North Korean Economy Watch

Version 5: Download it here (on Google Earth) 

This map covers North Korea’s agriculture, aviation, cultural locations, manufacturing facilities, railroad, energy infrastructure, politics, sports venues, military establishments, religious facilities, leisure destinations, and national parks. It is continually expanding and undergoing revisions. This is the fifth version.

Additions to the latest version of “North Korea Uncovered” include updates to new Google Earth overlays of Sinchon, UNESCO sites, Railroads, canals, and the DMZ, in addition to Kim Jong Suk college of eduation (Hyesan), a huge expansion of the electricity grid (with a little help from Martyn Williams) plus a few more parks, antiaircraft sites, dams, mines, canals, etc.

Disclaimer: I cannot vouch for the authenticity of many locations since I have not seen or been to them, but great efforts have been made to check for authenticity. These efforts include pouring over books, maps, conducting interviews, and keeping up with other peoples’ discoveries. In many cases, I have posted sources, though not for all. This is a thorough compilation of lots of material, but I will leave it up to the reader to make up their own minds as to what they see. I cannot catch everything and I welcome contributions.

I hope this map will increase interest in North Korea. There is still plenty more to learn, and I look forward to receiving your additions to this project.

Frontline Club (h/t Kitten Wars)
1/17/2007

Paul French, Director of Access Asia–a market research and business intelligence company specialising in China and North Asia’s economics and markets, spoke to the Economist’s Simon Long about what he has witnessed and learned about North Korea.

He focuses mainly on his perceptions of the US/DPRK relationship, but he also talks about the difficulties of bringing investment capital into the DPRK.

Click on “Frontline club” at the top of the picture above to see the video.

Korea Times
Andrei Lankov
8/26/2007

Many people know that the official North Korean ideology is called “juche.” But what exactly does this term mean? Furthermore, when and how did it develop?

If we look at a reference book, we will probably come across a statement like “juche or self-reliance, the official ideology of North Korea, was first promulgated by Kim Il-sung in 1955.” While not completely wrong, this definition needs a lot of qualifications.

Indeed, December 1955 was the first instance of Kim Il-sung mentioning the term “juche.” North Korean publications remain vague to this day in describing exactly who Kim Il-sung addressed with his “juche speech,” but contemporaneous Soviet materials seemingly indicate that this was not just a meeting of “Party propaganda workers”, but a gathering of the KWP high-level functionaries who came to listen to Kim’s denunciations of the country’s excessive dependence on the Soviet models in culture and ideology.

However, the “juche speech” can be seen as a starting point in the history of the term only with some major caveats. The 1955 speech remained secret for the next few years, but it was distributed among party cadres, including journalists. Having scrutinized the North Korean newspapers from that period in depth, and being acquainted with the text of the speech, I have seen a number of hidden quotations circa 1956. However, the word `juche’ did not feature prominently in these quotations. In fact, it was hardly mentioned at all. For the journalists and propagandists, the key words of Kim’s speech were `dogmatism’ and `formalism’ which hinted at the excessive use of foreign, that is to say Soviet and Chinese, methods. In 1956 or 1957 nobody, including probably Kim Il Sung himself, thought that juche was going to become the name of the country’s official secular faith.

And what does `juche’ mean? Contrary to the commonly repeated idea, it has nothing to do with `self-reliance’. Juche is a Sino-Korean word, a combination of two Chinese characters that are used in all languages of the region. It means `subject’ or `one’s own identity’. When it was first used in 1955, Kim Il Sung meant that Koreans must assert their identity more aggressively against foreign pressures.

If so, where did the descriptive pseudo-translation of `self-reliance’ come from? In the early 1960s juche began to be re-defined as North Korea’s (or Kim Il-sung’s) own ideology. This happened against the backdrop of the growing Sino-Soviet split. Facing two quarrelling giants, North Korean began to advance its own brand of Marxism-Leninism, one that was allegedly superior to both the Soviet “revisionist” and Chinese “dogmatist” interpretations. At this stage juche was still interpreted as a local form of Marxism, or as a “creative application of the eternal truth of Marxism-Leninism to the North Korean reality.” Thus, juche began to acquire new dimensions and meanings.

This process culminated in April 1965 when Kim Il Sung delivered a lengthy speech in Indonesia. This speech was the first attempt to present the juche idea as a coherent ideology of worldwide significance. At that stage, it mostly targeted Third World countries. Kim Il Sung stressed that juche implied “independence in politics, self-reliance in the economy, self-defence in the military.” Hence, it was from that broadened understanding that the now commonly used “translation” of juche as “self-reliance” probably originated.

However, juche is more than self-reliance. In fact, it has much greater connotations with nationalism, and in later years when economic self-reliance, once much trumpeted in Pyongyang, went out of fashion, the nationalistic essence of juche became even more visible.

In 1972, juche acquired formal standing as the country’s official ideology. Article 4 of the new Constitution mentioned it alongside Marxism-Leninism as the `guiding ideology’ of the DPRK. Marxism survived _ not least due to diplomatic considerations. An open demotion of Marxism-Leninism would definitely trigger serious friction with fellow Communist countries, and thus Marxism temporarily lived on as an appendix to the North Korean state. Only in 1992, after the demise of the Communist bloc, was the reference to Marxism dropped, and juche remained the sole ideological foundation of the DPRK.

Frankly, I am sceptical when my colleagues try to explain North Korea’s actual policies as reflections of juche ideas. The definition of juche has changed so many times that it has essentially become a meaningless label encompassing everything the Kims’ considered useful or praiseworthy at any given stage of the country’s history. Perhaps, only the nationalist component has remained unchanged. But that is another story altogether.

Asia Times
Andrei Lankov
7/13/2007

Over the past couple of weeks, the small community of Seoul-based Pyongyang watchers was busy discussing a minor professional sensation. The Wolgan Chungang monthly, widely known for its good insights on all things North Korean, published a lengthy transcript of a speech, allegedly delivered last December, by a high-level Central Committee official. He was obviously talking to a group of prominent academics and engineers. The official’s name is cited as Chang Yong-sun, but he seems to be a complete unknown to the North Korea experts.

The authenticity of the transcript cannot be proved beyond doubt, but the Seoul expert community tends to believe that this tape was indeed secretly recorded somewhere in Pyongyang a few months ago and then smuggled to the South.

Being a former Soviet citizen, this author is inclined to believe this view as well. The tape rings true. This is how a high-level official would talk when lecturing lower layers of elite on the current situation, and such regular lectures were typical for many communist countries.

The semi-privileged met the bigwigs to get instructions on recent events, as well as some alleged insiders’ stories and anecdotes. The semi-privileged cadres felt themselves partaking in the enigmatic world of grand politics, and also learned something about the new trends in their leadership’s thinking about the world.

Most people who deal with “Chang’s lecture” concentrate on those parts of the lengthy presentation that deal with US-North Korea relations and the six-party talks on nuclear disarmament. Indeed, such issues are treated at great length by this document. Many others pay attention to rather unfavorable depictions of the Chinese or outbursts of threats against Japan.

However, I believe that there are more important things in the transcript than merely a North Korean version of what happened during former assistant secretary of state James Kelly’s visit to Pyongyang or during the first rounds of the six-party talks. The tape allows us to have one more glimpse at the world view held by the North Korean elite or, at least, by its lower reaches.

What are the features of the world as seen from Pyongyang? First of all, the significance of North Korea is blown out of all proportion. Somebody would describe this as Pyongyang megalomania, but perhaps author Bruce Cummings found a better term when he talked about “North Korean solipsism”, an assumption that North Korea lies at the center of the world, and that the world itself surely must be aware of this.

The North Korean press now tells its readers that the major international conflict of the modern world is the ongoing struggle between US imperialism and heroic North Korea. Chang Yong-sun even told his audience that the development of North Korean missiles has produced a serious impact on the public-health issues in the US: “Nobody can intercept our missiles now. All the people in the US are aware of this.

“This is why all the people in the United States are completely allergic to missiles of our republic. Once they learn that we test-fired missiles, they become so worried about the rockets changing their directions and exploding over them and killing them, so they develop nervous diseases and nettle rash breaks out all over their bodies. This is what is happening in the United States.”

One should not feel too sorry about the bastards, however. According to the official North Korean world view, once again reiterated by Comrade Chang, the US is responsible for everything that goes badly in Korea, and the constant military threat from the warmongering Washington is the major fact of North Korean life.

The audience was reminded that in 1950 it was the Americans who attacked North Korea, bringing death and destruction to the country (this official version of 1950 events seems to be almost universally believed by North Koreans). This great crime of 1950 has not been avenged yet, Comrade Chang reminded his listeners.

Many people in the US want to believe that such hostility stemmed from President George W Bush’s policies, but Comrade Chang reminded his audience a number of times that there is no real difference between the Republicans and Democrats: both US parties are pathologically hostile to the Country of the Beloved General. The differences between them are of a purely tactical nature, Chang Yong-sun told his audience. He said Republicans rely more on brute force, while Democrats are more canny and more willing to use ideological subversion and economic pressures.

Chang Yong-sun repeated a number of times that the major threat from the US is not that of a sudden military attack. The imperialists are not that simplistic: these days their major weapon is internal subversion. He said: “Although it appears as if the Americans do good things to us, their real nature has not changed at all. Their primary objective is, from start to finish, to undermine us from within and melt us down by disarming us ideologically.”

Chang Yong-sun repeated the message that has been delivered countless times by North Korean leaders big and small: the ideological threat of the outside world constitutes a greater danger than all imaginable military threats. He alleged that the foreign enemies have designed some grand plan of subversion. Chang said specially designated think-tanks work on this issue day and night. If his fantasies are to be believed, one of such centers is somewhere in Washington and employs no fewer than 370 retired generals whose only job is to find ways to undermine North Korea from within.

Being an enthusiastic supporter of soft power, the present author knows perfectly well that there is no coordinated plan of applying soft pressure on Pyongyang. The amount of money and efforts spent on broadcasts aimed at North Korea, on support of refugee groups and other similar activities, is ridiculously small. It is a dream to have a US research center specifically dealing with North Korean issues and stuffed with even, say, five post-doctoral candidates (let alone with 370 ex-generals).

But this raises a question: If this the case, why do Pyongyang politicians keep repeating similar statements? Why do they refer to a non-existent threat? Perhaps because they know what they should be really afraid of. They know only too well how potentially precarious against such a challenge their position is, and they probably cannot even believe that their adversaries fail to appreciate the major vulnerability of Pyongyang and do nothing to exploit the related opportunities. Comrade Chang would be really surprised to learn how weak and disorganized are actual efforts of the “class enemies” in the area that he (perhaps correctly) considers decisive.

Some twists of Pyongyang’s official mindset might come as a surprise to many readers. For example, Comrade Chang found a source of great pride in the North Korean penchant for secrecy. He used one peculiar example to explain why this secretiveness is great. According to him, the Americans defeated the Iraqis because they imitated the voice of Saddam Hussein and then sent fake orders to Iraqi troops in his name.

However, as he proudly reminded everyone, Marshal Kim Jong-il had spoken in public only once, so Americans will never find enough material for their perfidious schemes. The entire secrecy is necessary to keep foreigners at a disadvantage: “A long time ago, the Great General taught us to make sure that our internal things appears to be hazy as if covered by fog when the Americans spy on us. So we have made sure that internal things of our country appear really hazy as if in a fog when our country was viewed from outside.”

It is remarkable that the country’s economic woes are explained in a novel way, which was made possible by the nuclear test. Until 2006, North Koreans were supposed to believe that the only reasons for the recent famine were huge floods that “might happen only once a century”. Now it is admitted that the government needed money for missile and nuclear development, and hence had no other choice but to sacrifice some people to save the nation.

Chang Yong-sun said: “To be frank with you, even if one sells 50 plants as large as Kim Ch’aek Steel Mill, the money is not enough to develop a missile. During the ‘arduous march’ [Pyongyang-speak for the famine of the late 1990s], if there [was] a bit of money, it had to be spent on developing missiles, even though the generals knew that factories did not work and people were starving. This is why we have survived, and were not eaten up by those bastards. Had it not been like this, the bastards would have eaten us a long time ago.”

This line of argument is psychologically more powerful than the earlier version. Nowadays, people’s suffering can be presented not as the result of some blind misfortune caused by nature, but as a part of heroic sacrifice. People died because their country was at war and needed everything to save itself from complete destruction by the brutal enemy. Their deaths were those of heroes.

Such a change of tune is indeed typical of North Korean propaganda during the past few months. However, it might have some political consequences. This propaganda line makes it more difficult to surrender nuclear weapons even if such a notion will ever be seriously entertained by Pyongyang. If North Korea chooses to give up its nuclear arsenal, these sacrifices will be rendered meaningless.

Another propaganda line is that now people should expect a certain improvement of their lot, since the major work has been done: “Now we have conducted a nuclear test and other things, so we have to improve the people’s living standards by concentrating on economic construction.”

Still, Comrade Chang does not want his audience to entertain an excessively optimistic picture of their country’s future. Improvement will be minor and, as one might guess from some other parts of the speech, is likely to be limited to, say, complete reintroduction of Kim Il-sung-era consumer standards, which were not exactly luxurious (550 grams or cereal a day, plus a few pieces of meat on special occasions, four or five times a year).

Chang Yong-sun explained that North Korean industry is surely capable of producing quality consumption goods but cannot do it, because the ever present threat of an imperialist attack deems austerity and sacrifices necessary. He also made clear that his listeners should not await serious improvement of their lot any time soon.

The statement resonates very well with what another life-long analyst of North Korean propaganda, Tatiana Gabroussenko, wrote recently: unlike earlier eras when masses were extolled to make sacrifices for the sake of some identifiable future, nowadays North Korean leaders tell their people that no significant improvement is in sight. Comrade Chang even made a joke of this: “Since the end of the Korean War, we have lived with our belts tightened … One thing I can assure you: we’ll have to live with our belts tightened until the day our country is unified. If we do not have any more holes in our belts, let us make them.”

However, the audience was reminded that in the final count it is again the foreign forces who are to be blamed for these hardships. To quote Comrade Chang once again: “It is not because we do not know how to live better that we are not well off. Who is responsible for this? The US imperialists are responsible for this. That is why we call the US imperialists our mortal enemy with whom we cannot live under the same sky!”

Most of the speech consisted of US-bashing and Japan-bashing, but what about South Korea? Here Comrade Chang used the new tactics that have become typical for North Korean propagandists since the 2002 inter-Korea summit. Brian Myers, another remarkable specialist on North Korean culture and propaganda (not quite distinguishable areas, actually), recently wrote at length about a change of tune in Pyongyang propaganda: South Korea ceased to be depicted as the living hell, the land of depravation. The new image of the South is that of the country whose population secretly (or even not so secretly) longs to join its Northern brethren in their happiness under the wise care of the Beloved General.

This society might be relatively affluent, but it is inherently corrupt and lacks integrity, so its population knows that the only way to regain the moral purity is to join the spiritually superior North Korean civilization. The only force that prevents the South from achieving such happiness is the brutal US occupation army and a tiny handful of traitors on the Central Intelligence Agency payroll, but even those perverts are losing control over South Korean society.

Sometimes Chang’s fantasies went positively wild. He said, for example: “A portrait of the General is [respectfully] placed on the wall of the Main Hall on the fourth floor at the [Seoul] Government Building. Right now!” Then the flight of fantasy goes even further: “These days, South Korean publications do not sell in South Korean society if they do not carry the images of the General … 45% of the entire population in South Korea say that in case of a war they will fight on the side of the General.”

The domestic situation did not attract much of Chang Yong-sun’s attention, but he still made some comments on these issues. He admitted that even last December, in spite of all the government’s efforts, it was impossible to provide rations for the entire population, and that most people had to rely on the market for their needs, which is not good but was unavoidable.

He also explicitly stated that growth of the markets is not compatible with the socialist system: “All the people’s talk is money and again money. Is this socialism?” It is remarkable, however, that the virtues of socialism were seldom mentioned in the speech: its rhetoric was overwhelmingly nationalistic.

Chang Yong-sun also admitted that some North Koreans are very rich, and that their fortunes are now measured as a few hundred million North Korean won (100 million won is roughly equivalent to US$50,000). He did not make a secret that under less critical conditions the government would strike these reactionary elements hard, but under the current circumstances such a radical solution is impossible because of ongoing economic difficulties.

In essence, he admitted that government is not capable of controlling society as tightly as it wishes (or as it used to in the good old days of Kim Il-sung’s ultra-Stalinist rule): “Those ideological perverts are no longer counted as our people. Why are we not able to strike [them]? We are not able to strike them because we are not able to provide rations to the entire population.”

So the picture is quite clear. North Korea as depicted by Comrade Chang is a small but proud state that lives under the constant threat of annihilation by brutal enemies, betrayed by money-hungry allies. It fights for a great goal of national unification. There are signs that this goal is getting nearer, but people should not expect too much: life will not become easy any time soon.

Compromise with enemies is impossible since they, especially the Americans, will never change their nature, will never stop dreaming about destroying the small and proud republic led by the Beloved General. However, the country has finally developed military means that make all enemies’ schemes powerless. This project required great sacrifice, but the people who died during famine were in essence soldiers: their deaths saved many more lives.

There are internal problems in this society, largely because the government lacks resources to make sure things move smoothly (and it is assumed that government should be ultimately responsible for everything). However, these problems should not distort the larger view of ongoing heroic struggle and new victories.

Dr Andrei Lankov is an associate professor in Kookmin University, Seoul, and adjunct research fellow at the Research School of Pacifica and Asian Studies, Australian National University. He graduated from Leningrad State University with a PhD in Far Eastern history and China, with emphasis on Korea. He has published books and articles on Korea and North Asia.

Korea Times
Andrei Lankov
7/8/2007

Nowadays, the severity of famine appears to be a thing of the past _ at least outside Africa. Indeed, modern technology makes it possible to feed crowded cities almost effortlessly. Thus, any reports of famine nowadays can be argued to be the direct result of mismanagement and deliberate political decisions. The recent North Korean famine of 1996-2000 vividly demonstrates this and supports such a theory.

Stalinist agriculture has never been very efficient. The lack of incentive makes it sluggish and wasteful. However, in some cases, the heavy investments in machinery and fertilizers did, in fact, help to overcome some of the deficiencies created by the inept social system.

This was the case in North Korea. In the late 1950s all North Korean farmers were herded into the so-called “agricultural co-operatives.’’ While less restrictive than the “people’s communes’’ in Mao’s China, they imposed a harsher control than Stalin’s “kolkhozs.’’

The North Korean government invested heavily in agriculture. Its efforts produced a remarkably energy-intensive agricultural system. Electric pumps were running huge irrigation projects; chemical fertilizers and tractors were used on a grand scale. In attempts to reclaim arable land, steep hills were made into terrace fields. These fields, endorsed by Kim Il-sung himself, remained the poster image of North Korean agriculture until the mid-1990s.

Initially these efforts seemingly paid off. In the 1980s North Korea produced some 5-6 million tons of grain (largely, rice and maize) a year. Its population never enjoyed anything like the present-day South Korean abundance: meat or fruits were rare delicacies. Nonetheless, the 6 million tons of grain was sufficient to feed the country’s population. This was done through the rationing system. Depending on one’s position in the complicated hierarchy of social groups, daily rations varied from 500 to 900 grams per adult _ sufficient to provide enough calories.

But in 1991 the situation changed. The much trumpeted “self-reliance’’ of North Korea proved to be a complete fake. The Soviet decision to discontinue sales of oil and other goods at hugely discounted prices wrought havoc in the country’s economy. The agricultural sector was especially vulnerable, since without the heavy input of energy and resources it stood no chance of survival. Tractors required diesel oil, which was not forthcoming, and electric pumps could not operate when power stations were idle due to a shortage of spare parts.

In 1992-1993 the North Korean media began to argue the benefits of having only two meals a day as opposed to the traditional three, claiming the latter was unhealthy and excessive. By 1994, people in some remote areas could not get food for days at a time. They were issued the usual rationing coupons, but no foodstuffs were available in the shops. Rations were also cut. These were signs of things to come.

However, the North Korean government did not follow the example of China or Vietnam, where the return to private agriculture led to an instant revival in food production. In the early 1990s the Pyongyang leaders saw how the reformist Communist governments of East Europe had been wiped out, and they considered any reform potentially dangerous to their own survival. Thus, no reform was undertaken, and in the years 1992-1995 agricultural production continued its free fall.

And then the real catastrophe came. In July and August 1995 unusually heavy rains led to disastrous floods. The North Korean authorities blamed the floods for all subsequent developments. In the aftermath of the disaster, they even decided to break with the decades-old tradition of covering or playing down all the problems of their country. Pyongyang stated that some 5.4 million people had been displaced by the 1995 floods (the subsequent U.N. survey indicated that the actual figure was much smaller _ probably, by an order of ten). Politically, this was understandable: if the country was hit by a natural disaster of unprecedented proportions, the authorities were not to be held responsible!

There is, however, good reason to doubt these statements. After all, the Korean Peninsular is small, but impact of the very same floods on the South was negligible. However, the contribution of the flood to the disaster is undeniable. The already strained power grid was destroyed, and entire irrigation systems were wiped out. Most of the terrace fields, the pride of the “juche agriculture,’’ were simply washed away.

In 1996, the country harvested some 3 million tons of grain _ just above half the pre-crisis level. This meant famine. It was to last for four years and take between half million and one million lives.

For international readers: The Congressional Research Service is an organization that puts together issue briefs and legislative histories for congressional staff.  They are one of the first places US Congressional staff go to learn about a topic.

In April, the Congressional Research Service published a document on the North Korean Economy.  The full report, as well as some past reports, can be downloaded here.

Executive Summary

This report provides an overview of the economy of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) or North Korea, its external economic relations, attempts at reform, and U.S. policy options. Along with the United States, North Korea’s major trading partners — China, Japan, South Korea, and Russia — form the socalled “six parties,” who are engaged in talks, currently restarted, to resolve issues raised by the DPRK’s development of nuclear weapons.

The economy of North Korea is of interest to Congress because it provides the financial and industrial resources for Pyongyang to develop its military, can be used as leverage in negotiations, constitutes an important “push factor” for potential refugees seeking to flee the country, creates pressures for the country to trade in arms and illegal drugs, is a rationale for humanitarian assistance, is tied to Pyongyang’s nuclear program, and creates instability that affects South Korea and China. The North Korean threat to sell nuclear weapons material could be driven in part by Pyongyang’s need to generate export earnings. The dismal economic conditions also foster forces of discontent that potentially could turn against the Kim regime — especially if knowledge of the luxurious lifestyle of communist party leaders becomes better known or as the poor economic performance hurts even Pyongyang’s elite.

Economic conditions in North Korea currently seem to be improving but have been dismal for those out of the center of power. Mass starvation — eased only by international food aid and other humanitarian assistance — has stalked the countryside. Over the past 15 years, industrial production in North Korea has shrunk considerably. The country has embarked on a program of economic reforms that include raising wages, allowing prices to better reflect market values, reducing dependence on rationing of essential commodities, trimming back centralized control over factory operations, and opening foreign trade zones for international investment.

North Korea has extensive trading relationships with China and South Korea and more limited trade with Japan and Russia. Because of U.S. economic sanctions and lack of normal trade relations status, U.S. imports from North Korea in 2006 were nil, while U.S. exports consisted of $3,000 worth of books and newspapers.  The DPRK has been running an estimated $1.8 billion deficit per year in its international trade accounts that it funds primarily through receipts of foreign assistance and foreign investment as well as through various questionable activities, such as sales of weapons, transporting and producing illegal drugs, and counterfeiting brand name products and currency.

U.S.-led financial sanctions on North Korea have disrupted that country’s trade. In the six-party talks, economic assistance (including fuel oil) is a major bargaining chip. Economic policy options include increasing or easing economic sanctions, preventing shipments of illicit cargo, normalizing relations with Pyongyang, negotiating a trade agreement, allowing the DPRK to join international financial institutions, and removing the country from the terrorism list. This report will be updated as conditions warrant.

AFP
Philippe Agret
5/21/2007

After being ravaged by famine in the 1990s, North Korea again faces serious food shortages, with a UN official based here saying that politics are making things worse.

On the road from the capital Pyongyang to Kaesong in the south, every hill lot is developed for agriculture, with all farm work done by hand.

But only 17 percent of the land in North Korea is arable, one of the lowest ratios in the world, according to the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP).

“North Korea is suffering a chronic food shortage due to structural problems and limited food imports and food aid,” said Jean-Pierre de Margerie, the WFP’s representative in the communist state.

He lamented the international community’s lack of commitment to North Korea amid the deadlock in six-nation talks on disarming Pyongyang, and what some consider to be “hidden sanctions” linking a large part of aid to politics.

“There is no evidence that holding back food or humanitarian aid destined to civilian populations would have an impact on the government or its behaviour,” he said.

North Korea’s worst period came from 1995 to 1999 when drought, flooding and the disappearance of Soviet aid led to a famine that killed between 800,000 and two million people, according to independent estimates.

The scars of the famine still run deep, with a 2004 United Nations study finding that 37 percent of North Korean children suffered chronic malnutrition.

Some experts use the term “7, 8, 9, 10″ — as an adult, a seven-year-old born during the famine will be eight kilograms (18 pounds) lighter, stand nine inches (23 centimeters) shorter and live 10 years less than a South Korean of the same age.

The groups most at risk are young children and women who are pregnant or breastfeeding.

After a record harvest in 2005, 2006 was “very difficult” due to heavy floods in the summer and a dramatic drop in food aid and food imports; 2007 could also be dire, de Margerie warned.

Amid the international furore over Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile tests last year, China reduced its aid by half and        South Korea temporarily halted shipments.

Seoul has since resumed fertiliser aid and promised to provide 400,000 tons of rice to North Korea starting in late May.

But the food aid is linked to political conditions, such as Pyongyang shutting its nuclear reactor in line with a multilateral disarmament deal reached in February.

The impoverished country faces a shortfall of one million tons of food this year, or 20 percent of its needs, according to the WFP and the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation.

Up to one third of North Korea’s 23 million people may need assistance ahead of the next harvest, warns the WFP.

So is there a danger of another famine?

“No, not yet,” said de Margerie. “But if the trend continues, pockets of severe malnutrition could develop.”

In Pyongyang, not everyone is pessimistic as there is a lack of reliable agricultural data. Some observers say the problems lie in the distribution system and access to food, rather than in actual production.

North Korea’s leaders — whose ruling motto is “juche,” or self-reliance — say they have made food security their priority, but Pyongyang has nonetheless relied on foreign help.

The WFP has collected two billion dollars in 10 years, supplying four million tons of food between 1995 and 2005 that assisted one-third of North Korea in its biggest operation at the time.

Since 2001, multilateral aid from the WFP has been gradually replaced by assistance from China and South Korea. While bilateral aid goes to the government and may be distributed to the elite, the WFP says it closely monitors its aid so that it reaches those most in need.

This year, donor countries have promised only 12,000 tons of food.

The WFP has received only 20 percent of the financing for its programme up to March 2008, assisting three percent of the population, or 600,000 people, instead of the initial objective of reaching nearly two million North Koreans.

De Margerie says he hopes the international community will set aside political concerns to focus on the human tragedy unfolding in North Korea.

“You only see negative images of North Korea. But it has a human face,” he stressed.

“An eight-month-old child or pregnant woman does not engage in politics. It’s the most vulnerable in the civilian population who pay the price.”

Korea Times
Andrei Lankov
3/19/2007

Herbal medicine occupies a very prominent place in the North Korean health care system.
In fact, it would be but a minor exaggeration to say that nowadays the North Korean health care system is largely built around traditional herbal medicine.

But this was not always the case. In the early years, until the mid-1950s, herbal medicine was looked upon with disapproval.

It did not appear ‘scientific’ enough, and the Soviet educated doctors saw it as a potentially dangerous superstition.

The first signs of the coming change in attitude were in 1954 when the licensing system for herbal doctors was first introduced.

But the revival of herbal medicine began in earnest in April 1956, when the North Korean cabinet of ministers accepted Decree No. 37, which envisioned the incorporation of herbal medicine into the official medical system. At the same time, Kim Il-sung made a very positive reference to herbal medicine in his lengthy speech delivered to the KWP Third Congress. By the end of 1956, there were 10 herbal medicine centers operating across the country, and by 1960 the number had reached 332.

I think it was not without good reason that this sudden revival of the medical tradition took place in 1956. This was when the North began to steer itself away from its Soviet patron, whose new policy of de-Stalinization met with growing disapproval in Pyongyang. It was also the time when nationalist trends began to grow in the North _ partially because nationalism served the interests of Kim Il-sung and his group, but also because it resonated with the feelings and world view of common Koreans. This created a fertile soil for the rejuvenation of hitherto neglected traditions. It is not incidental that in later eras the initial rejection of herbal medicine came to be blamed on the ‘factionalists’ _ that is, people who did not share Kim Il-sung’s nationalism and his drive for heavy industry and a powerful army at all costs.

And there was another dimension as well. We have been accustomed to thinking of herbal medicine as more expensive than its Western counterpart, but back in the 1950s the opposite was the case. Generally, East Asian medicine, which relied on local herbs, tended to be cheaper and this mattered in a poor country with limited resources.

Around the same time, herbal medicine was encouraged by the South Korean authorities as well. They also saw it as a cheap palliative, a substitute for the “real” Western medicine which only a few South Koreans could afford.

And, last but not least, the basic ideas of herbal medicine resonated quite well with Kim Il-sung’s new policy of selfreliance.

In a sense, herbal medicine was an embodiment of self-reliance in health care.

Thus, the 1960s was a period of triumphal advance for Eastern medicine in the North. For a while herbalists were trained in junior colleges, but from 1960, Pyongyang medical college opened a traditional medicine department. A number of research centers were created with the task of fusing the achievements of Western and traditional medicine. From 1960, a state evaluation committee began to operate, and in that year 239 North Korean herbalists became “Eastern medicine doctors, first class,” while 1,495 had to satisfy themselves with their inferior standing of “Eastern medicine doctors, second class.”

Of course, the growth of herbal medicine was accompanied by claims about wonder drugs and miraculous discoveries, to which the Stalinist regimes were so vulnerable (suffice to remind ourselves of the Lysenko affair in the USSR, or the improbable claims of wonder harvests in Mao’s China).

But the domination of Dr. Kim Pong-han, North Korea’s Lysenko, lasted for merely six years. In 1960 he claimed that he had discovered a new principal type of centralized system in the human body, somewhat similar to a nerve system of blood circulation. There was much talk of this alleged discovery and related medical miracles, but from 1966 all references to Professor Kim suddenly disappeared from the Pyongyang press.

The subsequent decades witnessed a continuous growth in the herbal medicine endeavor, which frequently received direct encouragement and approval from the Great Leader himself (after all, Kim Il-sung’s father once was a part-time herbalist himself). The reasons for the policy remained the same, and even some statements by Kim Il-sung were remarkably frank.

In 1988 he said, “If we produce a lot of Koryo medicine drugs, it is good not only for curing diseases, but also for solving the drug problem, since it will reduce the importation of drugs from other countries.” More than a dozen colleges now train herbalists in the North, and from 1985 would-be Western doctors have also been required to take introductory classes in Eastern medicine.

Perhaps, in some post-unification world the North will become a major source of quality herbal doctors, and their presence will help to drive down prices for this service which many Koreans take so seriously. Who knows, but there are already North Korean herbalists working in the South.

Korea Times
Andrei Lankov
2/20/2007

In July 1997, the five most important government agencies of North Korea published a joint declaration which informed the North Korea populace and the entire world that the country was introducing a new calendar. The year 1912 became the First Year of Chuche. The reason? This was the year Kim Il-sung was born.

The decision allowed the occasional use of the Christian-era years, but these four-digit numbers would accompany the new official chronological designation only when deemed necessary. Thus 2006 AD is the Year 95 of the Chuche Era. In other words, Kim Il-sung’s birthday replaced that of Christ in the official North Korean calendar.

The world has seen other attempts to break with old calendar traditions. In France of the 1790s, the revolutionaries began to count years from the proclamation of the French Republic. In South Korea of the 1950s, the government tried to implement the so-called ‘Tangun Era.’ None of these attempts succeeded for more than a few decades.

However, the decision to introduce the Chuche Era was just one of the many manifestations of Kim Il-sung’s posthumous “personality cult.”

Indeed, the memory of the North Korea’s founding father is treated in Pyongyang with the utmost respect. Obviously, this was the intention of the dead founder when he chose to transform his country into the first communist monarchy in world history.

He saw what had happened to Stalin and Mao’s posthumous reputations, and arranged the transition of power within his family, so the new leaders have a vested interest in keeping the old man’s memory intact.

First of all, Kim Il-sung is to remain the country’s only president.

After his death, the President’s office was left vacant _ and is meant to remain vacant forever. Kim Il-sung is North Korea’s “eternal president” while Kim Jong-il runs the country not as president, but merely as “chairman of the national defense committee.”

Kim Il-sung’s body has been embalmed and left on public display in a special glass-covered coffin. Actually, in this regard they follow an established _ if bizarre _ communist tradition. Lenin’s body was treated in such a way in 1924 (against his own clearly expressed will), and since then many other communist leaders have had their bodies left on public display _ also often against their will.

However, the sheer size of the North Korean mausoleum is impressive. In other Communist countries, bodies of the dead leaders were held in specially constructed and relatively small _ if impressive _ buildings.

The North decided to transform the entire Presidential Palace into the mausoleum and major center of Kim Ilsung’s posthumous cult.

The construction of Kmsusan Palace began in 1974, and in 1977 it was presented to Kim Il-sung as a present for his 65th birthday. In Kim’s lifetime, the imposing building, with floor area of 35,000 square meters, was strictly off-limits to the public, but in recent years it has become the center of a government- sponsored pilgrimage.

Of course, portraits of Kim Il sung are everywhere, albeit often accompanied by images of Kim Jong-il and his mother Kim Jong-suk. From the late 1960s, the North Korean bureaucracy has developed intricate rules to determine where and how Kim Il-sung’s likeness would be displayed. I’ll probably say more about these rules later, but now it suffices to say that every living room, office, and entrance to every official building, as well as every railway carriage, has been adorned with the portrait of the leader from the 1970s.

After 1980, the portrait of his son has complemented that of the father.

The currently approved portrait of Kim Il-sung is officially known as the ‘sun image’ (taeyangsang in Korean). Here the Great Leader is depicted as smiling kindly at his subjects, and he is dressed in the Western suit and necktie that he actually preferred in the last years of his life (prior to 1984 Kim had worn a Mao suit).

These portraits are mass-produced by the ‘Mansudae Creative Group,’ a special workshop whose sole purpose is to design and manufacture portraits and statues of the Great Leaders.

An important part of Kim Ilsung’s posthumous glorification is the numerous “Yongsaengtap,” or “Towers of Eternal Life.” Their name reflects the official slogan: “Kim Il-sung will live with us forever!” These towers have a shape, slightly reminiscent of ancient Egypt’s obelisks, and they are decorated with slogans on Kim’s alleged “eternal presence” in his realm.

As of 1997, there were 3,150 “Towers of Eternal Life” nationwide. They are normally erected at crossroads, and every major town is required to have one. Most of these structures are relatively cheap and easy to build, but some of them are quite elaborate and expensive.

The tallest of all towers is, of course, located in Pyongyang. It has a height of 92.5 meters _ just a bit lower than the Chuche Tower, one of the city’s major architectural monuments.

However, Kim Il-sung’s cult is now giving way to the cult of his son, who has successfully become the new supreme ruler of the country.

Korea Times
Andrei Lankov
1/30/2007

The North Korean press insists that the “great and immortal” juche idea was designed by the “Great Leader,” Kim Il-sung, in the mid-1920s and has remained the guiding principle of the Korean revolution ever since. But do not expect to find references to juche in Korean publications of the 1950s or even early 1960s.

Even if Kim Il-sung first used the term in his speech in December 1955, it took at least five years before the term became widely known in the country _ and five more years for it to become the name of North Korea’s official ideology.

Only in April 1965, while delivering a lengthy lecture in Indonesia, did Kim Il-sung make it clear that from that point on juche would be considered the basic principle of North Korean ideological policy.

The North Korean leadership badly needed a new ideology in 1965. Why? This was the year when the dispute between the Soviet Union and China reached new heights. The two communist powers had been quarrelling for some time, but from 1965 to 1970 the two countries, which had recently vowed “eternal friendship,” were on the brink of war.

North Korea wisely decided to maintain neutrality, allowing it to milk both sponsors. But in the heavily ideological world of oldstyle communism one needed a theoretical justification for one’s position, even if this position was taken exclusively on account of pragmatic considerations (sounds like academia, doesn’t it?).

Nothing could be as handy as a new ideology, especially since the North had been drifting away from Soviet-style Leninism for some time. A locally designed juche was a good solution to the ideological conundrum.

It was easy to say that North Korea had discovered a new truth that was, needless to say, superior to the truth of Sovietstyle Leninism or Chinese-style Leninism-plus-Maoism. Hence, being bearers of the supreme truth, Koreans could not be ordered around.

But what exactly were the relations between juche and Marxism? For our readers this might appear a rather scholastic question, but the world of communism was based on ideology, and ideological disputes mattered. Of course, communist leaders had long learned how to bend their ideology and how to adjust its postulates to any given current political purpose.

In this regard, they were no different from leaders of supposedly religious states, whose actual policy was not too constrained by their loudly professed faith.

Nonetheless, some explanations had to be invented.

Until the late 1960s, juche was presented as a specific form of Marxism-Leninism, which suited the Korean realities and demands of the Korean communist revolution. It was not separated from Marxism. This explanation found its way into the North Korean constitution of 1972. Article 4 described juche as “a creative application of Marxism-Leninism to the conditions of our country.”

The next step in juche’s development took place around 1974 and was perhaps related to the gradual rise of Kim Jong-il. It has been often stated that Kim Jongil introduced new interpretations of juche because he wanted to flatter his father, the founder of juche, and thus demonstrate his loyalty to Kim Il-sung’s cause.

Whatever the reasons, in 1974 some documents signed by Kim Jong-il but actually written by the administration’s chief theoretician, Hwang Jang-yop (currently in Seoul), began to use the term “kimilsungism” as a synonym for juche. In February 1974, Kim Jong-il explained that the works of Marx and Lenin had become outdated.

They described the world as it was 100 or 50 years ago, while juche was suited for the modern world, they argued. Thus, in 1980 the Korean Workers’ Party proclaimed juche the party’s guiding ideology, without mentioning its relationship to Marxism.

That statement doubtless resonated well with the nationalism of Korean cadres because it essentially placed North Korea at the ideological center of the world. Since then, the nationalist element of juche has been increasingly emphasized.

That position was also an open challenge to orthodoxy as understood in Moscow and Beijing. It was as if a local Catholic bishop proclaimed that he had a better grasp of the Holy Scriptures than the pope (or, to take the analogy a bit further, two quarrelling popes) and was able to devise something like a Newest Testament.

These statements made juche-worshipping North Koreans into open heretics within the communist camp, but other “fraternal countries” had to swallow this: Whatever they said, strategic considerations took precedence over ideology. Nobody wanted to alienate Pyongyang, which had been long seen as a strangebehaving sibling of the communist “family.”

However, this family unity did not last. In 1992, the newly amended North Korean constitution completely omitted references to Marxism-Leninism and replaced it with juche as the sole official ideology. Nobody was outraged.

By that time Leninism was patently dead, and even the few countries that still maintained a commitment to that ideology hardly took their own declarations seriously.

However, after the death of Kim Il-sung there were some signs that the significance of the juche idea began to wane.