Once again North Korean agents have triggered tensions and outrage in Southeast Asia, this time spilling blood in Malaysia. The killing of Kim Jong-nam last week at Kuala Lumpur International Airport was far beyond the description of a "diplomatic incident".
The fratricide and regicide within the Kim dynasty has been tolerated and treated gingerly so long as it remained within Pyongyang. Now it has spread abroad, once again leaving countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) to clean up the dirty, bloody and uncivilised work of the third generation of Kim murderers.
The story of the Malaysia assassination is still unravelling. However, we know thus far that Kim was killed by two women who acted on the perverted orders of a North Korean man. The Vietnamese and Indonesian women who killed him are almost innocent pawns in a familiar "game" played by North Korean dictators.
Their history of using and abusing women could fill a book, examples of which are well known. During the rule of North Korean founder and self-styled "Great Leader" Kim Il-sung, Pyongyang abducted many innocent women.
Among them was Anucha Panchoi from Chiang Mai, kidnapped by North Korean agents while she was in Macau. His son and successor Kim Jong-il, the original "Dear Leader", brainwashed and ordered a woman to plan the bomb that blew up Korean Airlines flight 858, killing all 115 people as the jetliner was approaching Bangkok in late November 1987.
Now, based on media reports it is almost certain that the second "Dear Leader" and grandson Kim Jong-un issued the order to assassinate his half-brother, the son of the late Kim Jong-il. Standard operating procedure for the Kims' murders and criminal acts is to leave the actual agents exposed to arrest and imprisonment.
For decades, agents of the Kims have been easily caught after the blood was spilt or the crime concluded. A team of terrorist bombers in Myanmar, a different team of thugs bent on abduction in Thailand, spreaders of counterfeit currency in Cambodia -- these are examples of Pyongyang actions where the perpetrators were rather easily caught. The Kims have never planned an attempted cover-up, although their regimes' denials have been shrill and ill-tempered.
Immediately after the killing in Kuala Lumpur, North Korean "diplomats" descended on the hospital morgue to demand possession of Kom Jong-nam's body.
North Korean ambassador Kang Chol, who referred to the dead man as "Kim Chol", has called for a joint investigation. But Malaysia deserves public, law enforcement and diplomatic praise and support, not just for standing up to hours of abuse by the Pyongyang embassy's men. Malaysia has laid out clearly the procedures it follows, including full autopsies and eventual release of the body to the family, after DNA confirmation.
At the same time, Malaysian police have arrested the Vietnamese and Indonesian women, and the North Korean who apparently recruited him.
This agent allegedly told the women they would be playing a prank on a visiting Korean, spraying him with water, for US$100. Other even more innocent people involved in the killing have been tracked down, such as the Malaysian taxi driver who drove the women from the airport after their "practical joke".
There is a large problem, once again. The person who certainly ordered the bloodshed and murder of his brother has no immediate liability. Neither do other high-ranking North Koreans who passed on his orders.
It is past time to hold Pyongyang and its leadership responsible for such horrendous cross-border crimes. It is always sobering to realise that North Korea is treated like a civilised nation, when it is a law-breaking outlier in the international community.
Thailand, Asean and the rest of the world should consider further options against a nation that refuses to adopt even a modicum of the rule of law.