North Korean Economy Watch

Good Friends claims that a prestigious local politician has been executed for his bourgeois lifestyle…

(excerpt)  A cooperative farm chief who was once honoured by North Korea’s founding president has been publicly executed for starting a private farm to support his luxurious lifestyle, a South Korean aid group said Thursday.

The unidentified man — said to be a member of the national legislature — and two colleagues were put to death by firing squad on December 5 in Pyongsong City, 30 kilometres (20 miles) north of Pyongyang, the Good Friends group quoted sources as saying.

The farm chief, his accountant and the local county’s party secretary were accused of selling produce from an unauthorised farming operation to lead a luxurious lifestyle, said a newsletter from the group which provides aid to the hardline communist state.

The farm chief was accused of failing to register 196 acres (79 hectares) of farmland that had been cultivated over the past decade. He allegedly fed retired soldiers with the produce and used them as his private bodyguards.

The man “acted like a king” in Mundok County and had been deemed untouchable because of his status and the gang of retired soldiers who followed him everywhere, Good Friends said.

All those put to death were said to have lived in upmarket two-storey homes and driven illicit cars.

Read the whole story in the AFP here
1/3/2008

When President Kim il Sung was alive, he delivered a “state of the nation” address each new year.  Since his death in 1994 audio recordings of his past speeches have been played publicly.  However, the North Korean government did develop a new tool to fill the role of informing the public about the government’s policy goals without overshadowing the unique position of the deceased leader: the “Joint Editorial” published by three of the DPRK’s leading journals, Rodong Sinmun, the People’s Army, and the Youth Vanguard. Each January it is published and North Korea watchers rush to interpret and extrapolate what each line signals. If you have a lot of spare time, you can read some extensive excerpts here.

The title: Glorify This Year of the 60th Anniversary of the Founding of the DPRK as a Year of Historical Turn Which Will Go Down in the History of the Country

Although many publications have pointed out that North Korea missed yet another deadline to declare its nuclear facilities, South Korean reviews seem to indicate that the editorial was docile compared to previous years:

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Writing for the Washington Post (December 30, 2007; Page A27), Francine Uenuma covers the DPRK defector-run radio stations in the South which broadcast for audiences in the North.

Who is in this game?
All told, Seoul has three privately run radio stations targeting the North: Open Radio for North Korea, Radio Free Chosun and Kim’s [Free North Korea Radio], the only one run by defectors, who are helped by a committed South Korean staff. Washington-based Radio Free Asia and Voice of America also broadcast to the North.

Tactics:
[FNK’s] broadcasts avoid overtly political messages in favor of cultural subjects. While for some North Koreans “politics is a matter of life and death,” others turn away from it, he noted. “We want to broaden our base as much as possible. For that purpose our radio programs are soft.”

Kim Yun-tae, director of Radio Free Chosun, said his station takes a similar approach. “At first we were doing more propaganda broadcasting, but we changed our minds,” he said. Added Kyounghee An, the station’s international manager, “We don’t think we can cause the collapse of the regime directly. . . . We think after listening, people can compare their real situation to Kim Jong Il’s propaganda and can change their minds, step by step.”

Radio Free Chosun broadcasts North Korean domestic news as well as stories of escapes, revisions to North Korean textbooks and dramas about Kim Jong Il.

The two stations run by South Koreans have defectors on staff who try to make the broadcasts palatable to a North Korean audience, smoothing out political and cultural differences in language, for instance.

Who is listening?
Determining how many people are listening to the stations’ broadcasts is impossible. Though jamming is an impediment, improved signals and electricity shortages that stop the jamming limit North Korea’s ability to block broadcasts completely.

Funding:
The South Korean government, eager to encourage good relations with the communist capital, Pyongyang, discontinued most of the programs its Korean Broadcasting System aimed at the North. But it has taken a hands-off approach to the private stations, broadcasters say, allowing them to operate but offering no financial support. All three services indirectly receive about $200,000 in U.S. government funds annually through the Washington-based National Endowment for Democracy.

Daily NK
Park Hyun Min
12/28/2007

The future dream of North Korea’s teenagers is no longer to become party leaders or soldiers, or even join the Party, but to become “merchants.”

“Good Friends,” an aid organization for North Korea, said through “Today’s News on North Korea” No. 104 on the 27th, “Most of the elementary and senior middle school students nowadays, upon being asked what they would like to do post-graduation, say they would like to be merchants.”

The source relayed, “Many of their peers have stopped going to school and have started doing business. It is too burdensome for some students to attend school, so they sell noodles or vegetables by sticking around the jangmadang (markets) and contribute to their families’ livelihoods.”

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Daily NK
Lee Sung Jin
12/27/2007

DailyNk met a missionary, Jeon Myung Woo, in front of the Sanhe Custom House. He is a Korean-Chinese who visits and brings aid to North Korean orphanages and accommodations for Kotjebi (begging children) every year. He belongs to a church in Yanbian and is in charge of missionary work to the North Korean people.

– Please briefly describe your aid activities for North Korea.

We share food, dry milk, medicine and clothes gathered by members of the church with which I am affiliated with North Korean children and the elderly when we visit North Korea. Once we enter the North, we bring around 1-5 tons of aid materials.

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Daily NK
Lee Sung Jin, Yang Jung A
12/27/2007

In contrast to the news that Kim Kyung Hee (Kim Jong Il’s blood sister) will visit Hoiryeong in commemoration of the 90th birthday of Kim Jong Suk, it was confirmed that only upper-level Party officers participated in the celebrations.

Rumors started circulating early this year that Kim Jong Il would visit Hoiryeong, North Hamkyung, which is the birthplace of Kim Jong Il’s mother Kim Jong Suk. However, with the commemorative event approaching, Kim Kyung Hee, instead of Kim Jong Il, was supposed to visit Hoiryeong.

A source in Hoiryeong said in a phone conversation with a reporter on the 23rd, “An event commemorating the 90th birthday of Kim Jong Suk was held in Hoiryeong from the 18th to the 20th of this month and after the 20th, celebrations were held in Pyongyang. Kim Kyung Hee, who was supposed to come, did not show up.”

He added, “Provisions resumed on the 21st in time for the holiday (Kim Jong Suk’s birthday). Items that were given out were rice, corn, noodles, and oil. Holiday provisions such as liquor, gum, juice, socks, hot pepper paste, snacks, and soap were disbursed starting on the 23rd.“

The footsteps of Pyongyang’s upper-level leaders have not ceased coming into Hoiryeong. Chairwoman Park Soon Hee of Union of Democratic Women, Im Kyung Sook of the Ministry of Commerce and other representatives females in North Korea visited Hoiryeong and participated in the 90th anniversary commemorations.

The news of Kim Jong Suk’s 90th birthday anniversary commemorations has been relayed through North Korea’s media.

The Chosun Central Television, with Kim Jong Suk’s birthday coming up, reported on the 21st that oath ceremonies at the party, army, and office levels took place in Hoiryeong on the 20th.

At the ceremony site, the broadcast relayed that large-sized banners were set up praising Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il and the propagandistic signs stating, “Our greatest tribute to Mother Kim Jong Suk, the anti-Japanese heroine. May the revolutionary life and the results of the struggles of the great brethren Kim Jong Suk be immortal!”

The participants in the commemoration were Kim Il Cheol (Minister of the People’s Armed Forces), Kim Jung Gak (First Vice Director of KPA General Political Department), Choi Tae Bok and Kim Ki Nam (the secretaries of the Central Committee of the Party), Yang Hyung Sup (the Vice-Chairperson of the Supreme People’s Committee), Jeon Seung Hoon (the Vice-Minister of the Cabinet), and others high level officials.

In Hoiryeong, a joint performance by the People’s Army’s orchestra opened the day with a concerto “May the loyalty go on forever.” On the 19th, the “Nationwide Youth Students’ Poetry and Singing” took place among 3,000 participants, which consisted of youth and related persons of the Youth League Central Committee in each region.

Even prior to this, the nationwide landscape and crafts exhibitions commemorating Kim Jong Suk 90th birthday anniversary were held on the 12th at the Pyongyang International Cultural Exhibition Hall and on the 18th, a variety of events such as the opening of the Central Arts Show at the Korean Fine Arts Museum was held.

One researcher at a national policy research institute said regarding Kim Kyung Hee’s absence, “It is known that she has been suffering from an alcohol addiction for a long time, so does not make frequent public appearances.”

Daily NK
Han Young Jin
12/26/2007

As North Korean authorities, including the People’s Safety Agency and the National Security Agency (NSC), move to control the jangmadang (markets), the atmosphere in these markets has become intimidating and the traders are becoming nervous.

A source in Sinuiju said on the 25th, “The authorities intended to destroy the jangmadang. The NSC allocated special agents who are each responsible for a particular market and they are working to ferret out traders who deal in forbidden items.”

The National Security Agency is a national-level organization in charge of intelligence services, including monitoring people and seeking out anti-party, anti-state, and anti-socialist activities. This move by the National Security Agency is unprecedented because it is the first time that NSC agents have engaged in activities that would reveal their identities to the citizens first hand.

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Daily NK
Moon Sung Hwee
12/23/2007

Excerpt:

Porno became prevalent in late 1990s, first among party officials and it leaked out to the public. Nude or bikini-worn women dance in North Korean porno with music.

Such indigenous videos disappear as foreign-made porno being imported. The first consumers, and the largest now, are high-ranking officials of the party and army.

It costs 2000 North Korea won (approx. USD 1 =3,200 North Korean Wown) to rent a porno CD for an hour in North Korea. Even middle school students collect money to rent one.

Daily NK
Yoon Il Geun, Lee Sung Jin
12/19/2007

Yanji, China — According to a testimony from a source inside the North, some underground churches operating in the North are, in fact, fake churches which take orders from the National Security Agency and whose mission is to unmask underground Christians.

“It was found to be true that the conspiracy department of the National Security Agency operating in the border area had established a fake church consisted of its security agents,” said the source to a DailyNK reporter on Monday at a private place in Yanji. The source himself is involved in an underground church within the North.

The source revealed a shocking reality, saying, “Some security agents disguise themselves as defectors and deliberately approach those Korean churches operating in China. From the churches, the agents receive money and bibles. Then, the agents establish a fake church.” The source added, “While taking money from the Korean churches in the name of financial support for missionary work, the agents devote themselves to hunting down domestic underground churches connected to the churches in China.”

The source said that he heard about the above-mentioned activities from an individual working at the National Security Agency, and such activities were an open secret among security agents.

“The received bibles are used as wastepaper and taken to paper processing plants, and the received money goes to the National Security Agency,” said the source. “The agent who told me about the agency’s secret activities said sneeringly, ‘The paper from the bibles is good for cigarette rolling paper,’” said the source resenting the agent’s anti-religious behavior.

The source said that the security agency runs the fake church not only to crack down Christians but also to make money. Many Christian organizations in the South provide financial support for pastors engaged in missionary work for North Koreans in the China-North Korea border areas. The source said that those security agents operating the fake underground church make a decent living thanks to the money they receive from the South’s Christian organizations.

“Unless the churches of the South tightly manage their supporting activities for underground churches and Christians of the North, their activities might end up enriching the security agents and causing harm to underground Christians,” the source said.

In the North, the act of missionary work is considered a felony, and individuals convicted of the felony are either sent to a political concentration camp or executed in public.

Todd Nettelton, director of news services with the Voice of the Martyrs, a US-based Christian missionary organization, said, “North Korean Christians defend their faith in the midst of oppression, arrest and torture by the regime.” The director said, “When these Christians gather together for bible study or worship, they have to be careful for safety. For instance, they form a small group of three to four people and cloak the windows of their meeting place.”

“Hometown,” a South Korean monthly run by individuals who were born in the North but displaced into the South during the Korean War, reported in its November edition that the North Korean authorities recently arrested Mr. Cho who was secretly engaged in missionary work in Dongrim of North Pyongan Province along with his mother and two younger siblings. The monthly said, “The remaining three family members trembled in fear and eventually took their life by jumping from the Dongrim Waterfall on October 12th.

In October, the US State Department again designated the North as one of “Countries of Particular Concern (CPC)” for the country’s persecution of religion. In fact, the North has been designated as the CPC for seven years in a row.

Every year, the US State Department releases a report on religious freedom in the world. The 2007 report said, “Although the Construction of the DPRK guarantees freedom of religion, there is no such thing in reality. The country’s situation of freedom of religion remained as bad as it was before this year.”

Olympic torch ‘going to N Korea’
BBC
12/16/2007

North Korea will host a leg of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games torch relay, state media has reported.

The flame, which is due to pass through 22 cities in the four months before the Games, is expected to reach North Korean capital Pyongyang on 28 April.

Chinese and North Korean officials made the agreement in Pyongyang, said the official Korean Central News Agency.

A day earlier the torch is scheduled to pass through the South Korean capital of Seoul on its way north, say reports.

The torch, which will be lit at Olympia in Greece on 25 March, is due to cover five continents before the event begins on 8 August.

The planned 137,000-km (85,000-mile) relay route will include a trip to the top of Mount Everest.

The two Koreas have agreed to send a joint team of officials to the Beijing Olympics by train, as part of reconciliation efforts after their 1950-1953 civil war.

Coca-cola And Samsung Billboards to Appear in Pyongyang
Daily NK
Park Hyun Min
12/17/2007

Coca-cola and Samsung billboards, viewed by the North Korean regime as symbols of “American capitalism” and “Imperialistic culture,” will soon be visible in downtown Pyongyang just on April 28, 2008.

The China-based Huanqiu Times reported that the Beijing Organizing Committee of the 2008 Olympic Games (BOCOG), the Chosun (North Korea) Olympic Committee, and the Pyongyang People’s Committee signed an agreement to cooperate during the 2008 Olympic Torch Relay.

Samsung, Coca-cola, and Lenovo (a Chinese IT company), three of the main companies sponsoring the Beijing Olympics, will be allowed to advertise their products by cars when the Olympic Torch Relay passes through Pyongyang on April 28.

The three companies will be able to distribute pamphlets to North Korean citizens, but the extent of the content of these pamphlets will limited to the history of the respective companies’ sponsorship of the Olympic Games. Outdoor billboards will not be permitted along the relay path.

Additionally, with the exception of Shanghai-Volkswagen (the official car company of the 2008 Olympic Torch Relay), car companies will not be allowed to reveal their logos during the event.

The upcoming Torch Relay marks the first time in Olympic history that the Torch will pass through Pyongyang. Fifty-seven members of the Chosun Olympic Committee, six representatives from the three sponsorship companies, one member of the International Olympic Committee, and four Chinese diplomats will act as torchbearers in the event.

The relay will begin at the Tower of Juche Idea. Sights along the route will include the May Day Stadium, Kim Il Sung University, the Chosun-China Friendship Tower, the April 25 House of Culture, the National Liberation War Memorial Hall, Pot’ong Gate, the People’s Palace of Culture, the Pyongyang Gymnasium, Kim Il Sung Plaza, the Chollima Statue, the Arch of Triumph, and the Kim Il Sung Gymnasium. The total distance will be 20 kilometers.

The Pyongyang leg of the relay will begin after the South Korean leg is complete. The Torch will cross the DMZ by airplane and will be run through downtown Pyongyang from 2p.m. to 8 p.m. on the 28th of April.