Deepening Group Incident

The Deepening Group Incident refers to a large-scale purge campaign within the Democratic People's Republic of Korea which took place during the period of 1996 to 2000. Kim Jong Il used a purging strategy in an attempt to evade his government's responsibility for the Great Famine. In this purge, high level party officials and their families and others throughout the country were executed or sent to concentration camps, via a widespread secret police organisation, "Shimhwajo" (심화조).

The purge had its roots in the great famine and economic crisis of approximately 1994 to 1998, during which hundreds of thousands to possibly two million people died of starvation (a famine referred to officially as The Arduous March, 고난의 행군).

Kim Jong Il, who in 1994 had become the supreme leader, established a secret police organization called "Shimhwajo" (심화조)  or the "Deepening Group"  within the Ministry of Social Security. (Shimhwajo had the meaning of intensifying the investigation into the careers and ideology of residents, or "in-depth research into the backgrounds and thoughts of residents") Kim Jong Il appointed Jang Sung-taek (then deputy director of the Organization and Guidance Department), to lead the group, which then carried out a great purge by making the senior officials, close aides, and their relatives the scapegoat for the economic crisis and famine.

Some 25,000 people are thought to have been purged of whom approximately 10,000 were executed, and about 15,000 sent to concentration camps. Amongst high ranking party-members and bureaucrats found responsible were Seo Kwan-hee, agricultural secretary of the Central Committee of the Party (executed by firing squad,   and  Moon Seong-sik, the party secretary (said to have been tortured to death). Senior officials from the Kim Il Sung era were sacrificed one after another. In the southwest, Hwanghae Namdo party secretary, Pi Chang-rin and Kaesong city party secretary Kim Gi-sun were executed as remnants of the South Korean anti-communist group, and the Northwestern Youth League. Kim Jong Il unconditionally signed the list of executions put up by the deepening group.

In 1998, due to the incidents that occurred at the Hwanghae Steel Works in South Hwanghae Province, Kim Jong Il is said to have feared alienation from the public, and started an investigation into Shimhwajo, leading to its dismantlement (in this form) in 2000 and to further purges.

During the process, the Shimhwajo had several hundred bases all around North Korea and consisted of about 8,000 investigators.