North Korea's leader Kim Jong-il world's richest man?
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This is a digitised version of an article from The Cayman Compass's print archive. Occasionally, the digitisation process introduces transcription errors, or other problems.
See the article in its original context from April 2000.
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Nestled in a spectacular canyon 160 km (100 miles) north of the capital, Pyongyang, a cavernous museum displays some 211,000 gifts given to the late revolutionary "Great Leader" Kim Il-sung and to Kim Jong-il, his son and successor. The gifts displayed at the International Friendship Exhibition at Mount Myohyang have come from communist leaders and political figures viewed as pariahs.
"You will never be able to see such treasures elsewhere in the world," Chon Myong-ok, a state guide, told foreign visitors. "This will continue to be the museum seen only in Korea."
Wearing a Kim Il-sung lapel pin on her chest, she proudly pointed to the gifts including a sword in a gold-studded sheath from Libya's Muammar Gaddafi and crystal wine glasses with a pitcher from Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu.
North Korean officials say one room houses three bulletproof Zim limousines given to Kim Il-sung by Soviet leaders Stalin, Malenkov and Bukharin.
"Foreign visitors say Great Leader Kim Il-sung and General Secretary Kim Jong-il would be the richest people in the world if they sold all the gifts," the state guide said.
Undisputed leader Kim Il-sung died in 1994 after ruling his country for 46 years. North Korea made Kim Jong-il its de facto head of state in September 1998 by re-electing him as chairman of the enhanced National Defence Commission, but the parliament named Kim Il-sung North Korea's "eternal president". No plans to sell gifts
The 28-year-old guide said, however, that Kim Jong-il would never convert the gifts into badly needed cash as he had designated them "na"national treasures" to be shared with his country's 22 million people. Instead, she said: "This museum will definitely be listed in the Guiness Book of World Records."
Asked how much the gifts could be sold for, she said: "I don't know." A long-time foreign resident in Pyongyang said Kim Jong-il kept tonnes of gold in unidentified foreign banks. "He is a very rich man," he said.
Microsoft chief Bill Gates, 44, is the richest man in the world with a fortune valued at $70 billion, even after a 15 percent drop in his company's shares on April 3 when a U.S. federal court ruled against him in a landmark antitrust case.
The visit to the Mount Myohyang museum helps to illustrate Pyongyang's painful political isolation in the rapidly changing world following the end of the Cold War. It also shows Pyongyang's efforts to reach out to what it long perceived as enemies including its archrival South Korea and the United States in a move to secure desperately needed aid. Signs of better ties
In the six-storey pavilion there is one special corner featuring gifts from South Korea's nonpolitical figures, including a Hyundai Dynasty limousine given by Hyundai Group founder Chung Ju-yung.
The South Korean business tycoon met Kim in October. Hyundai began to ferry tourists from South Korea to the rival North in November 1998, in what was regarded as the most significant result of the South's engagement policy with North Korea.
The two Koreas remain technically at war because the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a truce. rather than a peace agreement. The two Koreas announced on Monday that they plan a historic first summit from June 12 to 14 in Pyongyang, bringing together the North's Kim with the South's President Kim Dae-jung.
"I feel certain that there will be Korean unification," the guide said.
