A lesson from Kim Jong Nam’s killing
As a small nation, we must never risk our national interests by throwing ourselves into the whirlpool of international conflicts involving powerful nations.
By Lim Sue Goan
The assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s half-brother Jong Nam would be nothing short of a spectacular movie in the spy thriller genre, should anyone use the recent event as a plot.
The storyline is roughly there: A fanatical leader of a certain hermit state has been suffering from some kind of persecutory delusion, fearing that someone is going to unseat him from the pinnacle of power. Consequently, he gets his intelligence agency to orchestrate an assassination plan to get rid of his brother.
So, four intelligence operatives land in the country where the target is found, and pick two young foreign women to carry out the killing. The four men also arrange to catch the next plane out when the assassination goes as planned.
These agents are masters of their trade. One of them had entered the country on Jan 31 while the other three arrived several days later. They presumably arrived at different times to avert the attention of security authorities.
They later found the two women, one Vietnamese and the other Indonesian, possibly with the help of some other individuals, believing they were the right candidates to put down Kim Jong Nam.
The plan was drawn up in less than two weeks, including training the two foreign women, acquiring the poisonous fluid, tracking Jong Nam’s whereabouts, conducting site inspection and designing the escape route. The highly-efficient plot worked, possibly with a little help from some insiders.
When the female suspects sprinkled the toxic fluid on Jong Nam’s face, the whole incident was closely monitored by the four masterminds from a nearby restaurant. Presumably, they were also ready to put a Plan B into execution if the female suspects had failed. They were supposedly still observing Jong Nam as he sought assistance, right until he slumped in the chair at the airport clinic.
The incident took place at about 10am in the morning, and the four suspects took the 12pm flight to Surabaya on the same day, arriving in Pyongyang on day four after making transits in three countries. The two women could have been abandoned by them, and could have been allowed to be arrested by the police in order to give them ample time to flee.
From the leaked video of the klia2 CCTV footage, it could be seen that the two women were swift in their action. Their actions were nothing like the “prank” they claimed that they were carrying out for some men.
Elusive agents
The question is: how did the secret agents find out Jong Nam’s flight details and how many of them are still lurking in this country?
We know very little of these elusive agents. Malaysia and Asean have been doing a superb job in fighting terrorism, such that we could track down and know of certain militant group’s plans before they had a chance to act.
That being said, we still need to step up our cooperation with regional countries on the sharing of vital information on cross-border spies and secret agents to prevent autocratic regimes from carrying out their barbaric acts on our soil.
All police evidence point straight to Pyongyang, including the prime suspects being North Korean.
North Korean ambassador Kang Chol has accused the Malaysian government of intentionally delaying the claim of Kim Jong Nam’s body in a bid to conceal the truth while colluding with external forces to tarnish the reputation of his country.
In view of this, it was absolutely necessary for the Malaysian government to take action, such as summoning Kang and recalling our envoy in Pyongyang.
Pyongyang must respect the laws of other countries. Malaysian law requires the next-of-kin to provide DNA for verification purposes before he or she can claim the body of the deceased.
Pyongyang cannot capriciously do what it wants. If the Malaysian police fail to probe the case thoroughly, how are they going to answer to the international community? Our police have indeed carried out their job in a highly professional manner this time.
Subsequent moves by the Malaysian authorities show that we are ready to do anything even if it means our ties with Pyongyang being at stake. This will effectively prevent ourselves from getting embroiled in any unnecessary “diplomatic war” because mishandling of this matter could cause countries such as China, the United States, South Korea and even Japan to step in.
Malaysia has always been practicing an independent, neutral and non-allied diplomatic policy, but as a small nation, we must never risk our national interests by throwing ourselves into the whirlpool of international conflicts involving powerful nations.
The evidence we have provided should be sufficient to pinpoint the secret hand behind this dramatic assassination, and get the United Nations to intensify the sanctions imposed on Pyongyang.
Conventional logic does not apply to an impressionable and tyrannical leader of an autocratic state. It is now time to review our diplomatic policy to stop us from getting sucked into any international conspiracy.
Lim Sue Goan writes for Sin Chew Daily.
With a firm belief in freedom of expression and without prejudice, FMT tries its best to share reliable content from third parties. Such articles are strictly the writer’s (or organisation’s) personal opinion. FMT does not necessarily endorse the views or opinions given by any third party content provider.
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