NK NEWS BRIEF | August 07, 2013

The victorious women’s soccer team walks with KJU | Image: Rodong Sinmun via Daily NK

NK INTERNAL

• RFA: Used desktop computers smuggled in from China have become a much sought-after item in NK among those desiring to build up their tech skills. NKoreans are going to great lengths to acquire the second-hand computers—which are often cobbled together from discarded machines—running them on car batteries and hiding them from authorities in their homes.

• RFA: NKorean authorities have sentenced a popular comedienne Lee Choon-hong to an indefinite period of “hard labor” in the Sunchon coal mine for a “slip of the tongue” during a performance last month.

• Daily NK source: “This was my second trip to North Korea, but the first time I’d gone outside in secret. One time I went out at night, and the second time at 6AM. I was very tense, my heart aflutter. I wore simple clothes to look like a North Korean, let my hair down and used a black bag of my mother’s to hide the fact that I was not wearing the necessary pin badge. The women of Pyongyang put me to shame, though, as I was wearing flat sandals while they were in high heels. They were in makeup and looked milky white, making me look like a colored person. No matter how I tried to imitate them, they would have known I was a foreigner.”

• NFI with reports on conflicts within the NKorean elite between ‘hardliners’ and ‘moderates’.

• Chosun Ilbo: NKorean authorities are going to great pains to stem the spread of SKorean goods and pop culture, with authorities reportedly setting up a special taskforce to crack down on SKorean fashion, makeup, and even slang. Defector: “If the police see you wearing blue jeans, they will cut them with scissors on the spot, and skinny jeans, boot-cut jeans, and shorts can never be worn publicly.”

ECONOMY & FOOD SECURITY

• The UN WFP began shipments of food to NKorean flood victims. Assistance is being offered due to extensive damage to farmlands and irrigation systems, and the distribution of the grain will continue for the next 30 days, with each recipient being allocated 400 grams per day.

• Daily NK source: “Some homes in Hyesan have been submerged or swept away by the intense rains. A few people even disappeared in the waters. It became really chaotic at the time, with people looking for others who had disappeared and others trying to save their possessions from getting swept away. They are still looking for the ones who went missing.”  

• New analysis confirms that China has a history of exporting food grains to NK at above international prices, indicating that China may be using the lack of competition to its economic advantage.

• Hyundai Group Chairwoman Hyun Jeong-eun returned from a one-day trip to NK bearing a hand-written letter from KJU expressing condolences for her late husband and former Hyundai group head Chung Mong-hun.

• Chinese travel agency: “Officials from the Chosun tourism administration have been visiting since the beginning of July to get us to advertise the games, which will be on until the end of September. It’s quite the turnaround from April, when all tours were halted.”

• NK is publicising efforts to develop its nanotech industry.

• The price of rice in border cities went from 5000 won to 7000 won per kilo over the July 27th holiday, before receding once the pressure of Victory Day was removed. Daily NK source: “The Tumen River was really high until not so long while ago, so smuggling was inconceivable. There is not a lot of rice entering the market, although I can’t tell whether that is because rice traders are hoarding what they have, or because they are all out.”

• The volume of food distributed under the NKorean Public Distribution System in the first half of 2013 increased compared to 2012. According to NKorean submissions to the WFP, the NKorean authorities provided 400g/day between January to May and 390g/day in June and July, a monthly average of 397g/day. This is a 14g increase on last year’s average of 383g/day.

• Chosun Ilbo on NK’s polarization: “As a market economy evolves in North Korea, we are seeing early signs of monopolization of wealth. Tycoons have grown wealthy through collusion with high-ranking party members.”

HUMAN RIGHTS

• The first UN Commission of Inquiry into human rights violations in NK began its official investigation by interviewing defectors in SK. In addition, three other researchers from the COI will arrive in the country next month and hold a four-day hearing on human rights conditions.

• Students from Sookmyung Women’s University in Seoul have started a NKorean human rights group, called “HANA”.  

REFUGEES

• RFA: Chinese authorities in NKorean border areas have installed miles of barbed-wire fencing along a stretch the Tumen river, dramatically reducing the number of defectors. Work on the fences began about 2-3 years ago and has now blocked access to China along the Tumen River from its western end to the east.

• NFI: ‘Broker fraud’ is increasing in NK, where security officers claim to be brokers when they are actually security officers. Defector: “Broker fraud is one of the key strategies of the North Korean authorities. They take advantage of the fact that brokers help facilitate the escape attempts of North Koreans.”

• NFI: Photographs taken long ago in NK are being sold at high prices among ethnic-Korean Chinese seeking asylum in other countries. The pictures fetch a high price because they provide a physical means of confirming that an applicant for a NKorean  asylum claim is actually from NK.

• Defector Lee Seong-min is taking leadership training with Canadian organization HanVoice. HanVoice’s Jack Kim: “What we want to happen is that Seong-Min takes the skills he’s learned in Canada, such as advocacy… To go back to his own community and perhaps in the future, when North Korea opens up, to become the future leader of North Korea.”

• Kim Ha-na, once a NKorean “kotjebi” placed 6th in S Korea’s cooking show Masterchef, displaying a fusion of N-S styles in her dishes. “Back then as a kotjebi, I couldn’t afford to have any dream at all, let alone of becoming a chef. Cooking was just a means not to starve, not something I could have fun with. I long for the day I can make ‘healing food’ for those little child beggars, like I was.”

• The case of defector Kim Kwang-ho being repatriated after accepting SKorean citizenship has caused concern in the defector community that China may repatriate NKorean defectors who already have a SKorean passport.

INTERNATIONAL POLITICS & SECURITY

• Yonhap: The ROKG is ready to pay insurance claims to SKorean firms that have factories and other assets at a suspended inter-Korean industrial park at Kaesong. Of the 140 companies that own facilities or provide support services and have paid the inter-Korean economic insurance premiums, 109 have asked to be compensated for incurred losses. A company can be reimbursed for up to 90% of losses incurred on investments, with a ceiling of 7 billion won per company.

• After a week of silence, NK has proposed a seventh round of N-S talks on the future of the KIC, to be held on Aug 14th. NK’s statement noted that it is ready to: Withdraw its temporary closure of the KIC and allow SKorean enterprises unrestricted entry; guarantee the provision of labor to enterprises that are ready to resume production; guarantee the security of SKorean personnel and assets; and ensure no future repeats of the closure.

• The ROKG accepted NK’s offer for talks on the KIC. MOU spokesman: “Seoul views the latest talks proposal as the North responding to repeated calls for dialogue from Seoul. We hope the North will engage in dialogue in an earnest manner that can contribute to the constructive growth of the complex.”

• Ruan Zongze, former Chinese diplomat and China Institute of International Studies VP: Expect no major policy changes toward NK, despite Beijing’s growing frustration. “In handling relations with the DPRK, China is trying very hard to exert its own influence. There is a misunderstanding, and some people say China no longer insists on denuclearization, and China places stability before denuclearization. I don’t agree with that. Denuclearization and peace and stability are two sides of one coin.”

ANALYSIS AND OPINION

• Hancocks: The poverty I see through the bus window is not the view of North Korea the regime wants to be seen. We are traveling from Hyangsan, three hours north of Pyongyang, back to the capital, but the main road and the sanctioned route has been flooded. This is the only way back. Buildings are in disrepair; some barely look inhabitable. Residents of this small town walk or sit by the side of the road, many seeming to have little to do. A number of official-looking men dressed in brown Mao suits stand silently on street corners. It is impossible to know who they are or which element of the party or military they might work for, but they clearly seem to be observing.

MISC

• NKorean students won two gold medals and four silver medals at the recent 54th International Mathematical Olympiad held in Santa Marta, Colombia.

• The NKorean women’s soccer team that won the East Asian Cup in South Korea last weekend received personal congratulations from KJU.

• Chinese tourists in NK are known to have cultural clashes with N Koreans. Cockerell (Koyro Tours): “The mainlanders are just more forward… they just tend to be a lot louder.” When faced with the reserved and conservative North Koreans, it can result in a “clash of behavioural styles”.  

• CNN on the International Friendship Exhibition House in NK.

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