Archive for December, 2006

DPRK citizens growing weary of military?

Friday, December 15th, 2006

Daily NK
12/15/2006
Kim Young Jin

According to an interview with recent defectors, North Koreans do not trust their armed forces anymore [and] detest the soldiers.

Mr. Kim, a 27-year old defector, had an interview with the Daily NK in Yanji, Jilin Province, China, and said that most of the North Korean residents called the soldiers “son of a bitch.”

“In the past,” Kim recalled, “North Korean people like[d] the army and called them people’s army. We were always hospitable to them. And they actually deserved to receive hospitality.”

Such popular attitude toward armed forces had changed since the Great Famine in the mid-90s, Kim said.

“Now, soldiers only plunder ordinary people,” Kim said with disappointed voice.

“A few years ago,” the defector told his personal experience to the reporter, “several soldiers sneaked into my house brandishing axes. And they stole our dog. I was just shocked.”

Although the authorities advertise grandeur of the military-first policy, people are tired of the army’s violence and have even given up last remaining confidence on their military, according to Kang’s testimony.

Kang, a 23-year old defector living in Tumen, China, said “Nobody wants to go to the army because it can’t even feed soldiers. People rather hope to earn money by doing business.”

In North Korea, among graduates of high school, college students and laborers are exempt from enlistment. However, those who must serve tried hard to evade the army service, Kang said. He added “Many people pay money to avoid draft and others often desert. Only those from poor families go to army.”

“Nowadays, North Korean young men avoid marriage until accumulating some amount of money. Only ex-soldiers do not know much about the reality of lives and how they have changed. So the marriage market is heavily favored against young women,” Kang said sarcastically.

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N. Koreans actively studying foreign languages: report

Friday, December 15th, 2006

Yonhap
12/15/2006

North Koreans are eagerly engaged in learning foreign languages, including English and Japanese, a pro-North Korean newspaper said Friday.

“Registration is actively underway for foreign language classes,” the Chosun Sinbo, a newspaper run by Koreans living in Japan, said on its Web site.

The paper reported that the registrants, mostly workers and students in their 20s or 30s, have doubled compared to last year.

One language institute, located in the center of Pyongyang, has taught English, Russian, Chinese and Japanese since the 1980s, but Chinese remains the most popular, the paper said.

“Each course participant quickly learns how to speak (in a foreign language) while learning the ability to translate foreign-language books in his or her special area,” the paper said.

The center plans to have about 1,000 students registered next year, the paper said. Other language facilities in Pyongyang are also busy with registration, and some North Koreans have formed groups to study foreign languages on their own, according to the paper.

North Korea remains one of the world’s most controlled societies. Its regime maintains a tight grip on the flow of information and knowledge from the outside world.

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ROK firm to liquidate KEDO assets

Thursday, December 14th, 2006

Yonhap
12/14/2006

KEDO closes final deal on liquidation of N. Korean nuclear reactor project

An international energy consortium this week signed its final agreement with a South Korean firm to liquidate its 10-year project to build two light-water reactors in communist North Korea, a South Korean official said Thursday.

“In a Dec. 8 meeting in New York, the executive board of the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO) approved a deal with the Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO),” Moon Dae-keun, an official from the Unification Ministry, told reporters.

The so-called Termination Agreement made official the tentative agreement between the two sides in June that the South Korean electric company would pay the cost of liquidating the US$4.6-billion project in return for all of KEDO’s tangible assets outside of the communist North, Moon said.

The agreement comes as probably the last official document to be signed by the international consortium, which includes South Korea, Japan, the European Union and the United States, ministry officials said.

About $1.65 billion has been spent on the now-defunct project, more than $1.14 billion of which came from South Korea, according to Moon.

The government earlier estimated the liquidation to cost between $150 million to $200 million, but officials said Thursday that it would take as long as three years to accurately determine how much it would cost.

A group of KEDO’s subcontractors have filed claims for 37 lost contracts, worth some $73 million, as of Tuesday, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The international organization has a total of 101 outstanding contracts, according to Moon.

The organization’s assets to be taken over by the South Korean electric company cost some $830 million to acquire or build, according to the Unification Ministry. No estimates for their current value were available.

The light-water reactors were part of a 1994 agreement between the United States and North Korea, in which the communist state agreed to freeze its nuclear activities in return for various economic incentives.

The 1994 agreement, known as the Agreed Framework, became a dead letter following North Korea’s withdrawal from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in early 2003 and its subsequent unloading of spent fuel rods from a nuclear facility for reprocessing.

North Korea is believed to have created as much as 40 kilograms of weapons-grade plutonium through reprocessing, enough to make six to eight atomic bombs.

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DPRK’s womens team takes gold in Asian Games

Thursday, December 14th, 2006

Joong Ang Daily
12/15/2006

North Korean women down Japan for gold

North Korea retained the Asian Games women’s soccer title early yesterday with a 4-2 penalty kick shootout win over Japan.

The defending champions, Asia’s highest-ranked team, enjoyed the better chances throughout the match and held their nerve at the end with goalkeeper Jon Myong-hui saving two Japan kicks.

North Korea scored all of its penalty kick chances as Ri Kum-suk, Ri Un-gyong, Ho Sun-hui and Jong Pok-sim all found the net.

Despite the victory North Korean coach Kim Kwang-min said his club should have gotten it done in regulation.

“Although we are similar physically we are better players,” said Kim. “I told them to be aggressive from the start and we should have won in 90 minutes. I am not overly satisfied with the performance.”

The first half of the game saw both teams cancel each other out, but North Korea almost broke through in the first half.

It took a flying save from Japan ese goalkeeper Miho Fukumoto to deny North Korea’s top scorer, Ri Kum-suk, from finding the net with a sharp, downward header.

At the one-hour mark, Song Jong-sun turned smartly and unleashed a fierce left-footed shot which just sailed past Fukumoto’s left hand.

Kim Kyong-haw then teed up Ho Sun Hui, who shot straight at Fukumoto.

Eriko Arakawa then set up Japan’s best chance of the game in the 72nd minute when she turned inside two defenders, drew the goalkeeper out and released the ball into the path of Shinobu Ohno, who was unable to steer the ball home.

Ri Kum-suk then squandered a late chance to settle the tie in normal time, heading just inches wide at the far post.

Fukumoto twice rescued Japan in extra-time, once even having to keep out a misdirected header from teammate Kozue Ando.

Ohno then gave the North Koreans a major scare when she had the ball in the back of the net with a volley finish five minutes from the end of the first period of extra time.

But it was controversially ruled out for offsides and the match went to the penalty shootout.

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North Korean Cheerleading Squad in Doha Asian Game Is Consisted of Middle-Aged Workers

Wednesday, December 13th, 2006

Daily NK
Yang Jung A
12/13/2006

On the 12th, the Mainichi Newspaper reported that N. Korea sent a group of middle-aged men cheerleading squad to the Asian Game held in Doha, Qatar. In 2002 N. Korea sent a group of young women cheerleading squad to Busan Asian Game.

When N. Korea won the soccer game 2 to 1 over Japan held in the past 7, hundreds of the N. Korean cheerleading squad were so excited that after the game they entered into the stadium and tossed their players shoulder-high.

The cheerleading squad was construction workers who were out in Doha to make foreign currency funds. The newspaper also reported that while N. Korea has screwed most of salaries of its workers recently dispatched in Czech and Poland, it has seemed to actively export their workers to the Middle-East areas.

In the South-North soccer game held in the past 9, around one thousand of the North Korean people cheered up their players, who finally lost the game and shouted ‘take heart of grace’ following the instruction of a cheerleader.

Mr. Gong, South Korean businessman doing equipment business in Doha said that, “Two teams of North Korean workers were dispatched into one workplace. One team is consisted of two hundreds workers” and “their contract duration is 2 or 3 years and they are diligent”.

You could see the North Korean people who have stiff looks go shopping in a big supermarket in weekends.

A Pyongyang man cheering up his team in the South-North soccer game said that, “the workplaces are divided into a few areas so that I do not know how many people are in here. I am really happy to be here to meet people working at other workplaces”.

In the meanwhile, other men responded that, “I make Kimchi by myself. I have no problem for my living”. After the first half of the game, many people bought a few bottles of juice and snacks in a stand. The newspaper added, however, nobody granted an interview to reporters about their salaries.

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Ginseng deal first of its kind for 2 Koreas

Wednesday, December 13th, 2006

Joong Ang Daily
12/14/2006

A group of South Korean ginseng farmers will plant and process the medicinal herb in North Korea in the first inter-Korean ginseng venture.

Representatives of the United Korea Ginseng Farming Association Corp., based in South Chungcheong province in South Korea, will visit Pyongyang-based Kwangmyongsong General Corp. to discuss setting up a plant in the North Korean capital, said Lee Kyeong-hoon, president of the ginseng farmers’ association.

“North Korean ginseng is the most expensive in overseas markets,” Mr. Lee said. “We expect higher profits in Hong Kong and China selling products grown in healthier soil and with traditional cultivation methods only available in North Korea.”

South Korea’s government received criticism from the opposition Grand National Party because of its support for North Korean projects like the Kaesong industrial complex after North Korea tested its first nuclear bomb on Oct. 9 and launched missiles in July.

The government rebuffed the criticism, saying the projects don’t support the North Korean weapons program.

Ginseng, a root herb mostly found in Korea, northern China and eastern Siberia, may help improve the survival of cancer patients, according to a March study by the Nashville, Tennessee-based Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center.

North Korea is providing the buildings, water and electricity while the South Korean association is supplying ginseng seeds and processing facilities.

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Kaesong pushes DPRK to internalize reform

Wednesday, December 13th, 2006

Joong Ang Daily
Lee Young-jong
12/13/2006

North shows an interest in Kaesong legal systems

North Korea has shown interest in introducing the legal taxation and accounting systems used in the market economy at the Kaesong Industrial Complex, Vice Unification Minister Shin Un-sang said yesterday.

Speaking at an academic forum sponsored in Seoul by the North Korean Law Research Institute to discuss how to establish the systems in the complex, Mr. Shin said, “North Korean officials’ perceptions in regard to establishing market-economy legal systems for the Kaesong Industrial Complex are changing. In the past, they have shown negative perceptions, but lately they have expressed a high interest and sympathized with the necessity of those systems.”

The vice unification minister said establishing a legal framework in line with international standards is essential for the stable development of the complex.

In the complex, 15 subregulations on taxation, labor and so on have been enacted since it opened in December 2004. Currently, about 10,000 North Koreans work in 18 South Korean companies in the complex.

Meanwhile, Jay Lefkowitz, the United States’ special envoy on human rights in North Korea, said last week that Seoul needed to use the complex as a pretext to pressure Pyongyang on human rights issues by opening it up for international inspection.

He said Seoul was one of the few countries to have enough leverage to pressure the North.

Korea Times
Lee Jin-woo
12/12/2006

Kaesong to Test Market Economy

Vice Minister of Unification Shin Un-sang said Tuesday North Korea is interested in introducing a market-style economy in the joint inter-Korean industrial complex in Kaesong, North Korea.

“It’s been true that North Korea has been quite reluctant about introducing market economy-based regulations,” Shin said during a seminar on inter-Korean relations and North Korean law held in Seoul. “However, they recently agreed on the need to develop new legal conditions for the Kaesong Industrial Complex, especially in terms of taxation and accounting.”

The vice minister said the new regulations for Kaesong have great symbolic meaning in that they would significantly help North Korea better understand the legal system of a market economy, which is different from their Stalinist system.

Shin predicted that if the market system is working successfully in Kaesong, North Korea would expand the capitalist system in the rest of the country although he was unsure when the expansion would be made.

Shin, however, said there would be a number of stumbling blocks that the two Koreas have to deal with, as the two nations’ legal systems differ in many respects.

The two Koreas abide by a special law comprising some 15 lower-level regulations on minimum wages and basic taxation, mainly aimed at the management of the joint inter-Korean venture.

The number of North Koreans working for the 18 South Korean firms at the industrial complex surpassed 10,000 last month, according to the Ministry of Unification.

It’s been 34 months since Hyundai Asan, the South Korean developer of the joint industrial park, first hired a group of 42 North Korean construction workers in February 2004, the ministry said.

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New book on my travels to the DPRK

Wednesday, December 13th, 2006

I have been fortunate enough to visit the DPRK twice in the last few years (2004 pictures) (2005 pictures). Anyway, one of my travel companions on the 2004 trip has written a book about his experiences.

I have no idea what his persective is, how prominently I am featured (probably not much), or even if it is a good book, but I will probably buy a copy just to bone up on my spanish and put on a shelf with my photo albums.

Check it out here: El país del presidente eterno (The Country of the Eternal Pesident)

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North Korea turns back the clock

Wednesday, December 13th, 2006

Asia Times
Andrei Lankov
12/13/2006

Last Thursday in Seoul, the influential opposition daily newspaper Chosun Ilbo published a government document that outlined the plans for South Korean aid to be shipped to North Korea in the next financial year. In spite of the nuclear test in October and a series of missile launches last summer, the amount sent to Pyongyang this year was record-breaking – nearly US$800 million. If the document is to be believed, the target for the next year is set at an even higher level of 1 trillion won (about $910 million).

This generosity might appear strange, since technically both Koreas are still at war. However, it has long been an open secret that this is not the war the South wants to win, at least any time soon. The Seoul politicians do not want to provoke Pyongyang into dangerous confrontation, and they would be unhappy to deal with the consequences of a sudden collapse of Kim Jong-il’s dictatorship. Now South Korea wants a slow transformation of the North, and is ready to shower it with aid and unilateral concessions.

Many optimists in Seoul believe this generosity will persuade Pyongyang leaders to launch Chinese-style reforms. However, so far no significant reforms have happened. On the contrary, news emanating from the North since late 2004 seems to indicate that the government is now working hard to turn the clock back, to revive the system that existed until the early 1990s and then collapsed under the manifold pressures of famine and social disruption.

Signs of this ongoing backlash are many. There were attempts to revive the travel-permission system that forbids all North Koreans to leave their native counties without police permission. Occasional crackdowns have taken place at the markets. There were some attempts to re-establish control over the porous border with China.

Finally, in October 2005 it was stated that North Korea would revive the Public Distribution System, under which all major food items were distributed by state. Private trade in grain was prohibited, so nowadays the only legitimate way to buy grain, by far the most important source of calories in North Koreans’ diet, is by presenting food coupons in a state-run shop. It is open to question to what extent this ban is enforced. So far, reports from northern provinces seem to indicate that private dealing in grain still takes place, but on a smaller scale.

From early this month people in northern provinces are allowed to trade at the markets only as long as an aspiring vendor can produce a certificate that states that he or she is not a primary breadwinner of the household but a dependant, normally eligible to some 250 grams of daily grain ration (the breadwinners are given 534 grams daily). It is again assumed that all able-bodied males should attend a “proper” job, that is, to be employees of the government sector and show up for work regularly.

In the past few years the economic situation in North Korea was improving – largely because of large infusions of foreign aid. If so, why are the North Korean leaders so bent on re-Stalinizing their country, instead of emulating the Chinese reform policy that has been so tremendously successful? After all, the Mercedes-riding Chinese bureaucrats of our days are much better off than their predecessors used to be 30 years ago, and the affluence of common Chinese in 2006 probably has no parallels in the nation’s long history.

The Chinese success story is well known to Kim Jong-il and his close entourage, but Pyongyang leaders choose not to emulate China. This is not because they are narrow-minded or paranoid. The Chinese-style transformation might indeed be too risky for them, since the Pyongyang ruling elite has to deal with a challenge unlike anything their Chinese peers ever faced – the existence of “another Korea”, the free and prosperous South.

The Chinese commoners realize that they have not much choice but to be patient and feel thankful for a steady improvement of living standards under the Communist Party dictatorship. In North Korea the situation is different. If North Koreans learn about the actual size of the gap in living standards between them and their cousins in the South, and if they become less certain that any act of defiance will be punished swiftly and brutally, what will prevent them from emulating East Germans and rebelling against the government and demanding immediate unification?

Of course, it is possible that North Korean leaders will somehow manage to stay on top, but the risks are too high, and Pyongyang’s elite do not want to gamble. If reforms undermine stability and produce a revolution, the current North Korean leaders will lose everything. Hence their best bet is to keep the situation under control and avoid all change.

Until the early 2000s the major constraint in their policy was the exceptional weakness of their own economy. For all practical purposes, North Korea’s industry collapsed in 1990-95, and its Soviet-style collective agriculture produces merely 65-80% of the food necessary to keep the population alive. Since the state had no resources to pay for surveillance and control, officials were happy to accept bribes and overlook numerous irregularities.

However, in recent years the situation changed. Pyongyang is receiving sufficient aid from South Korea and China, two countries that are most afraid of a North Korean collapse. The nuclear program also probably makes North Korean leaders more confident about their ability to resist foreign pressure and, if necessary, to squeeze more aid from foes and friends (well, strictly speaking, they do not have friends now).

With this aid and new sense of relative security, the North Korean regime can prevent mass famine and restart some essential parts of the old system, with the food-distribution system being its cornerstone. This is a step toward an ideal of Kim Jong-il and his people, to a system where all able-bodied Koreans go to a state-managed job and spend the entire day there, being constantly watched and indoctrinated by a small army of propagandists, police informers, party officials, security officers and the like.

No unauthorized contacts with the dangerous outside world would be permitted, and no unauthorized social or commercial activity would happen under such system. Neither Kim nor his close associates are fools; they know perfectly well that such a system is not efficient, but they also know that only under such system can their privileges and security be guaranteed.

This is a sad paradox: aid that is often presented as a potential incentive for market-oriented reforms is actually the major reason North Korean leaders are now able to contemplate re-Stalinization of their country.

However, it remains to be seen whether they will succeed, since the North Korean society has changed much in the 12 years since the death of Kim Il-sung. New social forces have emerged, and the general mood has changed as well.

When in the mid-1990s the food rations stopped coming, previously forbidden or strictly controlled private trade became the only survival strategy available for a majority of North Koreans. The society experienced a sudden and explosive growth of grassroots capitalist economy, which by the late 1990s nearly replaced the “regular” Stalinist economy – at least, outside Pyongyang.

Apart from trade in a strict sense, North Korea’s “new entrepreneurs” are engaged in running small workshops, inns and canteens, as well as in providing all kinds of services. Another important part of the “second economy” is food production from individual plots, hitherto nearly absent from North Korea (from the late 1950s, farmers were allowed only tiny plots, not exceeding 100 square meters, sufficient only to grow some spices).

In many cases, the new business penetrates the official bureaucracy. While officials are not normally allowed to run their own business operations, some do, and as the line between the private and state businesses is becoming murky, the supposedly state-run companies make deals with private traders, borrow money on the black market and so on.

As one would expect, a new merchant class has emerged as a result of these changes. Nowadays an exceptionally successful North Korean entrepreneur would operate with capital reaching $100,000 (a fortune in a country where the average monthly salary is merely few dollars). Such mini-tycoons are very few and far between, but incomes measured in $100 a month are earned by many more merchants, and nearly all North Korean families earn at least a part of their income through the “second economy”.

These changes have produced a major psychological shift. The old assumptions about society are dead. After many decades of existence under the patronizing control of a Stalinist state, North Koreans discovered that one can live without going to an office to get next month’s food coupons. They also learned a lot more about the outside world. Smuggled South Korean videotapes are important, if dangerous, merchandise in the North Korean markets.

Contacts with China are necessary for a successful business, and these contacts bring not only goods for sale but also rumors about overseas life. And, of course, the vendors are the first people within living memory who became successful outside the official system. One of these former merchants recently told me: “Those who once attempted to trade, came to like it. Until now, [North Koreans] knew that only cadres could live well, while others should be content with eating grass gruel, but now merchants live better than cadres, and they feel proud of themselves.”

It seems that in recent months we have seen the very first signs of the social activity displayed by this new social group. Early last month, a large group of outraged merchants gathered in front of the local office in the city of Hoiryong, demanding to talk to the representatives of the authorities.

The Hoiryong riot was strictly non-political. A few months ago the local officials collected payments from the market vendors, promising to use the money for refurbishing the old market. However, the market was suddenly closed instead of being refurbished (perhaps as part of the ongoing crackdown on private commercial activities). The outraged vendors gathered near the market and demanded a refund.

The crowd was soon dispersed, and more active participants of the protest were arrested. Had a similar incident happened elsewhere, it would probably not have warranted more than a short newspaper report, but in North Korea this was an event of tremendous significance, the first time in decades that North Koreans openly and loudly expressed their dissatisfaction with a decision of the authorities.

In March 2005, a soccer riot in Pyongyang demonstrated that North Koreans are quite capable of breaking the law, but during that event the popular wrath was provoked by a foreigner, a Syrian referee, and could be construed as an outpouring of nationalistic sentiments (the soccer fans soon began to fight police, however). This time, in Hoiryong, a large group of North Koreans clearly challenged the state bureaucracy. Perhaps nothing like it has happened since the 1950s.

However, the growing power and social independence of the merchants is not the major problem the North Korean neo-Stalinists have to face. They deal with a society that has changed much, not least because of the penetration of modern technology, which facilitates the spread of information. The key role is played by the Chinese border, which is almost uncontrolled and has become an area of widespread smuggling.

Small radio sets are widely smuggled from China, so much so that a defector recently said: “In North Korea, nowadays every official has a radio set in his house.” This is new, since until the early 1990s all North Korean radios were fixed so that they could receive only official broadcasts. Theoretically, radio sets with free tuning are still banned, but this is not enforced. These radios sets are used to listen to foreign broadcasts, especially from South Korea.

Videocassette recorders are common as well. No statistics are available, but it seems that nearly half of all households in the borderland area and a smaller but significant number of households in Pyongyang have a VCR that is used to watch foreign movies. Defectors reported that in mid-October, just after the nuclear test, all North Koreans were required to sign a written pledge about non-participation in “non-socialist activity”. It was explained during the meetings that this activity includes listening to foreign radio and watching foreign videotapes.

Thus it seems that only a few people still believe in the official myth of South Korean destitution. Perhaps most people in the North do not realize how great the difference between their lives and those of their South Korean brethren is. Perhaps, for most of them, being affluent merely means the ability to eat rice daily. Discussions with recent defectors also create an impression that most North Koreans still believe that the major source of their problems is the suffocating “US imperialist blockade”. Still, the old propaganda about the destitute and starving South is not readily swallowed anymore.

Another obstacle on the way to a Stalinist revival is a serious breakdown of morale among officialdom. The low-level officials whose job is to enforce stricter regulations do not feel much enthusiasm about the new orders. Back in the 1940s and 1950s when Stalinism was first established in North Korea under Soviet tutelage, a large part of the population sincerely believed that it was the way to the future.

Nowadays, the situation is different. The low-level bureaucrats are skeptical. They are well aware of the capitalism-driven Chinese prosperity, and they have some vague ideas about South Korea’s economic success. And they are unconvinced by government promises that, as they know, never materialize. Unlike the elite, the mid-level officials have little reason to be afraid of the regime’s collapse. And, last but not least, they have become very corrupt in recent years, hence their law-enforcement zeal diminishes once they see an opportunity to earn extra money for looking other way.

At the same time, the new measures might find support from the large segments of population who did not succeed in the new economy and long for the stability of Kim Il-sung’s era. Recently, a former trader told me: “Elderly or unlucky people still miss the times of socialism, but younger people do business very well, believe that things are better now than they used to be and worry that the situation might turn back to the old days.”

We should not overestimate the scope of this generalization. After all, it is based on the observations of a market trader who obviously spent much time with her colleagues, the winners of the new social reality. Among less fortunate North Koreans, there will be some people who perhaps would not mind sitting through a couple of hours of indoctrination daily, if in exchange they would receive their precious 534 grams of barley-rice mixture (and an additional 250 grams per every dependant).

Early this month it was also reported that low-level officials had received new orders requiring them to tighten up residence control, normally executed through so-called “people’s groups”. Each such group consists of 30-50 families living in the same block or same apartment building and is headed by an official whose task is to watch everything in the neighborhood.

The new instructions, obtained by the Good Friends, a well-informed non-governmental organization dealing with North Korea, specify the deviations that are of particular importance: “secretly watching or copying illegal videotapes, using cars for trade, renting out houses or cooking food for sale, making liquors at home”. All these are “anti-socialist activities which must be watched carefully and exterminated”. The struggle to return to Kim Il-sung’s brand of socialism continues.

Still, North Korean authorities are fighting an uphill battle. In a sense they are lucky, since many foreign forces, including their traditional enemy, South Korea, do not really want their system to collapse and thus avoid anything that might promote a revolution. However, the regime is too anachronistic and too inefficient economically, so a great danger for its survival is created by the very existence of the prosperous world just outside its increasingly porous borders.

In the long run, all attempts to maintain a Stalinist society in the 21st century must be doomed. However, the North Korean leaders are fighting to buy time, to enjoy a few additional years of luxurious life (or plain security) for themselves. How long they will succeed remains to be seen.

Dr Andrei Lankov is a lecturer in the faculty of Asian Studies, China and Korea Center, Australian National University. He graduated from Leningrad State University with a PhD in Far Eastern history and China, with emphasis on Korea, and his thesis focused on factionalism in the Yi Dynasty. He has published books and articles on Korea and North Asia. He is currently on leave, teaching at Kookmin University, Seoul.

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On the role of People’s Units in DPRK life

Tuesday, December 12th, 2006

Daily NK
Kim Song A
12/12/2006

“North Korea, Restraining People’s Unit… People Suffering Fatigue”

Last month, North Korean authorities and affiliates of the people’s unit distributed lecture materials throughout the country, in attempt to strengthen the society and operations with “Our Socialism.”

The meetings of people’s units comprise of roughly thirty families who work as a political operation regulating the people. Amidst former communist countries, North Korea is the only unique system to have implemented a people’s unit.

On the 6th Good Friends, an organization aiding North Korea published on their website, North Korean News No. 49, “Introduction to lecture materials revealing the aim that to exalt supremacy while strengthening operations is ‘our socialism system.’”

Authorities and the People’s Committee notify the people’s unit which consists of 20~40 families of the same residence grouped by North Korean authorities and uses their power by controlling the lives of people living in the community as well as their thoughts and regulating visitors. However, after the “March of Tribulation (Mass starvation period in the 1990s)” people’s units remained passive as people busily tried to find food in order to live. Hence, people only felt frustrated with the system and the people’s unit movements became aberrant.

Good Friends stated “Though attempts are made (by the international community) to change the lifestyle and thinking of the people, the people’s units are making sure that they strengthen unification from within.”

More specifically, “Requests were made to be cautious of any act of anti-socialism such as secretly watching or spreading news of video tapes, anyone who uses a car to sell goods, any act of offering accommodation or receiving money for lease of accommodation and acts of brewing home-wine.”

In particular, in the cities near and around the border, meetings of people’s units frequently take place advocating the “act of giving accommodation to people crossing the border illegally prohibited.”

The people say “People with money suffer damages whereas of the people with no money, the unlucky person will suffer severe regulation and punishment” and informed the current atmosphere in the area “Excluding similar political issues, everyone either pretends or closes an eye to the situation.”

Good Friends said “The biggest issue for the people is food and firewood. It is imperative that even an additional kilo is secured and sent to the people so they may live throughout the winter” and “Wherever you go, you hear that the immediate best plan is to find a way to live. Who would listen to lectures which proclaim not to illegally cross the border?”

Recently, the citizens participating in field operations conducted by the people’s units are known to be suffering severe fatigue.

In Sungchon River-district, Ham-heung, members of the people’s units go out to the fields every day with great dissatisfaction and the head of the household must go out to the fields every morning every day of the week without fail to supervise the cable operations, informed Good Friends.

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