which he is believed to use to reward senior officials for their loyalty.
Little reliable detail emerges from behind Mr. Kim’s secluded palaces in his capital, Pyongyang. But reports from defectors, previous employees, and, in some extraordinary cases, people whom he has kidnapped but who have returned to the West, have described a lifestyle that would be unimaginable to North Koreans, who survived a major famine that killed hundreds of thousands, if not millions, a decade ago. One source was a Russian official, Konstantin Pulikovskiy, who described a train journey on which he accompanied Mr. Kim to Moscow in 2001.
Mr. Kim’s chefs, he said, had cooked lobster that had been flown in to special points along the way. Another was Kenji Fujimoto, Mr. Kim’s Japanese chef, who on returning to Tokyo told newspapers of his partiality for shark’s fin soup, a delicacy that he would eat three times a week. At one stage, Mr. Kim was reported to be the world’s biggest single customer for Hennessy’s Paradis cognac, although he was later forced to cut down his intake, acting on medical advice, and took up fine French red wine.
A North Korean musician who defected to the South, Jung Sung San, said his father worked for the state firm responsible for importing Mercedes-Benz, bought legally abroad, to be used by the country’s leaders. The exact import route changes, though, and will be hard to monitor. North Korea operates a variety of front companies around the world through its embassies, many of which are involved in both making money and sourcing goods for Pyongyang.
