North Korean Economy Watch

Korea Times
Lee Hwan-hee
8/8/2007

British film director Daniel Gordon will visit Korea Aug. 12-14 to promote the release of his documentary “Crossing the Line” (2006), a film about James Joseph Dresnok, one of the four American soldiers who defected to North Korea during 1960s and the only one who is still living there.

The other three are Charles Robert Jenkins, who made the news in 2004 by turning himself in to the U. S. Army in Japan to face desertion charges, and Larry Allan Abshier and Jerry Wayne Parrish, both deceased.

The film is Gordon’s third documentary on North Korea; the previous ones are “The Game Of Their Lives” (2002), about the North Korean national football team who defeated Italy to advance to the quarterfinals of the 1966 World Cup, and “A State Of Mind” (2004), about two North Korean child gymnasts participating in the “Pyongyang mass games.”

Dresnok and the filmmaker were interviewed by the CBS News Program “60 Minutes” last January and Dresnok told the program, “I really feel at home” in North Korea, and said “I wouldn’t trade it for nothing,” in contrast to Jenkins who likened his stay in North Korea as an extended prison sentence. Jenkins penned a memoir “To Tell the Truth” in Japan, the home country of his wife, in 2005 (translated into Korean the following year).

Four years after his defection in 1962, Dresnok, and the other Americans, sought asylum in the Soviet embassy, unable to endure the hardships of living in North Korea, but the Soviets handed them back to the North Koreans, and Dresnok eventually adjusted, relatively speaking, to North Korean life. He found fame by starring in several North Korean propaganda films, playing villainous Americans. He also translated some of Kim Il-Sung’s writings into English.

He has been married three times; twice in North Korea, to an Eastern European woman, and the daughter of a Korean woman and an African diplomat; and has three children. His eldest son, James, considers himself a Korean.

Gordon will attend a screening and have a question and answer session with audience members during his visit. The film was shown at the 2006 Pusan International Film Festival, as well as the 2007 Berlin International Film Festival and the Sundance Film Festival.

New York Times
Normitsu Onishi
8/8/2007

The two Koreas announced Wednesday morning that they would hold a summit meeting later this month, the first since a groundbreaking meeting in 2000 began an ongoing reconciliation process on the Korean peninsula.

President Roh Moo-hyun of South Korea will meet the North’s leader, Kim Jong-il, during a three-day meeting Aug. 28 to Aug. 30 in Pyongyang, North Korea’s capital, the two Korean governments said in coordinated announcements.

The North said the meeting will carry “weighty significance in opening a new phase of peace,” according to the government’s Korean Central News Agency. The South, using similar language, added that the meeting would “provide momentum to settle the North Korean nuclear problem.”

Neither side released details about the agenda, and it was not clear how much can realistically be accomplished because the deeply unpopular Mr. Roh has only a few months left in office.

The meeting, which had been rumored for months, was immediately criticized by South Korea’s political opposition as a ploy to influence the presidential election in December. The trip by Mr. Roh is widely expected to boost the popularity of liberal presidential candidates who share his engagement policy toward the North.

While the main opposition Grand National Party also favors engaging North Korea, its candidates call for tougher concessions from the North. Two Grand National Party candidates, Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye, lead in polls for the election.

“This summit is about politics between North and South Korea,” Nam Sung-wook, a North Korea expert at Korea University, said in a telephone interview from Seoul. “It is unlikely to solve the nuclear problem because North Korea has consistently argued that it is a problem between North Korea and the United States.”

Still, South Korea said the North had agreed to the meeting because of the recent progress in negotiations over the North’s nuclear program. The North shut down its nuclear reactor at Yongbyon last month, and talks are continuing over its entire nuclear program.

In 2000, Kim Jong-il and the previous South Korean president, Kim Dae-jung, met in Pyongyang in sessions that inaugurated a policy of reconciliation between the two cold war enemies, which remain technically at war. That meeting led to a profound change in relations between the two countries.

Joong Ang Daily
8/8/2007

North Korean youth soccer players arrive yesterday at Incheon International Airport. The North Korean team will participate in the U-17 World Cup organized by FIFA in South Korea from Aug. 18 through Sept. 9.

Asia Times
Sunny Lee
8/8/2007

Hurry if you’re in the mood to travel to one of the least traveled countries on the planet. North Korea says it will admit foreign tourists this year only until October 10.

That’s the latest schedule Walter Keats received from Pyongyang. Keats heads Illinois-based Asia-Pacific Travel, the only travel company in the United States authorized by Pyongyang. The reclusive country opens itself to foreign tourists only for a limited period of the year. Restrictions on Americans are even stricter. In fact, Americans are allowed into North Korea only during the Arirang Festival, a birthday party for the late leader Kim Il-sung.

As a US citizen who is not part of a diplomatic or humanitarian aid mission on North Korea, Keats has had the rare experience of visiting the secretive country 10 times in the past 12 years, starting in 1995. During the period, Keats saw the country “definitely” changing.

“I don’t know if that’s the question of being closed or open. Things are still very restricted. But the people we deal with, at least, are more flexible, more friendly, and more open now,” Keats said in an interview in Beijing before he was to fly with Pyongyang-bound American tourists last weekend.

North Koreans’ flexible attitude is reflected, for example, in the tour scheduling. In the past, the North Koreans decided every itinerary. But Keats told them some places are not really interesting for Americans, while some are more interesting. Now they are more willing to listen.

Besides, the North Korean guides are more willing to accommodate impromptu requests from foreign tourists now such as visiting a local elementary school, even if that was not part of the original travel itinerary.

The changes are also noticeable in the North Korean tour guides themselves as well. They used to be rather solemn and less spontaneous, but these days they even crack jokes in English. Keats sees it as a “nice” change.

“One of the purposes of this tour is to break down the barriers to show that we are human beings and they are also human beings. We’re not both devils fighting each other. So it’s nice to see the humanity in both sides. Humor is a good medium,” Keats said.

North Korea and the US are still technically at war with each other as a legacy from the Korean War. However, today American tourists in North Korea are not subject to any of the anti-American sentiment and rhetoric that Keats experienced during some of his previous visits.

However, all foreign tourists to the Stalinist nation must go on guided tours and must have their tour guides with them at all times. Photography is strictly controlled, as is interaction with the local people. Besides, tourists holding US passports are not usually granted visas. But exceptions were made in 1995, 2002, 2005 and this year.

Some observers are inclined to view the timing of these exceptions as coinciding with a softening in US relations with North Korea. But that actually may not be the case, because North Korea gave the green light for US tourists in 2002 – just after President George W Bush lumped it in with a group known as the “axis of evil”.

On his part, Keats has to remind his fellow American tourists that visiting North Korea is “very different” from visiting any other country in the world and tells them to be mindful of following a few rules. These include refraining from attempting to strike an unauthorized conversation with local people.

In general, the North Korean people would not appreciate foreign tourists coming up to them because “frankly, it endangers them”, Keats said. Somebody could later ask them why they talked to the foreigners, what they said to the foreigners, what the tourists gave to them.

“So I advise our people to refrain from such approach. Of course, you’d like to talk to somebody there. But most of them don’t speak English anyway. So, if you do so, you’d be putting them at risk for no reason.”

Unfortunately, Keats observed, it’s not just the country that has changed over the years, but the tourists themselves have shown some changes as well. In the early days, tourists came with some research, reading about the society before they visited North Korea. The early tourists were more knowledgeable and inquisitive. But “today’s tourists are more interested in making sure that they’ve been to this place”, Keats said.

Keats believes the idea of going to North Korea as merely going on an “exotic tour” should be discouraged. “We get phone inquiries from people who say they don’t want to be in a group, want to go out and meet local people in North Korea. If you’re so ignorant about how the society there works, you’d think you can just go and talk to somebody on the street. That’s very dangerous.

“I don’t think you have a right to create a situation where somebody there might get into trouble because of your need to go back home and brag that you talked with North Korean people. I think it’s immoral for somebody, particularly from our [US] culture, to do so.”

Keats said no American on his tour so far has been rejected an entry visa to North Korea, but added that people with certain professions would have difficulty getting in. He took an example of journalists. He said he was specifically told by the North Koreans that he would be fined a minimum of US$1,000 per journalist, if found.

For him, however, that’s not the only business risk he has to bear in dealing with the North Koreans. Last year, he suffered a financial setback after the scheduled trip was abruptly canceled after more than 200 Americans had signed up for it.

Understandably, he was not very happy about it. “The problem is that they make changes all the time,” he said. In fact, the travel-permit dates for this year were already a third revision.

Keats said the North Koreans would simply change the dates for foreign visitors and say the foreigners needed to change their arrival dates. “They don’t seem to understand that in some peak travel seasons, changing dates on the air tickets could cost additional money. I don’t think people at the top [in North Korea] really understand how the market works.”

These days, a tour to North Korea usually comes as a four-day-three-night package. That may sound reasonable for a country that is roughly half the size of Minnesota. But the devil is in the details. The first day counts from the day the tourists’ airplane departs from Beijing to Pyongyang. (Foreign travelers usually arrive in Pyongyang via Beijing.) And on the last day, the foreigners have to leave the country at 8am. But that is still technically counted as “one day”.

So, to save time, once arrived, going to the hotel usually becomes the last itinerary of the first day. After stopping by a few places on the way from the airport, tourists go directly to see the Arirang performance, which starts at 7pm.

The Arirang Festival, the high point of any visit to North Korea, is a performance by 100,000 synchronized gymnasts inside the world’s largest stadium, occasioned for a celebration of the birth of the late “Great Leader” Kim Il-sung. It depicts two separated lovers, symbolizing the two Koreas, culminating with their reunion.

In North Korea, among the lists of “must-sees” is Mansu Hill, where a Korean War memorial and statue of Kim Il-sung is located. Others include the Arch of Triumph, Geumsu-san Memorial Palace and Kim Il-sung Mausoleum, a film studio in Pyongyang, and the Korean Central History Museum. Keats has found that these are the places American tourists find particularly interesting.

He said it’s also worth watching how the local people pay their respect to Kim Il-sung at his mausoleum, who is regarded as a deity there. “From a foreigner’s eye, that would be quite a cultural experience.”

Last year, the reclusive country accepted about 20,000 visitors from abroad. The majority were Chinese and South Koreans. Fewer than 2,000 Westerners visited North Korea last year.

So, at the end of having the rare opportunity to see the secretive country, “people are pretty amazed”, Keats said.

“North Korea is a unique system. I think most of the visitors leave with a positive view of the tour, which doesn’t necessarily mean that they get to have a positive view of the country. But they learn more about the country by being there. Seeing it first-hand gives them a much better sense of what is going on there.”

Islamic Republic News Agency
8/7/2007

Iran-North Korea economic relations will enter a new era once a bilateral cooperation document is signed by commerce ministers of the two country.

According to public department of Iran’s Ministry of Commerce, in the document which is to be inked on Wednesday, the two sides will announce their agreement to expand economic cooperation and boost mutual relations.

Mutual economic cooperation in such fields as construction and technology has been envisaged in the document.

Joong Ang Daily
Gary Samore
8/6/2007

China’s biggest concern seems to be that the February agreement signals an American surrender to North Korean nuclear weapons.

On a recent trip to Beijing, I was able to meet with senior Chinese officials and experts to discuss recent developments on the Korean Peninsula since the Feb. 13, 2007 six-party nuclear agreement.

What I learned surprised me.

As I expected, the Chinese are genuinely pleased the Bush administration has shifted its policy toward North Korea, dropping demands for complete and immediate disarmament and retreating from confrontation and the goal of regime change. From Beijing’s standpoint, the February agreement averted a crisis on the Korean Peninsula and established a framework for negotiating additional disarmament steps through the six-party talks. Beyond the nuclear issue, the Chinese support the establishment of a regional peace and stability mechanism for Northeast Asia built around the six-party talks.

Aside from these expected positive views, however, I learned China also has some reservations and concerns about recent events on the peninsula.

Before the February agreement, China was the central player in the six-party nuclear negotiations. Much to Beijing’s anger, Pyongyang went ahead with its nuclear tests in the face of Chinese protests, undercutting the perception that China could control North Korea’s behavior. Now that the United States and North Korea have developed a direct line of communication, and the United States and South Korea have patched up their relations, China is no longer at the center of the action. Although Beijing will continue to host the talks, China is feeling sidelined.

As a result, my Chinese hosts emphasized the importance of China and the United States working together to guard against efforts by North Korea to play one big power against the other. For example, the Chinese suggested Washington and Beijing should engage in informal contingency planning to respond to possible political instability on the peninsula, although Chinese experts said they do not believe that the house of Kim Jong-il is in immediate danger of collapse.

Adding to Chinese unease is the reappearance of Russia on the scene. China preferred that the Banco Delta Asia issue be resolved by the U.S. Treasury reversing itself and giving the Macao bank a clean bill of health, which would allow it to survive and continue to service North Korea’s financial needs, as a number of other Chinese banks already do. Instead, the Russian government stepped in, making available a Russian bank to transfer the $25 million from a U.S. Federal Bank to North Korea. In Beijing’s view, Moscow’s willingness to broker the financial deal looks suspiciously like a broader Russian attempt to reassert influence in Northeast Asia. And ― Chinese experts were quick to point out ― Pyongyang would welcome an opportunity to give Russia a bigger role, reducing North Korea’s dependence on China.

Aside from these political maneuvers and machinations, China’s biggest concern seems to be that the February agreement signals an American surrender to North Korean nuclear weapons.

Having complained for years that the Bush administration was demanding too much, the Chinese now say they fear Washington is secretly prepared to accept North Korea as a nuclear-weapons state. Pointing to the example of India, one senior Chinese official complained that the U.S. nonproliferation policy is weak and inconsistent: “Washington strongly opposes proliferation before a nuclear test, but once a test has been conducted, the U.S. accepts the country as a nuclear power.”

Another Chinese official bitterly complained that Beijing committed to work with the United States after the 1998 Indian nuclear tests, but the United States betrayed China, recognizing India as a nuclear power and even encouraging India to develop its nuclear strike capabilities against China itself. If the United States recognizes and accepts North Korea as a nuclear power, the Chinese fear it will inevitably provide a pretext for Japan ― and then South Korea ― to go nuclear, creating additional nuclear-armed rivals on China’s borders. Additional proliferation in Northeast Asia might even extend to Taiwan, which could dramatically complicate Beijing’s hopes to achieve national unification.

In response to these Chinese concerns, I explained that India and North Korea are not comparable cases. India is a democracy, a major country and a rising economic power, that shares many interests with the United States. North Korea is none of these things. Moreover, the United States does not want to see Japan and South Korea develop nuclear weapons. America’s strategic presence in Asia is based in part on its role as a security guarantor, including its nuclear umbrella for Japan and South Korea. If Tokyo and Seoul decide to develop nuclear weapons, they would have less need of U.S. protection, and Washington’s influence in Asia would diminish.

Moreover, while Washington may benefit from political rivalries and suspicions among the Asian powers, it does not want to see a nuclear arms race that could destabilize the region and damage U.S. economic and political interests. Finally, if nuclear weapons spread in Asia, they would severely damage the international nonproliferation regime, perhaps leading to the collapse of the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

For all these reasons, Chinese fears and suspicions that the United States is about to formally accept North Korean nuclear weapons are not accurate. Nonetheless, my Chinese hosts are right in one respect: The Bush administration’s policies have helped create a nuclear-armed North Korea, which cannot be easily undone. As one Chinese expert said, “Bush has let the nuclear tiger out of its cage.”

As much as we hope the six-party talks will make further progress toward disarmament, most experts think North Korea will be very reluctant to give up its nuclear weapons until it feels completely secure and free from the threat of U.S. hostility. This is not likely to happen anytime soon. Pyongyang has already indicated it will demand a treaty to end the Korean War, full normalization of diplomatic relations with Washington, the lifting of U.S. economic sanctions and substantial economic assistance ― including nuclear energy assistance ― before it gives up its nuclear deterrent.

So whether we like it or not, we probably have no choice but to manage the threat from a nuclear-armed North Korea for the time being. It may be years before disarmament can be achieved. In the meantime, we must work to reduce the risk that North Korea will use or transfer nuclear weapons or that additional countries in the region will feel compelled to develop their own nuclear weapons for defense.

While recognizing this reality, the United States and other countries must continue to insist on the ultimate objective of complete North Korean nuclear disarmament. We must resist North Korea’s demands that it be treated like India, as a nuclear power that receives full political and economic benefits from the international community. Eliminating North Korea’s nuclear weapons will be difficult, but we must be patient and persistent.

Korea Herald
8/5/2007

China will begin shipping 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil to North Korea in mid-August as part of the 950,000 tons promised in exchange for the North’s disabling of its nuclear facilities in the second phase of denuclearization agreement, informed sources here said Sunday.

The agreement, signed February 13 by the two Koreas, China, Russia, Japan and the U.S., also commits North Korea to declare all of its nuclear programs.

South Korea completed Thursday the shipment of 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil to the North in exchange for the North shutting down its nuclear facilities in the first phase of the denuclarization agreement.

“We understand China will begin providing 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil to the North in mid August,” a diplomatic source here said. “A working group dealing with energy and economic aid slated for Aug.7-8 in Panmunjeom will decide on detailed measures of the provision.”

The working group is one of five groups launched under the February nuclear deal. Other groups deal with denuclearization, normalization of ties between North Korea and the U.S. and Japan and the establishment of a peace regime on the Korean Peninsula to replace the current armistice that ended the 1950-53 Korean War.

Japan Today (Hat Tip DPRK Studies)
8/3/2007

Three executives of a seafood company in Sanyoonoda, Yamaguchi Prefecture, were found guilty Thursday of importing North Korean littleneck clams in February in violation of the foreign trade control law.
 
The Shimonoseki branch of the Yamaguchi District Court sentenced Yoshio Fujioka, 69, director of Toen Boeki KK, to two years in prison suspended for three years, and his brother Noboru Fujioka, 59, president of the firm, and Yuzo Fujioka, Yoshio’s 41-year-old son and a director at the firm, to 22 months in prison suspended for three years. The court fined Toen Boeki 15 million yen and an affiliated firm 500,000 yen.

Daily NK
Kim Song A
8/2/2007

“In order to transform North Korea, outside news has to enter.”

North Korea, through the North-South Korea Military working-level talks held on the 10th, proposed the cease of scattering of flyers by private organizations. This is the 16th time that North Korea has made such a request.

The North Korean authorities, through the North-South General Officers Talks held in 2004, protested that South Korean private organizations are scattering defamatory flyers, despite the fact that North and South Korea agreed to stop advertisement activities, broadcasting, or public announcements in the Military Demarcation Line region.

Related to this, Lee Min Bok, Christian Defectors Association’s representative, evaluated in a phone interview with DailyNK on the 26th, “The reason why North Korea is reacting sensitively is because many North Koreans are exposed to materials distributed by ‘leaflet balloons’ and are being influenced.”

Mr. Lee revealed his intention to continue to carry out this work, “All North Koreans, with the exception of Kim Jong Il, probably appreciate the information distribution even though they cannot outwardly express it. We will continue to carry out this work with the single-hearted purpose of relaying outside news.”

Lee, who entered South Korea in `95 via Russia and China after defecting from North Korea in `90 is well-known as “the first refugee from North Korea defined by UN.” Presently, he graduated from seminary in South Korea and is involved in spreading Christianity in North Korea.

Through the balloon, his strategy is to transform North Korea while disseminating outside news such as evangelism flyers to North Korea. The members of defector and missionary organizations sent 207 large-size balloons (as of July 18th) to North Korea this year alone.

A total of 597,816 leaflets were sent to North Korea through these balloons. Six radios and medicine such as aspirin were included as well. He who has been continuing this activity since 2002 emphasized that disseminating outside news was more important than any other work.

“In East Germany and the former Soviet Union, outside news caused the fall of Communism. East Germany’s last prime minister Lothar de Maiziere said at the time of Germany’s reunification, “West Germany tried to relay news of the outside world to East Germany. Russian-born North Korean expert, Professor Andrei Lankov said, “Soviet Union was toppled because of the radio.”

“As when Romanian citizens executed dictator Ceaucescu, the potential power of North Korean citizens will be great if North Korea collapses,” confirmed Lee of the enormous impact dissemination of flyers and radio broadcasting has had on North Korean citizens.

He said, “Failure to support or back such activity might actually ignore the latent energy of North Korean citizens. When I was in North Korea, I learned a lot from the flyers from South Korea. What I saw then is significantly helping me produce flyers to be distributed to North Korea now.”

He recalled his experience then and has produced flyers which are considerate of North Korean citizens by expressing terminology or inscriptions which may not be understood in a more North Korean way.

Regarding the content of the flyers, he explained, “It focuses on North Korean society’s devotion towards Kim Jong Il and helping them realize the areas of propagandistic lies about South Korea.”

He added, “I have lived in North Korean society, so I know what to capture to reveal the true nature of North Korea’s political power. From such intent, the defectors have to become owners of this work and must actively step forward.”

Sending one large-sized balloon to North Korea costs around 140 dollars. The cost adds up if the one counts the failed balloons due to the weak north wind. The support money from defector or missionary organizations and civilian organizations have been appropriated for this work.

Lee, who believes that a single flyer he sends can change the North Korean people, emphatically said, “There is no one who significantly recognizes our work, but in order to open and reform North Korea, I do not think there is any other way. Until North Korea democratizes and becomes reunified, I will continue this work.”

UPDATE 1 (2007-8-2): I have just completed reading Andrei Lankov’s North of the DMZ.  One chapter discussed the history of preserving communist leaders in mausoleums so their remains can be venerated for years to come.  Quoting Lankov:

Kim Il Sung’s body has been embalmed and left on public display in a special glass-covered coffin. Actually, in this regard, Korea follows an established — if bizarre — Communist tradition. Like many other Communist traditions, this one originated from the USSR.

In 1924, the body of Vladimir Lenin, the founding father of the Soviet Union, was laid in a specially constructed mausoleum where it was kept in a glass-covered coffin. This mausoleum became a place of mass pilgrimage. Initially most visitors may have been driven by sincere devotion, but in later decades the major impulse bringing visitors was, more likely than not, just bizarre curiosity. Nonetheless, passions sometimes ran high. In the Soviet times, there were two known attempts to damage Lenin’s mummy in an act of symbolic resistance against the regime. On the other hand, the post—Communist Russian government has not dared to close the mausoleum, being aware that such an act is certain to spark large-scale protests and riots of the Russian Left.

In the Soviet times, a special and highly secretive research institute with a generous budget was responsible for the maintenance of Lenin’s body. Over the decades, its research staff gained unique expertise. In due time this expertise was in demand for new generations of the venerable dead.

In 1949, the Bulgarian Communist leader Dmitrov became the first person to be embalmed by the personnel of Lenin’s mausoleum. After Stalin’s death in 1953 the body of the Soviet dictator was also treated with this proven technique and put alongside Lenin’s mummy. However, in 1961 Stalin’s corpse was hastily removed from the mausoleum, to be buried below the Kremlin wall.

Meanwhile, Soviet experts were sent to take care of a number of politically important corpses across the world. They embalmed the bodies of a number of other Communist rulers: Choibalsan of Mongolia, Gottwald of Czechoslovakia, Ho Chi Minh of Vietnam, Netto of Angola (Mao’s body was treated by the Chinese themselves).

Thus, when in 1994 Kim Il Sung died, few people doubted that his body would be put on display as well. The Russians confirmed that they had taken part in treating Kim Il Sung’s body. According to unconfirmed reports a group of Russian biologists and chemists worked in Pyongyang for almost a year.

In the l950s and 1960s Moscow did not charge its clients and allies for treating the bodies of their deceased rulers. But this is not the case any more. After the collapse of the Communist system in Russia, the research center has had to survive on a very tight budget, and it is not willing to provide its unique know-how for free. Incidentally, these laboratories’ major income source is now the bodies of Mafia bosses or new Russian capitalists (it was not really easy to distinguish between the former and the latter in the Russia of the 1990s).

The fees for treating the earthly remains of the Great Leader, the Sun of the Nation, were never disclosed, but the Russians reportedly charged North Korea one million dollars. Frankly, this was a steal: Kim Il Sung died at the time when the former USSR was in the middle of its severest crisis, and ex—Soviet scientists were ready to accept meager rewards for their work.

Nonetheless, this deal was made at the time when North Korea was on the eve of the worst famine in Korea’s history. The final result of the scientists’ efforts was the mummy of Kim Il Sung which, incidentally, cannot be referred to as a “mummy” but only “the eternal image of the Great Leader.”

However, the million-dollar fee is only a fraction of the ongoing cost of keeping Kim Il Sung’s body well preserved. A few years ago a high-level North Korean bureaucrat mentioned to visiting Indonesians that North Korea paid about 800,000 dollars annually for these expenses. On might surmise that at least a part of this money goes to the budget of the same Soviet research centre which once did the embalming.

In one respect the North Koreans did not emulate other Communist countries. The bodies of Lenin, Mao, and Ho Chi Minh were laid in mausoleums specially constructed for that purpose. The North Koreans did not erect a new structure but renovated a pre-existing building, the Kumsusan Palace. This large structure was erected on the outskirts of Pyongyang in the mid—1970s. In subsequent decades it served as the residence and office of Kim Il Sung. Now this building’s huge central hall became the Great Leader’s resting place.

Unlike the USSR, where visits to Lenin’s tomb are essentially voluntary acts, the North Koreans are picked by their party secretaries to visit the Kumsusan Palace. Most of them, admittedly, do not mind going—partially out of curiosity and partially out of sincere reverence to the deceased strong- man.

For the past few years, crowds of North Koreans have passed by the body of the Great Leader who, for better or worse, ran their country for almost half a century. The visitors are required to stop for a while and bow to the glass- covered coffin containing the embalmed body. The dim lights and quiet music emphasize the quasi-religious nature of the entire scene. The visitors pay their tribute to a person who once started the worst war in Korean history, killed at least a quarter of a million people in prisons and ran what even in the Communist world was seen as an exceptionally repressive state.

Indeed, many (I would say, most) North Koreans more or less believed in what the official propaganda told them about the Great Man. All Koreans younger than 70 have spent their entire life listening to stories about Kim Il Sung’s greatness. He is supposed to be the person who defeated the Japanese in 1945, then repelled U.S. aggression in 1950 and, by keeping the cunning imperialists at bay for decades, saved North Koreans from the sorry fate of their enslaved Southern brethren. Of course, outside the North it is common knowledge that Kim Il Sung did not fire a single shot during the liberation of Korea, that the Korean war was started by him and nearly lost due to his miscalculations, that South Korea had one of the fastest growing economies of the 20th century while the North became an international basket case. But these things remain largely or completely unknown inside the North, where many people still believe in the deceased Great Fatherly Leader.

And just where did the communists get the idea of preserving their leaders in perpetuity? One hypothesis can be found in Paul Froese’s, The plot to kill God: findings from the Soviet experiment in secularization.  He claimed that many Soviet cultural practices were based on religious ones.

ORIGINAL POST (2007-6-10): My traveling comrade at Knife Tricks points to an interesting claim by an L.A. Times Journalist that the body of Kim il Sung on display in Kamsusan Memorial Palace is actually made of wax.

There are currently four communist leaders on display in this manner (Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin), Ho Chi Minh, Chairman Mao Zedong, and President Kim il Sung), and claims that they are not the actual bodies have been part of travel folklore for some time.  Joseph Stalin’s body was on display next to Lenin, but was later removed.  Chairman Mao’s body is reportedly swapped out with a wax duplicate occasionally, and people in the former Soviet Union have all sorts of stories about individuals winning “Lenin look-a-like” competitions and then promptly disappearing.

I suspect that all four bodies are at least real bodies.  I have seen three of the four  myself, and the only reason that I am not four-for-four is because Ho Chi Minh was in Russia getting touched up when I visited Hanoi in 1996.  Several years later I had a conversation with an ABC reporter based in Asia who told me that there was in fact a secretive Russian firm that exclusively serviced these corpses. (If anyone knows anything about this firm, please let me know).  This seems like a lot of trouble to go through if all they were doing was re-sculpting wax.  If this was the case, then I doubt that they would go through all the risk and expense of shipping the bodies so frequently unless–as game theory teaches us–going through all the trouble makes their organic composition seem more likely.  Occam’s Razor applies unless someone can give me a reason to believe a more complex scenario.

I have read (although forgotten the cite–so disregard if necessary) that Kim il Sung was supposed to be buried in Kim il Sung Square in the pavilion that is now used for viewing parades and dancing.  After his death, plans were developed to construct what is now Kamsusan Mausoleum.  One other thing to note, which the LA Times and most other travel accounts fail to mention, is that the softball-sized tumor which grew on the left-hand side (facing him) of Kim il Sung’s neck (which is why official portraits are taken from a slight angle on the right side) was removed (or hidden by the pillow) so that it is not visible at all to the millions who have visited the presidential mausoleum.