Apart from a few carefully choreographed appeances, Kim Jong-il is rarely seen in public [EPA]

The reclusive "Dear Leader", as he is known, took over the reins of power in 1994 after the death of his father, the "Great Leader" and founder of North Korea, Kim Il-sung.

Kim Jong-il is not, however, the North Korean president. That role is reserved for his father, who, despite his death, holds the title of North Korea's "Eternal President".

It is a position that has given him a god-like status.

When Kim Il-sung died, official mourning lasted for three years. He is memorialised in a 30-metre-high bronze statue that dominates the centre of Pyongyang while his embalmed body is displayed inside the massive Kumsusan Memorial Palace.

The statue is a daily scene of pilgrimage for residents and visitors to the capital, and at least once in their lives every North Korean is supposed to pay homage at Kim Il-sung’s birthplace in the village of Mangyongdae.

Such pilgrimages cement the all-encompassing personality cult surrounding father and son – a cult that forms the foundation on which Kim Jong-il has built his legitimacy.

In every North Korean home, office, shop and even on the walls of train carriages, framed pictures of the two Kims stare down. Failure to keep them properly maintained can lead to serious trouble for the owner.

There have even been breeds of flowers named after the two Kims – the Kimilsungia and the Kimjongilia, which take centre-stage in regular flower shows.

Mystery men

Theories about why he does so are many and varied. Mystery keeps his enemies guessing about his intentions as well as his vulnerabilities.

It also breeds a sense of awe – North Korean officials might prefer the term respect – among the population.

Portrayed variously as a paranoid nuclear-armed madman, a cognac-swilling playboy and a film-buff with a vast archive of Hollywood classics, little is known with certainty about his life and his grip on power.

Instead, most information available about the man is anecdotal. He is known, for example, to avoid air travel – due either to a pathological fear of flying or fears of assassination, depending on whom you believe.

Either way, on at least two visits to Moscow in recent years Kim has eschewed the eight-hour flight in favour of travelling by train – a journey of almost a week in each direction.

"Eternal President" Kim Il-sung is worshipped as a virtual god in North Korea [EPA]

Paektu is a volcanic mountain in the north of the country considered to be the spiritual birthplace of all Koreans.

The reality is believed to be somewhat less romantic.

According to Western researchers, Kim was born exactly a year earlier in eastern Siberia where his father was helping to organise the Korean resistance against the Japanese occupation.

For much of the next 50 years, little was seen or heard of the younger Kim, but behind the scenes he was being groomed for succession.

It was during this time that intelligence reports say Kim, as head of North Korea’s special forces, plotted two bomb attacks against South Korean targets.

The first, in 1983, killed several members of the South Korean cabinet during a visit to the then Burmese capital Rangoon, now known as Yangon. Four years later another bomb brought down a South Korean airliner over the Andaman sea, killing all 115 people on board.

Overall though, until his father’s death, Kim Jong-il remained in the shadows.

Indeed so little was known about him that many analysts predicted that without the elder Kim at the helm, the regime would quickly collapse.

In the North Korean media, the message was rather different.

Since 1991, when he was given control of the country’s armed forces, he has taken the title general, despite there being no record of him ever having served in the military.

Like his father, Kim Jong-il has run the country with an iron fist. Anyone stepping out of line has met with harsh repression.

According to an estimate by the US Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, a non-governmental organisation based in Washington DC, as many as 200,000 political prisoners are held in North Korean detention camps.

In many cases three generations of entire families have been locked up – often for actions perceived as insulting one or both of the Kims.

To maintain this rigid control over his country, Kim Jong-il has apparently been content to allow whole portions of the population to starve to death.

In the late 1990s an estimated two million North Koreans – about 10 per cent of the population - died in a famine caused by a combination of economic mismanagement and natural disaster.

While Kim reportedly dined on the finest caviar, he refused to allow all but the most basic international aid – and even that was often diverted to supply the armed forces.

Devotion

In North Korea, the policy of Songun, or "military first", dictates that all needs – apart, perhaps, from those of Kim himself – come second to those of the military.

The enforced devotion to the cult of Kim places a huge drain on North Korea's meagre resources.

In 2002, for example, according to South Korea’s ministry of unification, celebrations for Kim Jong-il's 60th birthday led to a 36 per cent drop in industrial productivity.

Now he is believed to be grooming one of his children to take over the reins one day and continue the dynasty.

Who that might be remains, like North Korea itself, a closely guarded secret.