Kim Jong-il

1941 – 2011

Kim Jong Il was the second supreme leader of North Korea, ruling from his father Kim Il Sung's death in 1994 until his own death in 2011. His tenure saw the Arduous March famine of the mid-1990s, in which somewhere between hundreds of thousands and three million North Koreans died of starvation while the regime continued to export food and resources, and the country's October 2006 detonation of its first nuclear weapon. The kwanliso political prison camps and the prison-camp-as-policy network expanded substantially under his leadership.

Last checked: May 10, 2026, 1:06 PM