NK NEWS BRIEF | FEB 26, 2015

Farmers in a field on North Korea’s west coast. | Photo: AFP

NK INTERNAL

• Daily NK Yankang source: “In the past, cases of alcohol, oil, and other special rations were handed out for this holiday but for the past few years this has not been the case… Though the children were given crackers, they were hard as rocks and not adequately processed; it certainly didn’t feel like a holiday… Most people don’t think much of it anymore if they don’t get any rations during the holidays, because they’re so used to not receiving anything… Even if they hold ‘loyalty singing gatherings’ people are mobilized to the event, but most focus more on business and their personal life.”
• RFA: A sinkhole accident at a farm in Yangkang killed 11 eleven workers. Yangkang source: “Lots of officials, including those from the party committee and rural development committee responded to the accident, staying at the scene throughout the rescue attempt… The accident resulted in 11 deaths and about 30 injuries, almost all of whom were women.”
• RFA Yangkang source: “Central Committee people suddenly swept into Hyesan to carry out inspections on drug abuse… The major targets in this inspection are the smugglers and the people who supplied the drugs… In North Korea drug-abuse is so common that if you don’t know about it you’re suspected as a spy. Drugs help the poor people forget about their difficult lives, and the party executives and higher class people abuse drugs for their own pleasure.” (Korean).
• RFA N Pyongan source: “There was an order from above on February 4th that stated, ‘Those who violate traffic rules and maritime order will be punished severely,’… but cars are being taken away when drivers make minor mistakes… of not keeping the minimum safe distance with the car in front, or of not using the signal light when making a turn… The SSD is exercising its power excessively.” (Korean). Daily NK S Pyongan source: “Penalties for drunk driving, violation of traffic signals and regulations regarding pedestrians and bicycle usage, were highly emphasized.”

ECONOMY & FOOD SECURITY

• Daily NK: Leftover food from the households of party cadres, donju, and elites are being sold on the markets as nutritious foodstuff for pigs. S Pyongan source: “After the [Lunar New Year] holiday, the price of the scraps rose by about 3,000 KPW (cited as 0.38 USD) per bucket… Plenty of people raise their own pigs, but this year is the first time we’ve seen rice bits and scraps from personal residences hit the marketplace… Scrapings coming from ordinary homes have very little nutritional quality, so one bucket of it may only cost 500 KPW (0.06 USD), but the leftovers from relatively affluent families includes traces of meat, seafood, and stew, so one bucket can cost approximately 2,000 KPW (0.25 USD). This price rose to 3,000 KPW (0.38 USD) after Kim Jong Il’s birthday (February 16th) and the Lunar New Year holiday.”
• Daily NK N Hamkyung source: “At the beginning of this month, the entire country’s fisheries industry was informed by the Chosun Workers’ Party Central Committee that all fishing operations near the Russian border and downstream of the Tumen River are hereby banned… In the past four days, offenders of sea entry and exit laws have been issued severe penalties. To emphasize its seriousness, the new decree has even been announced through the MPS… In order to receive economic support and investment from Russia, it will be important to create an amicable environment by undertaking these kinds of measures.”
• Daily NK: The price of rice remained stable despite the Lunar New Year holiday season, supposedly due to a bumper harvest, Russian food aid, and increased supply routes for goods in the markets. Yangkang source: “It was normal for the cost of rice to increase every year just before the holidays from 500 KPW (cited as 0.06 USD) to even 1000 KPW (0.13 USD)…  Despite the recent back-to-back occurrence of Kim Jong Il’s birthday and the Lunar New Year, the cost of rice has hovered at 5,000 KPW per kilogram with no noticeable fluctuations in the price of other goods.”
• NK News via RFA: Chinese customs data revealed that NK’s import of electronic goods totalled 1 billion USD, an amount higher than the combination of mineral, metal, textile, and food imports (Korean).
• RFA: Despite a pay raise, many NKorean workers are finding it difficult to make ends meet in their daily lives. At Kim Chaek Air Force Academy, the increase in payment for professors to 300,000 KPW (333 USD) does not meet their expenses, and bribery is becoming more rampant between professors and students. A pair of shoes produced in Hyesan Shoe Factory costs 7 RMB in the jangmadang, costing the same as 2 kg of rice, making such items unaffordable by many. Yangkang source: “Since the government started testing the ‘New Economic Management System,’ the workers receiving the highest wage are the three tailors at the Hyesan Shoe Factory. The three of them receive 34,000 KPW (38 USD).” Yangkang source: “The unofficial cost of a second-class train ticket from Hyesan to Pyongyang is 12,000 KPW, and the passenger ticket for the much faster diesel train that runs twice a week costs officially 85,000 KPW.” (Korean).

HUMAN RIGHTS  

• Kirby: “We have reached out to them. I will go anywhere, the members of the commission of inquiry, the special rapporteur will go anywhere to engage them but they won’t engage with us except on very limited terms favorable to them… If the DPRK were serious about defending itself against the record revealed by the many witnesses who gave evidence before the COI, it would invite the United Nations, the international media and members of the COI to visit the DPRK to undertake thorough and well-publicized inspections to produce fully documented findings… The DPRK cannot rely on its own failure to cooperate with the United Nations. Ultimately, the full truth will come out.”
• Rim Il, a former NKorean migrant worker who had worked in Kuwait: “We only took a Friday afternoon off twice a month but had to spend the time studying books or watching videos about the greatness of our leader back home… We were never paid our wages, and when we asked our superiors about them, they said we should think of starving people back home and thank the leader for giving us this opportunity of eating three meals a day… Our life was nothing but slavery.”

BORDER SECURITY

• AP: PY barred foreigners from participating in the annual PY marathon because of Ebola virus concerns. 400 international runners had signed up at Koryo Tours and 200 more at Uri Tours. Koryo Tours: “It is still unclear when the borders will be reopened, but we were also advised not to cancel our March tours, and to expect an update on the border situation at the end of February.”
• RFA: Last year’s NKorean visitors to Russia’s Primorskii Maritime Province reached around 11,000, ranking the third highest after the Chinese and the Uzbeks. The number of NKorean migrant workers in the province grew 20% last year, reaching an estimate of 6,600 workers. (Korean).

INTERNATIONAL POLITICS & SECURITY

• INTER-KOREAN: Rodong Sinmun via Yonhap: “A chance for dialogue or a diplomatic solution has been already lost. What is left is to respond militarily while strengthening deterrence to the maximum… It is none other than the South Korean authorities that are hell-bent on sycophancy toward the U.S. and the moves to escalate the confrontation with the DPRK while blatantly challenging its efforts for the improvement of the inter-Korean ties.”
• ROK MOD spokesman: “The annual drills to defend the Korean Peninsula have nothing to do with inter-Korean relations… [the ROKG will] strongly respond to North Korea should it provoke or pose another threat over the drills.”
• CHINA: No delegation from China visited NK on KJI’s birthday.
• RUSSIA: ROK’s nuclear envoy is visiting Russia to discuss ways to resume the Six Party Talks. ROKG official: “After wrapping up five-way discussions by gathering ideas and fine-tuning differences on conditions and ways of resuming the talks, they would take a next step forward… If the five countries, including Russia and China, make certain proposals, North Korea would not be able to simply ignore them.” NK govt’s Minister of Economic Affairs is also visiting Russia this week.
• AP: 13 out of 14 sanctioned NKorean ships have been in operation in at least 10 countries after changing their owners and managers, erasing the company from the International Maritime Organization’s database.

ANALYSIS

• Kathy Moon, Brookings: “… the United States… learned about North Korea really through the nuclear program, the publicization of the nuclear program, and the Agreed Framework back in the mid 1990s, and then of course through the Great Famine of the mid 1990s… When we think about North Korea we think of starving people, and we think of nuclear weapons. But there is much more to North Korea than that… What we can do today to make our understanding of North Korea more broad is to try to educate the people about North Korea as a historical hall, North Korean people also as separate from the state, North Korea as having a culture of its own… Learning to see North Korea as a society, like any other society, with active, dynamic changes going on.”

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