Worst Job in the World: North Korean Political Consultant

Word has it the pay sucks and the benefits are lousy. Plus, it's highly likely you won't be getting a favorable write-up in the history books, such as they are.

Oh, and if Dear Leader doesn't like your advice, you don't move on to a cushy lobbyist job. You wind up dead.

North Korea executed its pointman on South Korea last year, holding him responsible for wrong predictions about Seoul's new conservative government that has ditched a decade of engagement policy toward Pyongyang, sources said Monday.

Choe Sung-chol, who as vice chairman of the North's Asia-Pacific Peace Committee had pushed for bold reconciliation with Seoul's previous liberal governments, disappeared from public sight early last year amid reports that he was fired.

Via Weekly Standard.

Choe probably wasn't alone.

Choe, who once enjoyed the trust of leader Kim Jong Il and helped arrange the 2007 inter-Korean summit, was vice chief of both bodies but disappeared from public view in spring last year.

"North Korea launched a probe into corruption last spring. However it later escalated into a political purge as inter-Korean relations worsened," Lee said.

"North Korea might have needed scapegoats. Reconciliation which blossomed under liberal governments in Seoul had caused a kind of admiration for South Korea among some party cadres and its people."

Kim Yong-hyun, a North Korea studies professor at Dongguk University, also said Choe and other key figures appeared to have been fired. Military hard-liners now control inter-Korean projects, he added.

Enraged at Seoul's new stance, Pyonyang cut virtually all contacts. Last week it scrapped agreements governing the Kaesong estate, putting the future of the project into question.

The names of Choe and other pro-reconciliation figures were absent from a list of deputies published after the North's parliamentary election in March.