Lifting Pyongyang’s veil of inscrutability

North Korea watchers fear a bloody purge following the execution of Jang Song Thaek, the uncle of Dear Leader Kim Jong-un, for, among other crimes, “dreaming different dreams.”

Jang was widely perceived as Kim’s regent and mentor until his arrest last week. North Korea’s Politburo literally buried Jang under a pile of accusations, the most serious of which was “attempting to overthrow the state by all sorts of intrigues and despicable methods with a wild ambition to grab the supreme power of our party and state.”