NK NEWS BRIEF | May 1, 2013

Just a few of the 2 million | Image: AP/Jon Chol Jin

NK INTERNAL

• Daily NK released new footage from inside NK featuring an propaganda booklet used for lectures. “[KJU] is very knowledgeable about music and the arts, and there is no sport he cannot do. Not only that, he is also deeply versed in world affairs and nutrition; no subject stops him in his tracks.”

• Daily NK: Authorities have stepped up repression on families of defectors in and around Musan following the collapse of a KJI and KIS mural on April 14th.

• Daily NK: Authorities are tightening controls over travel in the regions bordering China, requiring additional paperwork, permits, and more frequent checkpoints.

• New Focus Intl on the role of cigarettes in NK.

• RFA: Many from elite NKorean families are able to evade military service. “If you have enough money, there are 100,000 ways to avoid military duty, such as enrolling in a college for art, technical skills, or foreign languages. These students receive a ‘special education’ that exempts them from service.”

• Daily NK source: “Cadres are now really quite unwilling to give these [propaganda] lectures in front of the people (…) Nothing ever changes, so they are left repeating the same content over and over again and just look ashamed at getting up to say it.”

• Koryolink, NK’s sole 3G cellular service provider, is close to hitting the 2 million subscriber mark.

• KIS University graduate and defector: “The pride that we felt about having attended a top-tier university was not so much based on having achieved something of our own accord, but rather, pride at having parents from a certain political class. Since the fundamental enabler and ultimate glass-ceiling in North Korea is the ‘family-tree factor’, there is no need to stress one’s academic qualifications within North Korean society.”  

• The AP on life inside and outside of the capital. “Pyongyang now has a parade of fashionistas in eye-popping belted jackets, sparkly barrettes clipped to their hair, fingernails painted with a clear gloss. At one European-style restaurant last week, a young couple on a date sipped cocktails topped off with Maraschino cherries and feasted on pizza, their cellphones laid on the table… While the differences between the showcase capital and the hardscrabble countryside are growing starker, one thing remains the same: the authoritarian rule and the intricate web of laws governing life in the Stalinist state. Even as they laugh, North Koreans calibrate their words. Criticism of the state and leadership is not only taboo but dangerous; when asked for their opinion, most people parrot phrases they’ve heard in state media, still the safest way to answer questions in a country where state security remains tight and terrifying.”

• KJU’s wife made her first public appearance in two months, perhaps another sign that state media is reverting back to ‘normal’ after their latest war-threat cycle.

ECONOMY & FOOD SECURITY

• The ROKG made the decision to withdraw its workers from the KIC, with the US supporting its decision. The Rodong Sinmun responded to the decision by crediting the longevity of the KIC to the “self-discipline” of NK out of concern for “southern side companies”, and warning that SK will “never be pardoned” if they decide to close it. However seven S Korean workers have been held back by NK authorities over “back wages for North Korean workers, as well as communications fees and corporate taxes” totalling around 8 million USD.

• A Daily NK source reports that the decision to close the KIC originated from KJI: “Kim Jong Il’s greatest concern of all was that as the Kaesong Industrial Complex got bigger it would cause a growing number of workers to harbor feelings of interest and longing for South Korean society. Kim Jong Eun is now focusing on Kim Jong Il’s injunction that ‘you must move decisively to close it as soon as you see a chance.’”

• NK has very little chance of going it alone with the KIC since it relies on water, electricity, raw materials and high-tech machine maintenance from SK. Expert: “It would cost North Korea hundreds of billions of won to build a separate power plant for the [KIC], and even if it tries to redirect power supply from stations nearby, it would still cost tens of billions because it will have to build power transmission facilities.” SK companies in the KIC had seen a steady growth in sales before the shutdown.

• RFA: NKorean former KIC workers have been assigned other work. NK source in China: “I heard from a high-ranking official that two thirds of the North Korean workers at Kaesong were reassigned to rural areas and the others were relocated to sewing factories in North Korea (…) The North Korean government reassigned them quickly, so I suspect that North Korea was bent on closing the Kaesong Industrial Complex.”

• RFA: NKorean farmers are excited about the prospect of being able to keep up to 1/3rd of their harvest, but skeptical that the additional produce might be siphoned off by farm managers.

• Washington Times, citing intelligence officials, claims that KJU has over 1 billion USD in slush funds abroad.

• The number of NKorean visitors to China was up 14% in Q1 of 2013 from Q1 in 2012. Fertilizer imports from China were also up in Q1.

• NK is pushing to designate Mount Chilbo, Mount Kumgang, and Wonsan as special tourism zones.

• Five United Nations agencies have issued an urgent appeal for 29.4 million USD to meet the most critical health and nutrition needs of the NKorean people.

• The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies’ 2012 Annual Report on activities in the DPRK.

HUMAN RIGHTS

• Dream Makers for North Korea released a list of names and addresses for 113 SKorean prisoners of war said to be alive in coal-mining regions near NK’s border with China.

• NK defectors plan to send a petition to the UN asking for help to determine the fate of family members held in prison camps.

• Activists are holding various events in Seoul, Washington and other cities to mark the 10th annual North Korea Freedom Week from April 28 through May 5. UK-based band Ooberfuse are releasing a song, “Vanish in the Night” dedicated to those in the prison camps.  

REFUGEES

• Chosun Ilbo: The NK regime is demolishing villages along the Chinese border to prevent defections. Activists in who help NKorean defectors said one Onsong resident was executed by firing squad recently after being captured in the attempt to defect. ROKG source: “The regime believes that stemming defections is an effective method of staying in power.”

• Park Ji-woo, defector: “One of my best memories of my childhood is eating with my father in the markets. I was about six years old and it was a humid summer day when my father brought me to Jang-ma-dang and asked me what I felt like eating. I excitedly said, “ Du-bu-bap!” The woman handed me two big yellow Du-bu-baps and I started eating them with great pleasure. After I finished the Du-bu-bap, he also bought me a pencil sharpener, which was extraordinarily expensive at that time. On our way home, he asked me not to tell my mother that he bought me Du-bu-bap because our outing had just cost him his monthly wage. There was nothing left. I guess the money he spent was around 50 Won, which could buy two kilograms of corn back then.” Additional article by Park here.

• Words Without Borders highlights the work of NKorean defectors.

INTERNATIONAL POLITICS & SECURITY

• The Foal Eagle ROK-US joint military exercises have finished.

• Kenneth Bae will undergo trial at the Supreme Court for crimes against the state. KCNA stated that Kenneth Bae had undergone a “preliminary inquiry” and had “admitted that he committed crimes aimed to topple the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea with hostility toward it”. The USG has urged his immediate release.

• The SK Foreign Minister’s proposal for three-way strategic dialogue between SK, China, and the US has been well received by China.   

• Daily NK: In a recent survey, 3/10 Chinese believed that N-Korean nuclear weapons development must be stopped even if it leads to military action.

• US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: “Chinese leadership is as concerned as we are with North Korea’s march toward nuclearization and ballistic missile technology. And they have given us an assurance that they are working on it, as we are. (…) But I didn’t gain any insights into particularly how they would do that.”

• ROKG official on decision to withdraw workers from Kaesong: “If the situation comes to the point that it is impossible for China to defend the North in the international community, then Beijing will have to act. (…) We want to make clear to the international community that the North can no longer be trusted [even though we had to pay the price for shutting down Kaesong] so that China can no longer defend the North.”

• Kurt Campbell: “What we have seen is a subtle change in the approach in Beijing with respect to North Korea. It is clear that they are voices inside China that are beginning to realize that North Koreans’ activities are deeply antithetical to China’s interests.” On April 17, the Chinese Transport Ministry sent a memorandum to subsidiary agencies instructing them to strictly implement UNSC Resolution 2094.

• SK and China reaffirmed their push for a bilateral free trade deal in the fifth round of talks held in China.

• Clifford Hart, U.S. diplomat in charge of nuclear talks with North Korea will quit his current job soon to be the U.S. consul general in Hong Kong and Macau.

ANALYSIS & OPINION

• Defector Jang Jin-sung op-ed in the NYT: “Despite Pyongyang’s deceptive ways, many people in the outside world continue to believe in the theoretical North Korea in which dialogue with the regime is seen as the way to effect change. But I know from my years inside the government that talking will not get Pyongyang to turn any corners, not even with the North’s current leader, Kim Jong-un. Dialogue will never entice the regime to give up its nuclear weapons; the nuclear program is tightly linked to its survival. And talks will not lead to change over the long term; the regime sees them only as a tool for extracting aid. High-level diplomacy is no strategy for getting the regime to make economic reforms. The key to change lies outside the sway of the regime — in the flourishing underground economy.”

• Sokeel Park interview: “The regime — because it completely prioritizes political stability and maintaining its power and control over the society — gets into people’s lives to a level that is probably unprecedented around the world. And the result of that is that the North Korean economy is even poorer than it was in the 1970s… I would actually describe it as an enforced poverty.”

• Chico Harlan: “Analysts and several defectors who have worked in the North Korean media say any message published by the agency is part of an elaborately coordinated effort that requires much the same work as a screenplay. Although the North is popularly portrayed as a loose cannon operated at the whims of young leader Kim Jong Un, those familiar with the North’s media say the messages come from a slow-grinding process involving dozens of meetings and thousands of people — strategists, storytellers, ideological advisers and journalists.”

• Sino-NK examines recent media on the state of Chinese-NK trade: “Pessimism over the state of Chinese-North Korean trade is woven throughout the article, but interestingly enough, the UN sanctions are never themselves blamed for slowing things down. By contrast, Western reports tend to emphasize that trade is ongoing, implying that China is not enforcing sanctions. But the sanctions are on luxury goods, not consumer goods, and Chinese traders and media sources are not at all shy about stating that sanctions have nothing whatever to do with them.”

MISC.

• NK News covers the attitudes toward women in NK, and their role in the markets.

• NK is producing a new movie on the capture of the USS Pueblo. According to Koryo Tours, the sons of former U.S. defectors to NK, Joe Dresnok and Jerry Wayne Parrish will be cast as Americans.

• Wired.co.uk on NK’s microbrewery scene.

• Choson Ilbo: NKorean officials tried to get Eric Schmidt to reveal details about Google’s new Android OS.

• SK authorities raided the office of a pro-North Korean activist group as part of a probe into potential violations of the National Security Law. The chairman of the Junrang district’s Unified Progressive Party was arrested.

• NK Econ Watch on apparent NKorean use of Bittorrent.

• NKorean children’s cartoon emphasizing the importance of physical conditioning for sporting success (video; no subtitles).

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