North Korean Economy Watch

Korea Herald
Annie Bang
4/10/2007

Twenty organizations of North Korean defectors established a politically unified group in Seoul yesterday and pledged to lead activities to democratize the North.

The group also revealed satellite photos of 17 private houses in the North owned by the North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.

“The defectors, who experienced living under the dictatorship of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, must seek more systematic ways to democratize North Korea,” said Sohn Jung-hoon, secretary of the newly founded Committee of Democratizing North Korea.

The committee was formed by almost all the organizations of North Korean defectors in the South, including Democracy Network against North Korean Gulag, and Association of the North Korean Defectors.

“It is impossible for North Korea to recover its economy and resolve the shortage of food without freedom,” the committee said in a statement. “Democratizing North Korea is a must to bring peace on the Korean Peninsula, to improve inter-Korean relations and to recover the North Korean economy.”

Hwang Jang-yop, chairman of NKD, who was secretary of the Central Committee of the North Korean Workers’ Party, will lead the unified group.

There are over 100,000 North Koreans who defected from the North as of February, and the Seoul government believes the number will exceed 200,000 in five years.

Yonhap
4/10/2007

South and North Korea on Tuesday agreed to dispatch a joint team to China to disinter and repatriate the remains of a prominent independence fighter buried there.

They will also push to organize joint commemorative events for the 100th anniversary of the death of the freedom fighter An Jung-geun in 2010, according to a statement released by the Unification Ministry.

The agreement came at the end of the one-day working-level talks held in the North Korean border city of Kaesong. The talks were resumed after a 13-month hiatus.

“The joint excavation team will be sent to China for about a month beginning in late April. We will work out details for the dispatch later at the truce village of Panmunjom,” the statement said.

An was executed in Dalian in 1910, a year after assassinating Hirobumi Ito, Japan’s first resident-general in Korea, on a railway platform in Harbin. His remains are still buried near a former prison run by Japanese authorities in Dalian.

An’s assassination of Hirobumi was an attempt to prevent Japan’s annexation of Korea, but the Korean Peninsula was formally colonized by Japan from 1910 to 1945.

During the Japanese colonial period, millions of Koreans are believed to have been killed or sent into forced labor, including sexual servitude for the Japanese military.

The South Korean delegation was headed by Lee Byeong-gu, director general of the Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs, while Chon Chong-su, deputy bureau chief of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland led the North Korean team.

Choson Ilbo
4/9/2007

“Why are so many crosses out there?” “Why do most children wear glasses?” “Can I see your mobile phone?” These were just a few of the many questions North Korea’s youth football squad had over the weekend. On the pitch, they are not different from young South Korean players. But moving around by bus or train, they were full of curiosity about the things they saw. Twenty-three members of the under-17 football team have been staying in South Korea for 20 days.

Many questions
The lobby of the Suncheon Royal Tourist Hotel at 9 a.m. on Saturday. The North Korean soccer squad look trim in their black uniform, shoes in hand. They had countless questions for the South Korean officials of the Sports Exchange Association accompanying them. “What is the cross for?”, one asks, and when told asks again, “What is a church?” The answer seemed to baffle them. When an official explained that many young South Koreans wear glasses because they use computers a lot, one team member said, “In North Korea, only few children and scholars who read lots of books wear glasses.”

The players were particularly taken by mobile phones. They wondered how people could make calls without lines and play games or take pictures with their phones. Whenever officials from the association used their mobile phones, the North Korean youngsters gathered to see their phones.

When shown magazine photos and asked to pick the most beautiful among actresses, Jeon Ji-hyun, Song Hye-gyo and Beyonce Knowles, they chose Beyonce Knowles, still insisted they didn’t care.

◆ They enjoyed playing chess and cards when taking a rest.

The squad had three meals in their hotel restaurant and only left the hotel for training for three hours in the morning and afternoon. In the hotel, they spent most of the rest of their time playing Chinese card games and chess. They did not watch TV except football games. When the team was moving to Suncheon by bus, one player started reading a memoir by former North Korean leader Kim Il-sung, and others asked to borrow it.

Ri Chan-myong, the head of the North Korean youth squad, and the other eight North Korean officials accompanying them drank together with South Korean officials of the sports exchange association. The North Korean officials drank a lot, finishing off 200 bottles of soju or Korean distilled liquor during their 11 days in Jeju.

◆ “I miss my parents”

Five members got wounds in the middle of training. Those players sometimes said, “I miss my parents.” North Korean soccer players, who did not talk much when they first arrived in Jeju, began talking on the third days. At first, North Korean soccer squad ate only Kimbab(rice rolled in dried laver) and Kimchi, now they eat sushi, sliced raw fish, cake and fruits such as banana, apple and pineapple. North Korean soccer squad will move to Seoul on April twelfth and depart for North Korea on twentieth after having a friendly match on fourteenth. Kim Kyung-sung, chief executive member of the South and North Korean Sports Exchange Association, said, “North Korean soccer team is considering going out before they leave but nothing is confirmed.”

Daily NK
Kang Jae Hyok
4/9/2007

Since the nuclear experiment last year trade between North Korea and China had dwindled. However, lately, business is prospering thanks to the friendly moods between the U.S. and North Korea. Nonetheless, the frequent change in customs officers and their unreasonable requests are disturbing the businessmen.

Some Chinese merchants travel into and out of North Korea everyday, or at the least every couple of days. One businessman, Han Chul Ryong (pseudonym, Korean-Chinese, 42) who had recently visited North Korea for business, expressed his feelings in a concerned voice in a telephone conversation with the DailyNK on the 6th.

Han currently lives in Jilian and has been trading goods with North Korea for 4 years now. With a 2.5 ton truck, he imports and sells North Korean seafood and herbal medicines in China.

Han said, “Nowadays, I don’t want to trade anymore because of the customs officers. They make our lives so difficult… It’s like they have some sort of steel plate over their faces or something. They have no dignity, nothing.”

He added, “Customs officers are so competitive and make so many demands that I cannot remember them all unless it is written down in a notebook. They request a variety of goods such as food, fruits, medicine and electronic goods. Alcohol and cigarettes are a must.”

Another tradesman, Kim Chan Joo (pseudonym) who was traveling with Han said, “Some customs officers go as far as demanding materials for home renovations such as cement, iron rods, window panes, windows, doors and nails.”

When asked what kind of privileges customs officers give after receiving bribes, Kim responded, “Of courses there are privileges… Sometimes they reduce taxes or place a blind eye to goods that should not pass through.”

He said, “There is a saying, ‘A cow fed also gives dung.’ A customs officer who has been fed bribes cannot possibly enforce strict control” and added, “Though customs officers have helped increase trade, as time goes by, the standard of their demands are also rising.”

“That’s not the only annoying problem. After going to all that trouble developing friendly relations with customs officers, they are replaced by new ones and hence there are many losses… It takes double time and money to acquire friendly relations with newly replaced customs officers,” Kim said.

Being a customs officer is considered one of the upper middle-class jobs in North Korea. Unlike an average office worker, customs officers are treated similar to the army. The National Safety Agency is even in charge of some of the customs officers.

Often these people are greedy to accumulate funds for retirement or for their children and as a result, try to gather as much as they can while in office. Even in a chaotic North Korea society, the position of customs officer is considered the yolk of an egg. Consequently, officers go to all means to confiscate as much money as they can from Chinese tradesmen and relatives visiting family.

North Korean authorities are strengthening control over customs officers, however it is difficult to obliterate the problem as it is so deeply rooted. Rather, than the situation dying out, it seems that their unreasonable attitude will increase.

If a customs officer makes receives too many anonymous complaints, he/she is given a warning or penalty. When the situation worsens, the customs officer is then demoted to a different office or in the worse case, dismissed from duty.

Recently, it seems that North Korean authorities have become more aware of the situation and are making efforts to enforce control. One method is removing the officers who are dependent on this corrupt system to different locations.

Han said, “If customs officers don’t do this, it is hard for them to eat and live… Though the demands by Chosun customs officers are increasing by the day, in order to trade there is no other way.”

Korea Times
4/9/2007

A Laotian government official has demanded that a Japanese nongovernmental organization seeking the release of three North Korean teenagers from a Laotian prison pay $1,000 in cash per detainee, Kyodo News reported Sunday.

The Japanese news agency quoted Hiroshi Kato, chairman of the Life Funds for North Korean Refugees, as saying that the Tokyo-based group has rejected the idea of paying, but it is concerned Laos could accede to Pyongyang’s demands and extradite the three youths to North Korea.

According to Kato, the three detainees are a 17-year-old girl, a 14-year-old girl and a 12-year-old boy, all from North Hamgyong Province in northeastern North Korea.

They smuggled themselves into China in the early 2000s after suffering food shortages, the death of their parents and other hardships in their homeland. Now they hope to find exile in the United States.

The children were caught by Laotian border security officials in November as they were crossing the Mekong River in an attempt to go to Thailand via Laos, said Kato, who met them in a prison in Vientiane.

They were given a three-month prison term for illegal entry into Laos. Although the three months have passed, they are still being detained, Kyodo quoted Kato as saying.

Kato’s group contacted the Laotian government to become guarantors for the youths and was told by a government official they could be handed over to the Japanese group for $1,000 each.

The NGO decided to reject the request, fearing it would set a bad example in seeking the protection of North Korean refugees in Laos.

But the group is concerned that a North Korean consul, which visited the prison Friday, will demand that Vientiane deport the three to North Korea.

Korea Times
Andrei Lankov
4/8/2007

It is a sort of commonplace statement that the U.S. forces which landed in Korea in early September 1945 had almost no local knowledge and no plans of what they were going to do. But it is sometimes stated, that the Soviet forces which had arrived two weeks earlier had some plans. Such statements are especially common on the political right. This is understandable: Human beings tend to see themselves as disorganized and unprepared while believing that their opponents possess diabolic foresight and an uncanny ability to exercise the utmost control over events. Fortunately or not, such a perception, the basis of all conspiracy theories, is usually wrong.

So did the Soviets have a plan when their forces fought their way to Korea in mid-August 1945? Obviously, not. At least this is what I can say from my frequent talks with the participants of those events, and also from the papers which I have seen.

Actually, Korea did not feature prominently in Soviet international strategy before 1945. For decades, Moscow’s policy toward Korea was subordinated to what appeared to be much more important _ its relations with China and Japan. The Soviet Union secretly subsidized and supported the Communist movement in colonial Korea, but this was a relatively small-scale operation seen, first and foremost, as a part of the larger efforts to undermine the Japanese empire.

The situation was exacerbated by Stalin’s Great Purge of the late 1930s. Before that, the Soviet citizens of Korean extraction played a prominent role in formulating the Soviet policy toward the peninsula. However, in the great slaughter of the bureaucrats and military officers that took place in the late 1930s, ethnic Koreans enjoyed especially bad survival chances. Their ethnicity made them suspicious, and few of them survived the bloodbath of 1937-38. As a result, the Soviet Foreign ministry, intelligence agencies, and armed forces lost what little Korea-related expertise they had possessed in earlier days. Those people who were responsible for the Korean policy in the 1920s and early 1930s were mostly shot or had died in various prisons by 1940.

There was also another reason for the Soviet reluctance to draw up plans for the political future of Korea. Nobody expected that the victory over Japan would be that swift. The Soviet military remembered their protracted and bloody battles with the Japanese during the undeclared border wars of the late 1930s, and so they were prepared for a campaign that would drag for many months.

However, the Japanese military machine collapsed in a week. Western readers believe that the reason was the nuclear attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki _ a claim that was never particularly popular in Russia. Irrespective of their contribution to the outcome of the war, the nuclear bombs hardly changed much in Manchuria and North Korea. The Russian forces had experienced engagement with the Nazis in Europe, while the Japanese troops in the area were weakened by frequent withdrawals of their best forces to the Pacific theater.

Thus, in late August 1945 the Soviet generals suddenly found themselves responsible for a large territory of which they knew almost nothing. The army had few Korean speaking interpreters, and virtually no local political intelligence. Not only was it the local army headquarters that was lacking in this regard, even Moscow itself had only vague ideas about the political forces active in Korea _ and even this inadequate knowledge was largely about Seoul, not the areas of the North.

In the greater context of the post-war world, the future of Korea remained undetermined. The Kremlin expected that its relations with the U.S. would deteriorate ? on the generally correct assumption that any major victory brings about a greater rivalry between the winners.

However, the shape and intensity of this confrontation remained to be seen. In those days, the Soviets also felt a profound insecurity about Japan: the rebirth of Japan as a great power was seen as a potential threat, so Stalin wanted to make sure that Japan would never be able to threaten the Russian Far East if it somehow regained its military and/or economic power in a distant future. Thus, uprooting the Japanese influence in Korea was a major task for the Soviet leaders.

Thus, in late August, the Soviet forces had quite nebulous tasks in front of them. They wanted to ensure law and order (incidentally, threatened first and foremost by their own soldiers), get rid of the Japanese influence, and lay the groundwork for a future friendly Korean government.

The first instructions arrived only in late September, when Stalin sent his famous secret cable to Korea. His cable envisioned a “bourgeois democratic government” for the Soviet zone of occupation, and explicitly warned against attempts to export Communism to Korea. The cable obviously talked about a government in the North, and this can be seen as the first sign of future division. Nonetheless, this was only the first step: Coherent ideas about Korea’s future developed in the Kremlin only in early 1946.

The “September cable” also implied that the Soviets would have to cooperate with the local Right _ and indeed they soon recruited Cho Man-sik, a prominent Christian nationalist _ to act as a leader of the local administration.

KCNA
4/8/2007

General Secretary Kim Jong Il received a letter of thanks from the Central Standing Committee of the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryon) on April 8 on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the remittance of educational aid fund and stipends to the children of Koreans in Japan by President Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il.

The education aid fund and stipends sent by the President 50 years ago served as life-giving water that brought the national education in an alien land into bloom and an engine that dynamically pushed forward Chongryon and the movement of Koreans in Japan, the letter said, and continued:

The Koreans in Japan could usher in a heyday of national education by displaying patriotic enthusiasm in all fields with the high honor and pride of being overseas citizens of the DPRK led by the immensely kind-hearted and wise President and conduct a more vigorous patriotic movement centered on the national education after building modern Korean schools in different parts of Japan.

Over the past five decades since then, the warm love and care shown by the President have shed more brilliant rays under your loving care and the educational aid fund and stipends sent by you keep the great flower garden of national education in fuller bloom.

Recalling that Kim Jong Il has wisely led the national education of Koreans in Japan, regarding it as a lifeline for the movement of Koreans in Japan, the letter noted that thanks to his guidance they have firmly preserved the soul of Koreans and led a worthwhile life as the overseas citizens of the DPRK generation after generation even in terror-ridden Japan where national persecution and phobia about Koreans prevail.

We Koreans in Japan will cherish the faith that we are sure to emerge victorious as long as we are led by you and wage a more vigorous patriotic movement, decisively frustrating the heinous moves of the Japanese right-wing reactionaries by the force of single-minded unity and thus greet with pride the 21st congress of Chongryon as one of victors, one of unity and put the movement of Koreans in Japan on a new higher level, the letter concluded.

Daily NK
Kim Song A
4/6/2007

Aid for North Korea to prevent further spread of outbreak

The spread of foot and mouth disease that took over the province of Sangwon, Pyongyang has been brought under control announced the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) on the 4th, further adding that future endemics were improbable.

The FAO and the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) conducted tests over a period of one week inspecting the infected areas of North Korea.

The FAO Newsroom site reported Chief Veterinary Officer, Joseph Domenech who said, “Based on the mission’s visit to the infected area and discussions with North Korean veterinary authorities we concluded that there is a limited risk that new outbreaks could occur.” Nonetheless, North Korea is yet to remain on the alert list he said.

In relation, the DailyNK made similar reports in February on the rise of foot and mouth disease in the border regions of North Hamkyung province and control measures taken by North Korean authorities to block further contamination.

The disease was identified in cows of Hoiryeong city in early January. Consequently, North Korean authorities secluded the region for 40 days until Feb 24th, even terminating all transportation to the North Korea-China border.

The FAO is preparing a proposal to prevent further epidemics by assisting North Korea with vaccines, an emergency plan as well as laboratory infrastructure and training.

In future, North Korea will need to strengthen its system where animals are registered and identifiable as well as improving quarantine and controlled supervision of animals during transportation.

This epidemic was the first to occur in North Korea since 1960. So far, 400 infected cattle and 2,600 pigs have been rounded up and are undergoing the standard regulatory procedures.

Previously on March 28th, the South Korean government sent 280 mn won worth of medicine, antiseptic and instruments to North Korea to prevent further outbreak. Additionally, extra supplies requested by the North including sterilization are being prepared to be sent.

Yonhap
4/6/2007

South Korea sent $400,000 in cash to North Korea Friday via the country’s Red Cross officials to help the North purchase computers and other supplies for video-link reunions of families between the two Koreas, officials said.

This is the first time for the Seoul government to send cash aid to the communist North, though bilateral trade exceeded $1 billion for the second consecutive year last year.

“Officials from the National Red Cross left for North Korea Thursday on a boat, carrying funds for the North’s video reunion center,” an official from the Ministry of Unification told reporters on condition of anonymity.

The boat carrying the South Korean officials, as well as 50 construction trucks promised to the impoverished North as aid for its flood damages last year, left Incheon on Friday.

The boat arrived at the North’s Nampo Port earlier Friday, according to ministry officials.

The money is to be used to purchase computers and TV monitors needed for the special kind of reunions between separated families via video conferencing.

North and South Korea have held more than a dozen rounds of face-to-face reunions since the historic inter-Korean summit in 2000, involving over 10,000 people from both sides.

However, over 90,000 South Koreans remain separated from their loved ones in the North since the end of the Korean War in 1953.

“We had no choice (but to give cash) because we could not provide actual goods,” most of which are prohibited from entering the communist nation under the U.S. law on the control of strategic goods, an official said.

Yonhap
4/6/2007

Labor union members of the two Koreas will get together in the South Korean industrial city of Changwon for Labor Day on May 1, organizers said Friday.

This is the first time that the labor unions of the two Koreas, separated by the heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone, have organized such a rally in South Korea, although they have held similar events at the North’s scenic Mount Geumgang along the east coast and in Pyongyang.

The agreement on the rally was reached at a meeting of labor union representatives in the North Korean border town of Kaesong Thursday. They agreed to hold the joint May Day festival in Changwon, 398 kilometers southeast of Seoul, on April 29-May 2.

The festival will feature a friendly soccer match, a tour of historic sites and meetings of labor union leaders.

“It would be the first inter-Korean May Day festival ever to be held in South Korea,” said Kim Myeong-ho, a chief planning official of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, one of the South’s two umbrella labor unions co-hosting the event.

The North Korean co-host is the Pyongyang-based General Federation of Trade Unions.

It is one of the achievements of rapprochement between the divided Koreas following the historic inter-Korean summit of June 2000, in which the leaders of the two Koreas signed an agreement on cross-border peace and reconciliation.