Category: DPRK Government

Capitalist narrative integrated into North Korean society

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North Korean propaganda is built on a popular anti-capitalist narrative – Americans are evil imperialists and the great leader Kim Jong-un is celebrated for his devotion to the masses.

But since the 1990s the country has cautiously welcomed foreign business, with one unintended consequence: citizens have started to talk capitalism. Where once there were “management secretaries” and “operations”, now talk of “bosses” and “companies” has crept into day-to-day parlance. This vocabulary was once feared as the antithesis of socialist principles.

For years private ownership was banned in North Korea. Companies were non-existent and this meant there were no bosses. But despite technically still being banned, de facto private operations have become ubiquitous.

Today, most people refer to a boss as someone who works with foreigners, such as the Chinese, to earn money. In the 1990s, as many faced starvation it was these bosses who eventually found a way to bring food and opportunity to those in need. That’s why the word is now infused with a sense of respect and loyalty. It reflects the new status, jobs and skills that people aspire to.

Unlike most aspects of life in North Korea, one’s ability to shoot up through the company ranks is less contingent on background: even those with poor songbun, a caste system delineated by family background and political loyalty, can be a boss. Those who failed to get into the Workers’ Party – once the preferred method to secure favorable living conditions – have been known to gain the title. Even former prisoners of re-education camps can be bosses.

 

Joint Letter to UN Security Council re North Korean human rights

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Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and a number of other co-signers * are urging the UN Security Council to hold another formal session, prior to the end of 2015, on the human rights situation in North Korea.

Excerpts of the letter:
As you know, the UN Human Rights Council-mandated Commission of Inquiry on the human rights situation in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) concluded that “the long-standing and ongoing patterns of systematic and widespread violations” of human rights in the DPRK “meet the high threshold for proof of crimes against humanity.” The commission found that the nature, scale, and gravity of these abuses “reveal a state that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world.”

The commission concluded that the DPRK’s ongoing “open defiance of the United Nations makes this a case where decisive, yet carefully targeted action should be taken by the Security Council in support of the ongoing efforts of the remainder of the United Nations system.”

The human rights situation in the DPRK remains dire. In his most recent report to the UN General Assembly, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the DPRK concluded that “grave violations continue to be committed on a large scale and particularly affect the most vulnerable groups.” The Special Rapporteur further called on the international community to “step up efforts to protect the population” of the DPRK and “hold the government accountable for those gross violations.”

In our view, it is critical that the UN Security Council hold another formal session on the situation in the DPRK this year. International pressure remains a critical avenue to press the DPRK to change. It is no coincidence that last year’s unprecedented engagement by the DPRK at the UN Human Rights Council and at the UN General Assembly followed concerted international attention to its human rights record.

[Co-signors include Amnesty International, Christian Solidarity Worldwide, Citizens’ Alliance for North Korean Human Rights (NKHR), Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK), Freedom House, Human Rights Watch, International Coalition to Stop Crimes Against Humanity in North Korea (ICNK), International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), and Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights]

Envoys for six-party talks gather in Seoul

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Top nuclear envoys for six-party talks to dismantle the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK)’s nuclear program gather in Seoul this week to discuss cooperation in Northeast Asian region.

Top delegates to the six-way dialogue from China, the United States, Russia and Japan will take part in the multilateral forum on the Northeast Asia Peace and Cooperation Initiative. Attending the forum, the second after last year’s first round, will be Chinese vice Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin, Russia’s deputy Foreign Minister Igor Margulov, U.S. special representative for DPRK policy Sung Kim, and Kimihiro Ishikane, recently appointed director-general for the Japanese foreign ministry’s Asian and Oceanian affairs bureau.

The South Korean foreign ministry asked the DPRK’s counterpart to participate in the multilateral forum, but there has been no response delivered from Pyongyang.

[Xinhua]

Comparing North Korean and British Birthday Celebrations

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“It was a birthday celebration, but it felt more like a cult meeting in adoration of the leader. Row upon row of soldiers and civilians … marched in a minutely choreographed formation for two hours,” reported the BBC during a recent report from North Korea.

But the accompanying video does not pan over lavish celebrations held in Pyongyang to mark the 70th anniversary of the Korean Workers’ Party. Instead it has been dubbed over London‘s flag-waving birthday celebrations for Queen Elizabeth II, the UK’s unelected head of state.

“A signal of unity, fearsome missiles means they [are] ready to fight any kind of war,” the BBC’s Seoul correspondent Stephen Evans goes on to say in the BBC clip … But Evans’ voice-over fits just as comfortably with footage of a flyover by the Red Arrows – the Royal Air Force Aerobatic Team who are regularly deployed on big national occasions, peppering London’s sky in patriotic red, white and blue smoke.

But the video mashup – first uploaded to YouTube last week – is a humorous take on the UK’s fascination with North Korea, while showing up how the country’s media are seemingly blinded to our own national eccentricities. Of course, the comparison is crude: the UK is a healthy democracy whilst the DPRK has only known leaders from one adulated family, the Kims.

In the YouTube edit, adoring citizens are shown singing and waving the union jack in front of the Queen and her offspring, while the voice-over describes footage of North Koreans celebrating under the watchful (and forceful) eye of their authoritarian government.

“It does arguably highlight an uncomfortable truth about idolization,” wrote the Independent.

[Read full Guardian article]

Kim Jong Un and wife enjoy a night out with the rogue state’s premier girl band

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North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and his wife Ri Sol-ju (4th from right), along with members of the Moranbong Band who performed at the 70th anniversary of the founding of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea. [Click photo to enlarge]
Kim Jong-Un has continued the celebrations of his ruling Workers’ Party’s 70th anniversary with a concert by North Korea’s most popular girl band – and even posed for pictures surrounded by the young women.

Kim Jong-Un, 32, and his wife, Ri Sol-ju, believed to be in her late 20s, can be seen surrounded by members of the Moranbong Band, an all-female group reportedly the most popular in North Korea.

In another photo, the rotund ‘Dear Leader’, appears to be enjoying himself, as he laughs and enjoys a crafty cigarette while sitting next to his young wife, who wore a pale pink satin jacket and matching skirt.

 

[Daily Mail]

North Koran defector tells of the cult of fear

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Forced to witness public executions and beaten for 15 days after his first escape attempt, a former North Korean soldier who dramatically defected to the South talks exclusively to Sky News about the horrors of life under Kim Jong-Un – and how he dreams of one day being reunited with his family.

I asked this former army officer, now defected and living in Seoul, about the TV footage we see from Pyongyang – the vast celebrations last weekend, the resounding applause for the country’s leader.

“When people are clapping,” he says, “if you don’t clap, if you nod off, you’re marked as not following Kim Jong-Un’s doctrine. … You chant ‘Long Live’ and clap because you don’t want to die.”

For all of the very public displays of ‎devotion, he says the reality is a brutal dictatorship.‎ He describes public executions, and a regime that demands total loyalty. “In our unit, when I was a lieutenant, we saw one of our own soldiers executed by gunfire. … I have seen a lot of public executions.”

Under Mr Kim, he says, people are more afraid‎. “When Kim Jong-Un does something wrong, or if the people don’t live well, he points to someone else and says , ‘you have done it wrong.’ … Therefore, the people get punished, or executed.”

“In North Korea, if you watch South Korean dramas, they can take you away; in extreme cases you can be executed.”

[Sky News]

Pyongyang show vs. rural life struggle

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While North Korea prepares a big show to mark the 70th anniversary of the ruling Workers’ Party, the daily struggles of life outside the capital –such as finding clean running water and putting nutritious food on the table year-round– pose a harsh, but largely unseen, contrast to the grand celebrations the world will see Oct. 10.

To make sure Pyongyang looks its best, extensive construction projects have considerably prettied up the capital, which is far and away the most developed city in North Korea and is even relatively comfortable for the increasingly affluent segment of its populace.

North Korean farmer tills the soil by hand

But life in the provinces, and particularly in rural areas, is quite a different story. Instead of the new high-rise apartments and bicycle lanes that have been put up in Pyongyang for the party anniversary, the people in the communities of Sinyang County, which is just 150 kilometers (100 miles) from Pyongyang (takes three hours to reach by car on mostly unpaved roads), are just now just beginning to enjoy a far more fundamental improvement in their lives …”disease-free” running water.

North Korean women cart supplies by bicycle

Elsewhere, an old woman sits outside her home scraping corn off recently harvested cobs. The dry corn will be ground into flour to make food. In the North Korean countryside, this is a common sight. Everything must be done by hand, from the fields to the home.

A farmer on ox wagon between Pyongyang and the DMZ

[AP]

Deals on the bus make North Korean markets go round

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In North Korea’s fledgling market economy, a fleet of repurposed old passenger buses, known as “servi-cha” – the name comes from “service” and “car”, move trade goods between far-flung corners of the country.

“In the past you had to deliver stuff in person. Now, buses are the way it is,” said Kim Heung-kwang, a defector who heads the North Korea Intellectuals Solidarity organization in Seoul and maintains links with sources inside his secretive homeland. “Rice can be sent … cattle move around with these buses. Raw materials can now be delivered around the country.”

The servi-cha are another example of a growing tolerance for private enterprise within North Korea, where informal markets and small trading firms have burgeoned in recent years alongside a creaking centrally-planned Soviet-style economy.

Internal travel remains restricted in authoritarian North Korea and vehicles cannot officially be privately owned, but defectors say goods loaded on buses are off the regime’s radar, especially outside Pyongyang, the showpiece capital. Entrepreneurs can partner with state organizations to register buses on their behalf and share the profits, according to a 2014 paper from the Korea Institute for Industrial Economics and Trade in Sejong, South Korea.

[Reuters]

Electricity consumption in North Korea

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Over the weekend, U.S. astronaut Scott Kelly, on a year-long mission to the International Space Station, tweeted a couple of images that graphically displays the depth of economic deprivation in North Korea.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The good news is that North Korea is a great conserver of electricity. The bad news is that the country’s electrical consumption has dropped so much that many people don’t have it!

Back in 1980, there wasn’t a significant gap in electricity use between the two Koreas with electricity consumption in North Korea hitting 20.2 billion kilowatt hours versus 32.06 billion kilowatt hours in South Korea, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

By 2012, North Korea was using only 15.72 billion kilowatt hours while South Korea’s consumption had surged to 482.38 billion kilowatt hours. [In above photo, South Korean lights are shown at bottom right, directly below the North Korean darkness.]

[MarketWatch] 

The hidden human health side of sanctions against North Korea

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The economy of Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) has suffered through decades of international sanctions … and the health system has been one of the most impacted sectors.

International aid organizations and aid workers who are active in DPRK have been quite straightforward and linked the collapse of the vital public services to the international sanctions. According to aid agencies, the shortages first hit the health sector; essential medicine and diagnostic devices are either unavailable or take many months before they can get into the country. As a result, programs designed to fight diseases such as Tuberculosis, either delay indefinitely or get altogether cancelled.

Additionally, surgery anesthetics, common antibiotics, obstetric medicines, spare parts of medical devices and laboratory supplies cannot be imported or are significantly delayed to enter the country if some of their parts or substances are listed as prohibited goods.

Even a product which is almost entirely made in a third country but it has a component or a spare part made by a US based company, cannot be imported to North Korea without the permit of the US authorities. Those restrictions apply to everything, from the import of much needed technology to modernize public services, to spare parts of agricultural machinery, fertilizers and pesticides.

[Even] the donation of soccer balls is considered a breach of the international sanctions because the 1874 resolution of the UNSC includes all sports goods in its list of luxury items. Accordingly, in the autumn of 2013 the cargo of an American Charity was confiscated; it contained 1000 soccer balls to be donated to two North Korean orphanages.

The years of 2013 and 2014 were probably the worst for aid organizations working in DPRK. The sanctions against the Bank of Foreign Commerce of North Korea had frozen all financial transactions and the aid groups were unable to pay salaries to their staff, rent and utilities bills. Even the World Food Program (WFP) had to suspend production in five out of its seven factories producing fortified biscuits for malnourished children.

Is there any justification for the international sanctions besides their political significance? How long will the international community continue to punish ordinary Koreans for the actions of a government that they have no control on?

[Read full CounterPunch article by Fragkiska Megaloudi]