North Korean Economy Watch

Asia Times
Andrei Lankov
6/28/2006

One might expect North Korea to be the target of many outside Korean-language stations. After all, it is one of the few despotic regimes whose survival still largely depends on myths about the country’s situation and its place in the world.

However, almost no outside broadcasting targets North Korea.

Until the mid-1990s, it didn’t make sense to broadcast to North Korea. Authorities since the 1960s had dealt with the “foreign broadcast problem”, which created so much trouble for other communist regimes, by outlawing all radios with free tuning. Radios sold in North Korea had fixed tuning and thus could receive only three or four official channels.

If North Korean citizens purchased a radio in one of the country’s hard-currency shops, which accepted foreign cash and had a wider variety of items, or when overseas, it had to be submitted to police where technicians would “fix” (disable) it, making sure its owners could only listen to ideologically wholesome programs about the deeds of their Dear Leader – Kim Jong-il.

This ban was enforced with remarkable efficiency. It was largely entrusted to the heads of the “people’s groups” or inminban, to which all North Koreans belong. Typically, such group consists of 30 to 50 families living in the same block, and is headed by an official. These low-level officials were required to regularly check all radios in their neighborhoods, making sure that they could not be used to listen to foreign or, more likely, South Korean broadcasts.

The punishment could be harsh. One official said in the 1980s she discovered that a family in the neighborhood under her supervision had a radio that could tune into foreign broadcasts. She duly reported her discovery, and the family was immediately exiled to the countryside.

Only a few elite families as well as some soldiers had access to radios that were not tampered with, and even they took great risks when they listened to a South Korean broadcast.

But this is no longer the case.

Things started to change in the mid-1990s when the border control collapsed and crowds of refugees and smugglers began to cross the North Korean-Chinese border. Among the many goods they brought back were small radios. Unlike the 1950s-style bulky radios produced in North Korea, these new transistor radios are small and easy to hide. Though every North Korean house is still subject to periodic random searches, chances of finding such a small item are low. Furthermore, officials lost their earlier zeal and started to accept bribes.

In December, a survey of defectors found that 45% had listened to a foreign broadcast prior to fleeing the North. The willingness to defect could mean a person is more inclined to listen to a foreign broadcast, but it might be the other way round as well: information received from outside might prompt the decision to flee.

At any rate, North Korea is not a radioless country any more and its citizens could find out what is going on in the world and in their own country.

But apart from South Korea’s state-owned Korea Broadcasting System (KBS) – which is officially known as the “social education radio” and does its best to be as inoffensive as possible for fear of “irritating” Pyongyang – three stations specifically target the North Korean audience.

The first and most important is Radio Free Asia (RFA), a version of Radio Free Europe that once broadcast into East Europe – the segment that targeted the former USSR was known as the Radio Liberty. RFA began Korean-language broadcasts in 1997 when the South Koreans withdrew from the airwaves. Currently, broadcasts are four hours daily. With its current staffing, it can produce only two hours live, which is then repeated. Unlike KBS, RFA does raise tough questions.

Another station is Free North Korea (FNK), launched as a small online station whose writers and announcers are North Koreans living in the South. From December, FNK began using transmitters in Russia. However, Moscow is as unenthusiastic as Seoul about prospects of an “unstable” North Korea, so FNK had to move its transmitters to Mongolia.

From the beginning, FNK had to deal with problems. The pro-Pyongyang lobby staged noisy rallies in front of the building where the station was located, so it had to move to two windowless rooms in the basement of an unremarkable building on a distant outskirts of Seoul. Wages are small, and some contributors work for free. Few, if any, are professional radio journalists and the shortage of funds means FNK stays on air only one hour a day.

Still, even its limited presence gets under the skin of Pyongyang’s officials, who refer to FNK broadcasters as “traitors, lackeys of the American imperialism, slaves of the conservative forces” and demand they be removed from the airwaves.

The third station is Voice of America (VoA), but true to its name its focuses on promoting America’s image in both Koreas. The station does some critical reporting about North Korean affairs, and surveys show that some defectors listened to VoA before they left North Korea. However, because the topics of VoA programs are largely about the US, its appeal is somewhat limited (especially in a country whose population has been educated to believe that the US is the embodiment of evil).

Thus, while North Koreans want to know more about the outside world, they are still limited when they switch on their smuggled or illicitly repaired radios. Most of the time the air is clear of any subversive messages that would upset their leaders. Even if they listen to RFA or FNK, the stations cannot tell them too much because air time is short and the broadcast offerings limited.

Many observers talk about the “North Korean problem” and a huge amount of money is spent on the issue. Jay Lefkowitz, US special envoy for human rights in North Korea, has suggested increased radio broadcasts on world events and in support of Korean defector groups as key ways to empower the North Koreans. And some members of the US Congress have proposed increasing broadcasts by American-funded radio stations to 24 hours a day and dropping radio receivers into North Korea by balloon.

Still, radio, the easiest and cheapest way to bring about change from within North Korean society, is not utilized to any significant extent. North Koreans who want to learn even the most basic facts about their society and the world are kept in the dark not only by their own government but by the rest of the world as well.

When they want to learn what is going on, they have to rely on North Korean newspapers. They know only too well that these newspapers lie, but nobody gives them much of an alternative.

From KCNA:

U.S. Blasted for Having Blocked DPRK’s Religious Delegation’s Entry into U.S.

Pyongyang, June 22 (KCNA) — The U.S. authorities barred a delegation of the Korean Christian Federation from entering the U.S. to participate in the 217th meeting of the U.S. Presbyterian Church slated for late June at the official invitation of the Church. A spokesman for the KCF Central Committee in a statement issued on June 22 in this regard denounced this as a hostile action against the DPRK and demanded they officially apologize for this.

Recalling that the U.S. authorities prevented the delegation from participating in the meeting by dragging on the matter under an absurd pretext of “agreement” with its security organ, the statement said:

This is not only a rude behavior disregarding an international practice and etiquette but a sort of suppression of religion as it openly restricted and persecuted the legitimate religious activities of the Korean Christian Federation and the Christian organization of the U.S.

Explicitly speaking, the recent very rude action taken by the U.S.authorities was no more than a dastardly hostile action perpetrated by them against the DPRK with a careful political calculation. They took this action afraid of the fact that in case the truth about the free religious activities of the Christians in the DPRK is known to the U.S. and other parts of the world it might bring to daylight the sheer hypocrisy of their loudmouthed “religious and human rights issues” in the DPRK.

We bitterly denounce the recent action taken by the U.S. authorities as a grave infringement upon the free religious life and rights of the Christians and an inhumane behavior contrary to the elementary international practice and etiquette and strongly demand they officially apologize for this.

They should not persistently pursue antipathy and confrontation going against the trend of the times when people are going in for reconciliation and cooperation but roll back their wrong hostile policy towards the DPRK and opt for normalizing the relations with it as early as possible.

We will as always pursue close exchange and cooperation with the U.S.

Presbyterian Church and all other Christian organizations of various countries in the positive efforts to build a peaceful and just, new world and thus fulfill our mission as Christians.

The C.C., Korean Christian Federation avails itself of this opportunity to express expectation that Christian organizations and Christians of all countries will never overlook the U.S. authorities’ high-handed and arbitrary practices of wantonly violating even the elementary human rights and activities in a bid to realize their wild ambition for domination but decisively frustrate them and thus carry out their missionary work as men standing for justice and peace.

Daily NK
Park Hyun Min
6/13/2006

Chairman Kang Young Sup at Chosun Christian Alliance (North Korea) met with Association For Interaction Of Our People (Representative Song Ki Hak) and Pyongyang Team from Korean Churches (Manager Pastor Baek Kwang Jin) who visited Pyongyang on the 5th. He said he will hold a public Christian assembly in North Korea next March.

They are planning a International Assembly where Christians from foreign countries including the North and South will attend for the centenary of Pyongyang Revival which is the root of the Christian revival in Korea. It is noticeable that the North said 12,000 North Korean Christians will participate.

It sounds they want to make others believe that there are quite a number of Christians. It also reflects that North Korean government cares about the criticism from the international community that there is no religious freedom in North Korea. At the same time, it could he their strategy to gain more aid through the interaction with South Korean religious groups.

However, there is no religious freedom in North Korea. People who come in contact with Christians go to the prison camps or are subject to public execution.

North Koreans have been taught that religion is a superstitious and unscientific way of understanding the world. Religion has originated from recognizing the nature as a supernatural being in a primitive time when there wasn’t enough understanding of the world.

The revised North Korean constitution in 1998 eliminated ‘the freedom to release anti-religious propaganda’ and stated the freedom to build religious buildings and hold religious ceremonies. However, it is for outsiders to see in order to avoid criticisms from international community. It is not true that religious freedom is granted for the North Koreans.

The educational material for the people of North Korea in July 2005 published by Chosun Worker’s Party says, “Let us destroy the conspiracies and plans who spread religion in us”, regarding the issue of religious freedom mentioned by the US and the proselytization of South Korean missionaries. The policy regarding religion in North Korea hasn’t changed from the past.

Religious activities are considered crimes against the country according to the testimonies of North Korean defectors in South Korea. Last month, it was reported that 30 Christians were sentenced to public execution when they were caught by National Security Agency while having a Christian service with people from Euijoo, Shin Eui Joo, Yong Chun and Yum Joo.

Even though religious freedom is suppressed so strictly, some religious groups in South Korea is going along as if there is religious freedom in North Korea. What would North Korean belivers in underground churches think about South Korean christians? They would feel betrayed and insulted.

Pastor Suh Kyung Suk (CCK, Human Rights Commission) who led the way for humanitarian assistance and religious interaction for years have declared that Bongsu church is for deception, and the South Korean Christians should stop lining up to meet fake North Korean believers; it implies grains of truth.

When the believers turn away from the suppression of religion in North Korea and only care for meeting with fake Christians, it would be hard for religious freedom to be realized in North Korea

Before it is too late, more attention and care should be paid to the true believers who are executed and imprisoned in prison camps and leading a life of misery.

It is ‘even worse when you don’t act out, even though you are aware’. Christians should ask themselves what they need to do for the human rights and religious freedom in North Korea.

Yonhap
Kim Hyun
6/9/2006

North Korea, which has shunned Western entertainment, has given in to World Cup fever and started efforts to satiate people in the country who yearn to watch the imminent tournament.

Pyongyang is seeking to broadcast World Cup matches live across the country with Seoul’s support. North Korea’s state-run broadcaster, Korean Central Broadcasting Station (KCBS), sent a letter to the Korean Broadcasting Commission of South Korea last month asking it to share its World Cup footage with the North that could not pay for the broadcast rights. The request came as the Koreas were politically at odds over testing of newly connected inter-Korean railways.

The South Korean broadcasting commission is in talks with FIFA as part of efforts to assist with Pyongyang’s request, said a public affairs official in the broadcasting commission requesting anonymity because a contract had not yet been signed.

When the deal is reached early next week with FIFA and its Switzerland-based business representative Infront Sports & Media, the North will be able to provide its people with a live broadcasts of the games via satellite from Seoul, the commission official said.

North Korea has candidly expressed on its television programs its people’s desire to watch the football tournament. A KCBS announcer said, “This year’s World Cup competition will really be worth seeing.”
Pyongyang has published four kinds of stamps in commemoration of the tournament, according to the (North) Korean Central News Agency on Tuesday. The stamps depict football players from different countries who distinguished themselves in previous tournaments, it said.

North Koreans in and around Pyongyang who watched the 2002 World Cup games, co-hosted by South Korea and Japan, via free satellite distribution with the South’s help, were thrilled by the South’s unexpected progress, said Kim Jong-chol, a reporter with the Minju Chosun, the North’s Cabinet newspaper.

“The South’s advance to the semifinals in 2002 boosted the morale of the Korean people,” Kim told a Yonhap News Agency reporter.

North Korea failed to advance to the World Cup in the regional qualifier after winning one game and losing five.

After their team lost 2-0 to Iran, angry North Korean players offended the referee and fans threw bottles onto the pitch. As punishment, they had to play Japan in Bangkok without spectators.

The communist country is revving up efforts to gain global status in the next World Cup finals in South Africa in 2010. It has strengthened international exchanges to sharpen the team and established football training grounds with artificial grass supplied by FIFA earlier this year.

From the Daily NK:

As digital cameras spread throughout North Korea, photo printing companies are also being created. A stand-shop with a computer and a photo printer appeared during the Pyongyang International Goods Exhibition at the 3rd Revolution Pavilion on May 17. The advertisement stated ‘Fast computer photos, collect in 15min.’ ‘Price 500won.’

From the Daily NK:

In North Korea, South Korean dramas are confidentially distributed through VCDs(‘Flat eggs’, as the Cds are known).  Previously, North Koreans were only allowed to watch films from the DPRK, China and USSR.  Posessing VCDs was also illegal.

According to Mr. Lee, a Chinese-North Korean who often visits Shinuiju, “Recently, Kim Jong Il has allowed North Koreans to see films only on the flat eggs(CDs) produced by Hana Electronic [the state-owned production monopoly]”. He added “Hana Electronics VCDs are all North Korean movies, Chinese movies featuring fighting with Japanese soldiers, and the Soviet Union movies”.

However, North Koreans are enthusiastic about South Korean dramas such as Love Song in Winter and Autumn Story and obsolete Western movies Rambo and ‘Bruce Lee’.

Mr. Lee said that “Recently South Korean dramas have been distributed widely, and because North Koreans see religious activities and adult materials through the flat eggs(CDs), the North Korean government dispatched an extensive censors group to crack down them”.

In North Korea, every kind of VCD was prohibited. However, realizing that North Koreans took pleasure in secretly watching the widely distributed VCDs, the North Korean government changed its policy and “partially” allowed its people to watch.

Mr. Lee said that, “These days, the punishment for [watching videos] has lightened, so watching VCDs except religious materials is just fined or orally warned”, adding, “The government does not take violators to political prison camps, but maybe Nodon Danryeondae (Labor facility), or Gyohwaso (long-term labor camp)”. Subsequently, he said that, “Because all officials of the National Security Agency and officials of the People’s Safety Agency see the dramas, the government can not unconditionally prevent from watching like the past”.

He said that, “Recently, the numbers of religious people have increased, and because of it, some people were caught watching religious films”, and “It is hard to survive in the religious cases”.

Meanwhile, shortwave radios are illegally traded at around 2,000 won($0.67) at Jangmadangs. Until 3 or 4 years ago, the government had carried out the reporting system about the illegal trades, but after the news that South Korea and the U.S sent radios, the trades at Jangmadangs were officially inhibited.

Now it was known that the small radios sold in secret are carried in through smuggling vessels generally in Jagangdo province, North Korea.  financial problems are resolved, a broker is introduced and guidance to an exile route is given.

Daily NK
Kwon Jeong Hyun
5/26/2006

In North Korea, domestic rice prices are showing a sharp rise.  In mid May, the price of rice in North Pyongan province was 1,300W ($0.43)/1kg. Compared to the price in May 2005, it rose 500W ($0.17). In Jangmadang, there is a rumor that rice will rise to 2,000 won ($0.67), so it seems that it’s just a matter of time before rice becomes more expensive.

The reason for the rising cost of rice is simple: a lack of rice. The rice stored in Autumn has begun to run out and there are not enough edible plants to go around. North Korea calls this period the Spring Austerity Season. This period is the hardest season for North Koreans.

The average wage of North Koreans is 3,000W($1). To be more exact, it means that 4 family members have to live off of 1.5kg of rice a month. Everybody struggles to survive by doing business, digging up edible plants, getting help from relatives living in China, and selling scrap iron.

The following is March prices from North Pyongan province. This shows the great difference from this year’s price. Except for food and groceries, the price does not vary much:

New York Times
NORIMITSU ONISHI
5/25/2006

TAEJON, South Korea — At the Pyongyang Moran Bar on a recent Friday evening, a large video screen showed uplifting images of rocky mountains and an open blue sky. A slogan appeared at the bottom: “Kim Jong Il, a man who comes along only once in a thousand years.”

The North Korean waitresses wore traditional dresses in the bright colors that were fashionable in the South some years back. The singer’s interpretation of “Whistle,” a North Korean standard of the 1980’s, was shaky and off-key. Service was bad and included at least one mild threat. Drinks were spilled, beer bottles left unopened and unpoured.

But the South Korean customers could not get enough of the Pyongyang Moran Bar.

“Encore!” cried Bae Seong Wan, 44, at the end of “Whistle.”

The Pyongyang Moran Bar is located, not north of the demilitarized zone, but here in downtown Taejon, a city in the South Korean heartland.

The 120-seat bar opened in February, complete with inferior North Korean beverages, North Korean landscape posters, North Korean songs, a photo of Mr. Kim above the bar counter with his South Korean counterpart and, most important, North Korean waitresses — or, as a sign outside announced, “beautiful girls from North Korea!”

Until the 1990’s, South Korean schoolchildren were awarded prizes for drawing posters depicting diabolical North Koreans. Then the South’s so-called sunshine policy of engagement transformed North Koreans into real human beings in the minds of South Koreans and in popular movies like “Joint Security Area.”

Now, after more than half a decade of rapprochement, the North is all the rage, in a retro-kitschy fashion, and North Koreans are seen not as threatening aggressors but as country bumpkin cousins, needing an introduction to big-city life.

North Korean defectors and South Koreans alike are opening North Korean-themed restaurants, selling North Korean goods and auctioning off North Korean artwork on www.NKMall.com.

Half a century of division has turned the South into the world’s most wired society, as its consumer products and pop culture increasingly shape the tastes of youth across Asia.

North Korea, meanwhile, has remained frozen in time, a repository — at least to someone with a sharp nose for marketing — of an unchanged Korea.

“North Korea is retro,” said Jong Su Ban, 42, a North Korean defector who plans to open a North Korean restaurant, Ok Ru Ok, in Seoul soon. “It reminds South Koreans of the 1950’s and 1960’s, before South Korea industrialized. They see handmade crafts that are not sophisticated, and they think, ‘It’s like us before we developed.’ ”

The timing was right, Mr. Jong said, pointing out that only a few years ago a restaurant in Seoul with a waiter dressed as a North Korean soldier went belly up fast. “He made people uncomfortable,” he said.

At a company called NK Food, Hong Chang Ryo, 45, a South Korean who opened two North Korean restaurants in Seoul this year and is planning to open a third here, agreed.

“Even two or three years ago,” he said, “we couldn’t have done this. We would have been fingered as commies.”

Mr. Hong’s first restaurant, Nalrae, Nalrae — or fast, fast in the North Korean dialect — “invites you to a different taste” with more than 27 dishes named after places in the North. Shelves stocked with mushrooms, alcoholic beverages, seaweed — “straight from Pyongyang” — are the main attractions in the restaurant, which is painted organic green. A menu promises “nonpolluted, well-being dishes using natural resources from North Korea.”

“It feels rural, natural, unpolluted,” said one first-time customer, Lee Sae Mie, 23, a university student.

While about 40 percent of the dishes’ ingredients come from the North, Mr. Hong said, the flavors had to be adjusted, considerably, to appeal to South Korean palates.

“We had to rack our brains,” Mr. Hong said. “We all know they just eat cornmeal over there. Well, we just don’t know what they’re eating over there. So we mixed and matched. Dishes may look North Korean but actually taste South Korean.”

Increasingly, though, people are parting with South Korean won to buy goods from www.NKMall.com, which Park Young Bok, a South Korean, set up in 2003. The site sells mostly food products, which shoppers can also buy at 70 stores nationwide.

Last September, Mr. Park added an auction for North Korean paintings, which have been selling briskly, reaching $115,000 in sales in April. With South Korean officials still banning artwork with political content, most of the imports are of landscapes — though, oddly, a tapestry of the Virgin Mary was auctioned off recently for $80.

At his warehouse just outside Seoul, Mr. Park showed off some of the 30 North Korean alcoholic beverages he sells — some of them with labels slapped crookedly on the bottles, others with the contents partly evaporated because of poor bottling.

But to hear some of the patrons at the Pyongyang Moran Bar here tell it, leaking bottles, even bad service, are part of the North Korean appeal.

“I don’t know how to open this,” said one waitress struggling with a bottle of Budweiser. The waitress — who had worked at the bar for only two days and who, like many North Koreans, had never opened a bottle before — tried to get the top off, then handed the bottle to the customer, who opened it himself.

Another customer, Kim Chung Sig, 39, said, “I don’t expect the service to be good here.”

Choi Jung Hee, 37, the manager, said she had trouble training her North Korean staff of five waitresses. “At least, they should say, ‘Hello!’ properly when customers come in, but they don’t,” she said.

“Things are very different in North Korea,” she said. “Over there, waitresses and salespeople are kings because they have access to goods. But here you have to treat customers like kings. You have to bow to them and be polite even if they are rude.”

Reaction to the bar is decidedly split, an indication, said Mr. Jong, the North Korean who is opening up Ok Ru Ok, that South Koreans see in North Korea what they want to see.

Older South Koreans, who still look upon the North as an enemy, want to see images of starving North Korean babies, Mr. Jong said. Younger people, who often want friendly relations with the North, want to see the clean streets of Pyongyang.

“Both sides want to satisfy their beliefs,” Mr. Jong said, standing inside his soon-to-open restaurant. “That’s why I’ll put up only neutral images of North Korea in my new restaurant.”

Everything has fallen into place now for Mr. Jong, who came to South Korea in 2000 and earned a living writing pornography before plunging into food. He has even secured a supply of the North’s coveted Taedong River beer.

“When I lived in North Korea,” Mr. Jong said, “I never knew that this beer even existed. I’ll have North Korean beer for the first time in South Korea. I lived in a very funny country.”

Yonhap
5/30/2007
Kim Hyun

A cover album of North Korean pop songs featuring South Korean singers will be released in Seoul next month based on an unprecedented musical copyright contract between the two Koreas, promoters in Seoul said Wednesday.

Some Northern songs have gained popularity in the South, where they have been circulated illegally. Pyongyang has protested the unregistered circulation through informal channels since it established copyright laws in 2000.

From the Committee to Protect Journalists:

The world’s deepest information void, communist North Korea has no independent journalists, and all radio and television receivers sold in the country are locked to government-specified frequencies. Burma, Turkmenistan, Equatorial Guinea, and Libya round out the top five nations on CPJ’s list of the “10 Most Censored Countries.”

Patterns that emerge from CPJ’s analysis include:

Total control. Print and electronic media in all 10 countries are under heavy state control or influence. Some countries allow a few privately owned outlets to operate but most of these are in the hands of regime loyalists. In Libya, there are no independent broadcast or print media, an anachronism even by Middle East standards. Equatorial Guinea has one private broadcaster; its owner is the president’s son. In Burma, citizens risk arrest for listening to the BBC in public.

One-man-shows. Most of the countries on CPJ’s list are ruled by one man who has remained in power by manipulating the media and rigging any elections that are held. The media foster a cult of personality. On state television in Turkmenistan, “President for Life” Saparmurat Atayevich Niyazov’s golden image is constantly displayed in profile at the bottom of the screen. State-run radio in Equatorial Guinea has described President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo as “the country’s God.”

Use of the “Big Lie.” In North Korea, all “news” is positive. According to the country’s rigidly controlled media, North Korea has never suffered famine or poverty, and citizens would willingly sacrifice themselves for their leader. The official Korean Central News Agency said that leader Kim Jong Il is so beloved that after a deadly munitions train explosion in a populated area, people ran into buildings to save the ubiquitous portraits of the “Dear Leader” before they rescued their own family members.

Zero tolerance for negative coverage. In Uzbekistan, a government crackdown forced more than a dozen foreign correspondents to flee abroad after they covered a massacre of antigovernment protesters in Andijan in May 2005. Reporters covering opposition to Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko’s recent re-election were jailed and charged with crimes such as “hooliganism.” In Cuba, the government organizes “repudiation acts” for recalcitrant journalists; demonstrators surround the journalist’s home and prevent people from coming or going.

Cynical disregard for people’s welfare. Governments suppress news of the dangers and hardships faced by their citizens. North Korea covered up a famine that affected millions. Burma stifled coverage of the effects of the tsunami that hit the country in December 2004.

“By any international standard, the practices of these governments are unacceptable,” said Cooper. “We call on the leaders of these most censored countries to join the free world by abandoning these restrictive actions and allowing journalists to independently report the news and inform their citizens.”

North Korea has wedded the traditional Confucian ideal of social order to the Stalinist model of an authoritarian communist state to create the world’s deepest information void. All domestic radio, television, and newspapers are controlled by the government. Radio and television receivers are locked to government-specified frequencies. Content is supplied almost entirely by the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). It serves up a daily diet of fawning coverage of “Dear Leader” Kim Jong Il and his official engagements. The country’s grinding poverty or famines are never mentioned. Only small numbers of foreign journalists are allowed limited access each year, and they must be accompanied by “minders” wherever they go.

Lowlight: After a deadly munitions train explosion in April 2004 in Ryongchon near the Chinese border, KCNA reported that citizens displayed the “spirit of guarding the leader with their very lives” by rushing into burning buildings to save portraits of Kim “before searching for their family members or saving their household goods.” The international press, meanwhile, was barred from the scene, where more than 150 died and thousands were injured.