NK NEWS BRIEF | May 8, 2014

A North Korean soldier waves to a Chinese tourist boat near Sinuiju in May 2014 |Photograph: Jacky Chen/Reuters

NK INTERNAL

• Daily NK: Choe Ryong Hae, former head of the General Political Department of the KPA, has been demoted to a secretarial position within the KWP. Besides Choe, there were at least 27 position changes in the government in April.

• Daily NK: While SKorean children celebrate Children’s Day on May 5, NKorean children celebrate International Children’s Day on June 1 and Chosun Children’s Union Day on June 6. Source: “Wealthy parents give bribes to school teachers on this day to help their kids get ahead, as well as preparing lunch boxes for them. This is the kind of day where most people want to give their children snacks to their hearts’ content, although for a lot of families that is just not realistic.”

• Daily NK: With the western area of NK in particular having its worst drought in decades, NKoreans are concerned over whether or not this year’s grain production goals will be met or not. KCNA: The average rainfall from mid-February until the end of April totaled only 23.5mm, the lowest since 1982.

• Daily NK PY source: “Because of recent crackdowns, Choco Pies from the ‘neighborhood below’ [South Korea] are hard to come by. Since the order came down demanding that they restrict the sale of South Korean goods, you can only find Chinese substitutes and the local version.”

ECONOMY & FOOD SECURITY

• Daily NK: Putin agreed to write off 90% of NK’s debt. According RIA Novosti, NK currently owes Russia approximately US$11bn in Soviet era debts.

HUMAN RIGHTS

• Daily NK: PY said it will consider 185 out of the 268 recommendations presented by the UNHRC in Geneva to improve human rights. Rejected recommendations included the scrapping of “guilt by association,” future cooperation with the international criminal court, the implementation of recommendations as outlined by the COI into NKorean human rights, a visit to to the country by a UN human rights investigation team, the closure of the nation’s political prison camps and the abolition of discrimination based on the songbun class system. During the last UPR in 2009, PY agreed to examine 117 out of 167 recommendations.

REFUGEES

• Daily NK on the fate of the Laos 9: “The kkotjebi who returned after being found [in Laos] on their way to South Chosun came from Yangkang Province. Most of them have been sent to their home counties, while the ones from Hyesan are now under the management of the Hyesan bureau of the State Security Department.”

• Daily NK: Security officials have increased border security crackdowns by secretly searching and bugging border-area homes.

• Sky News (video): Defectors tell stories of their lives inside NK. NK’s Ambassador to the UK: “Well, those guys made the wrong against the government, you know, needs to be punished but we don’t have labor camps. Actually we have education camps alright? Not camps, education place. Western countries say that we have labor camps. But that is not true.”

INTERNATIONAL POLITICS & SECURITY

• Yonhap: Chinese state media reported Chinese tourists from Jilin and Liaoning provinces can now get a “travel pass” to NK within 24 hours. The simplified border-crossing reflects NK’s continued efforts to boost tourism. Zhang, an official at a Chinese travel agency, said 2,000+ tourists used the train in 2012 before the renovation. “The number is estimated to rise to 7,000 this year.”

• Kyodo News: Alleged PLA contingency plans reportedly produced in the summer of 2013 include proposals for creating refugee camps on the Chinese side of the frontier in the event of civil unrest in NK, and protecting and monitoring key NKorean figures. Beijing denied the existence of the document.

• KBS: ROK MOU aims to create a TV channel to broadcast programs on unification in order to increase public awareness about unification.

• Yonhap: NK lashed out again on PGH’s policy on unification with PY, calling the “unification jackpot” catchphrase “a heinous doctrine of confrontation” and “a doctrine of nuclear disaster.” NK official on KCNA: “It is quite impossible to think about the ‘gaining of a great opportunity’ and ‘making profits’ after South Korea is reduced to ashes.”

• KCNA: “Park made waste water-like reckless remarks slandering the DPRK’s line on simultaneously developing two fronts after inviting her American master reminiscent of a wicked black monkey to visit south Korea on April 25. … All Koreans are spitting on her as she is resorting to whorish and disgusting political prostitution only after leaving her soul or chastity violated at such old age of over 60.”

• Yonhap: A poll of 1,001 SKoreans released by the MOU found that although 72% supported eventual reunification with NK, 44.3% said they had no interest in sharing the cost. Last year the ROK Finance Ministry said reunification, assuming it took place in 2020, would cost up to 7% of SK’s annual GDP for a period of 10 years.

• NK News: NK and Nigeria signed a cooperation agreement to promote the exchange of knowledge in information technology and the use of modern technology. DPRK’s Vice Minister of Trade announced its desire to see Nigeria on the UNSC to “play a greater role in representing and protecting the interests of African people in the international arena.”

• Telegraph: A senior Pentagon official said a US military satellite had identified “imminent signs” of a new nuclear test at Punggye-ri.

• Yonhap: SK’s Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin claims NK has made all necessary preparations for its fourth nuclear test and is waiting for the right timing to put its plan into practice.

ANALYSIS & OPINION

• Guardian: Jang Jin-sung, former NKorean poet: “If anyone thinks North Korea is opening up, they are completely mistaken. […] Industries such as tourism are businesses controlled by the elite, whose interests are served by sustaining the status quo.”

• NK News: Eleven defectors on “What has been the biggest surprise since you left NK?”

MISC.

• Guardian: Insight on a day in the life of PY. “NK has a large working population: approximately 59% of the total in 2010. A growing number of women work in white-collar office jobs; they make up around 90% of workers in light industry and 80% of the rural workforce. Many women are now the major wage-earner in the family – though still housewife, mother and cook as well as a worker, or perhaps a soldier.”

• NK News: Japanese customs officers confiscated NK table tennis players’ belongings including souvenirs and equipment, as they were leaving Japan for Beijing.

• DuJour: Rodman’s interview on NK: “[KJU] says, “I don’t want to bomb anyone. But we keep our nuclear weapons because we’re such a small country—that’s the only way we can defend ourselves.” They just want people in America and the government to know they don’t hate Americans. They want to work with Americans. They just want them to abide by the agreement that they wrote up years ago.”

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