North Korean Children Left Untreated After Tuberculous Meningitis Outbreak

A recent outbreak of tuberculous meningitis in North Korea has left many children dead and others crippled after authorities failed to diagnose and treat the infection in a timely manner, according to sources inside the country.

Many parents have also been unable to cure their sons and daughters of the infection, which can cause death if left untreated, due to the scarcity of pharmaceuticals in the impoverished country, as well as the enormous costs associated with treatment, the sources told RFA’s Korean Service.

A large number of urban schools and daycare centers in North Korea were affected with cases of tuberculous meningitis—a bacterial infection of the brain and spinal cord—between July and August, according to one source from North Hamgyong province, near the border with China.

While authorities moved quickly to shutter the facilities and control the spread of the infection, mortality rates among children already affected have been high, he said, while those who have not died continue to experience severe symptoms due to a lack of complete treatment.

“An unknown illness that affected children in large cities—including Chongjin, Hamhung and Pyongsung—between July and August has been identified as tuberculous meningitis by the central government’s investigation team,” the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

According to the source, many of the deaths from tuberculous meningitis were the result of children’s hospitals’ failure to diagnose the infection in a timely manner.

Nearly all of the cases involved children under the age of seven, which is customarily when North Koreans begin receiving tuberculosis vaccinations, he said, while those four and younger were particularly hard hit.

A second source from Chagang province told RFA that many children’s hospitals had failed to diagnose cases due to “backward medical facilities and poorly skilled staff,” and said the outbreak was only identified through a government investigation launched following the rapid spread of the infection.

However, even after the outbreak was identified, hospitals often lacked the necessary drugs for treatment, and when parents were able to find the drugs in pharmacies or in Jangmadang (unofficial marketplaces), they could rarely afford them, he said.

The source said that “children infected with tuberculous meningitis are still suffering from pain,” and that while some of their symptoms are severe, “their parents just give up on their treatment, because the drugs are simply too expensive.”

Insurmountable costs

North Korea’s Sunchon Pharmaceutical Factory in South Pyongan province’s Sunchon city and Ranam Pharmaceutical Factory in North Hamgyong’s Chongjin city both produce the antibiotic Streptomycin, which can treat tuberculous meningitis, but the source said one bottle of 20 milligram pills sells for 4,000 won—the equivalent of an entire month of wages for managers of rural factories.

Six months of treatment with other imported antibiotics—the minimum amount of time usually required to cure the infection—can cost up to 400,000 won, which is nearly impossible for most families in North Korea to afford, he said.

One U.S. dollar is worth approximately 130 North Korean won, according to the official exchange rate, though the same amount fetches between 8,200 and 8,320 won on the black market.

Because of the prohibitive cost of pharmaceuticals, the source said, “some affected children are still suffering from the after-effects of the infection, including the paralysis of their extremities.”

Other complications that can occur if tuberculous meningitis is left untreated include brain damage, build-up of fluid between the skull and brain, hearing loss and seizures.

While North Korea’s constitution states that all citizens have access to free medical care, a report released last May by the Seoul-based Citizens’ Alliance for North Korean Human Rights said that many illnesses go untreated if the patient is unable to provide money or gifts to doctors.

Reported by Sunghui Moon for RFA’s Korean Service. Translated by Changsop Pyon. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

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North Korean Files Rare Complaint Against Authorities to Get Son’s Body

A North Korean woman has filed a formal complaint against central authorities, demanding the return of the body of her son who died in prison just before he was to be released, in a rare move in the isolated country where citizens can be punished for challenging the totalitarian regime, according to sources inside the country.

The woman, a widow in her 50s whose surname is Kang, lives in the administrative district Yeonpyeong-dong in the city of Hyesan in northern North Korea's Yanggang province, sources from the province told RFA’s Korean Service.

In the letter she submitted to the Office for Complaint Management of the Korean Workers’ Party, Kang demanded the return of the body of her son, who died in Sungchun Prison in South Pyongan province.

“Explain why my son died! Return my son’s body to me!” she wrote in the letter, according to the sources.

Kang’s son, who had served in the military, was discharged from duty when he was 31, but was caught smuggling goats and dogs to China to raise money for his wedding, one source said.

“The lady is a widow and has only one son,” another source in Yanggang province said. “Since his discharge from the army, the son had smuggled goats and dogs to raise funds for his wedding, and he was imprisoned.”

North Korean authorities convicted Kang's son and sentenced him to three years in prison in March 2014, the first source said.

He was granted early release in August of this year under a general amnesty to celebrate the 70th anniversaries of the nation’s independence from Japanese colonial rule and founding of the ruling Korean Workers’ Party, he said.

The pardoning of prisoners “convicted of crimes against the country and its people” was to take effect on Aug. 1, the North's official KCNA news agency reported in July.

The son’s name was on the list of inmates to be released, but when he did not return home last month, his mother went to the prison to look for him and was informed that he had died suddenly, the source said.

Prison authorities have not confirmed the son’s cause of death, and have ignored Kang’s demand to return her son’s body to her, he said.

Keeping the dead

It is routine for prison authorities in North Korea not to return the bodies of those who die or are executed in jail to their families, but it is extremely unusual for relatives to file complaints with the Workers’ Party, demanding that prison authorities hand over the corpses.

When the story of Kang’s travails spread around Hyesan, citizens began grumbling about the Party’s policy of not returning the bodies of those who die in jail to their family members, the second source said.

“The news about this widow became a subject of controversy when residents heard about it, and people are anxiously waiting for a response from authorities,” he said.

International human rights groups have condemned North Korean political prisons and labor camps where inmates are routinely subject to persecution and inhumane treatment, and mortality rates are high because of starvation, illnesses, forced labor, rape and torture.

North Korea detains between 80,000 and 120,000 prisoners in political prison camps, or about one of every 200 citizens, according to a report issued in February 2014 by the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in North Korea, which documented the network of such prisons and the atrocities that occur inside them.

Reported by Sung-hui Moon for RFA’s Korean Service. Translated by Hyosun Kim. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

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North Korea Withholds Salaries From Earners Abroad Ahead of Workers’ Party Anniversary

North Korea’s regime has been withholding salaries from its overseas workers under the pretext of securing funds to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the ruling Workers’ Party next month, though their overseers are receiving payment as usual, according to sources.

North Koreans sent to China to bring in cash for the regime said handlers had failed to pay “several months” of salaries to their workers and forced them to take part in a “Foreign Currency Earning for Loyalty” campaign ahead of the Oct. 10 celebrations marking the founding of the party in 1945.

“It’s been four months and counting, and I haven’t received any of the salary [for living expenses] that the authorities promised,” one woman, dispatched from Pyongyang to Hunchun city in northeast China’s Jilin province, told RFA’s Korean Service.

“There has been a growing uneasiness among the workers, as there is no official word on when they will be paid the money that is due them,” she said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Typically, North Korea’s foreign currency earners turn over their “salaries” to their handlers and receive a stipend for living expenses which, while meager, allows them to meet their daily needs and even send some money home to their families.

According to the source, around 120 female workers—most of whom are aged 18-23 and from factories in North Korea’s South Pyongan and North Hwanghae provinces—were relocated to China's Hunchun city early this year with the promise of U.S. $100 per month in living expenses, but had so far only received 100 Chinese yuan (U.S. $16) in May.

She and the other women are barely able to make ends meet, and have been surviving on the daily necessities, medicines and cosmetics they took with them when they left North Korea, the source said.

In August, nine women refused to work in protest over non-payment of their salaries and met with the on-site supervisor, demanding that he hand over what they were owed and send them back home, she said.

The security officer in charge convened a “Judgment General Assembly,” but began berating the women during the proceedings, saying their compatriots back in North Korea were “working like hell, both day and night, with their belts tightened, to ensure the anniversary of the Workers’ Party is a success.”

He questioned whether they were aware of how lucky they were to eat rice three times a day and suggested they would be punished if they returned to North Korea as “those who refuse to sacrifice themselves for the country will be sent to prison after going through labor training,” the source said.

Terrified by the threats, the female workers immediately returned to their workplaces, she said.

A middle-level manager of a North Korean agency charged with earning foreign currency, who also declined to provide his name, told RFA that salaries were only being distributed to the top ranks of the detail.

“Not only the workers, but also we middle-level managers haven’t received any salary for the past several months leading up to the 70th anniversary of the founding of the Workers’ Party,” said the source, who is currently working at a manufacturing company in Jilin’s Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture.

Chief supervisors and security officers are paid their monthly salaries as usual, he said, adding that the practice had soured relations with workers.

Anniversary preparations

Reports in recent months indicate that North Korea’s regime has badly miscalculated the country’s readiness to mark the founding of its ruling party.

In August, sources said that the regime issued a directive for each household to pay about 40 yuan (U.S. $6.30)—a small fortune in the impoverished nation—for People’s Army soldiers who are training for a military parade and helping to build new construction projects to celebrate the anniversary.

Also last month, sources told RFA that authorities in North Hamgyong province were punishing misdemeanors—such as riding bicycles without bells—with labor duty as they race to complete unfinished development projects ahead of the anniversary.

According to other sources, it was only in May that supreme leader Kim Jong Un had ordered “special gifts” to be distributed nationwide ahead of the Oct. 10 celebrations, which the North Korean cabinet had decided would be tablet PCs or other high-tech electronic goods.

However, the regime withdrew its plans in August “due to a mix-up in North Korea’s rare-earth exports” that left it unable to afford importing parts needed for the electronic products from abroad, the source said, adding that the public is more likely to receive electronic watches, rather than the rumored tablets.

Reported by Jieun Kim for RFA’s Korean Service. Translated by Changsop Pyon. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

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Grim Fate For Women Repatriated to North Korea After Forays Into China

North Korean has been detaining an increasing number of women in the past few years for crossing the border into China in search of food and opportunities to work for their families’ survival, according to a human rights report on the country’s gulag-style penal system issued Friday. 

Authorities have been forcibly repatriating the women and jailing them in a network of gulags, or kwan-li-so (labor camps) and kyo-hwa-so (political prisoner camps), according to the report issued by the nonprofit Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK).

Once repatriated, women are subject to extreme privation and repression while in detention, the report said.

“Women in particular are fleeing North Korea in even greater numbers,” said Roberta Cohen, co-chairperson of the Washington-based HRNK, in a printed statement. “When they are apprehended, they are subjected to deliberate starvation, persecution and punishment.”

The report, titled “Hidden Gulag IV: Gender Repression & Hidden Disappearances,” is the fourth in a series of reports on arbitrary detentions and forced labor in North Korea issued by HRNK since 2003.

It cites the post-2007 expansion of the women’s section at labor camp No. 12 in Jongo-ri, North Hamgyong province, in the northernmost part of the country, to hold a large number of forcibly repatriated women from the province. 

Former prisoners who had been incarcerated in the women’s section, and were later released and successfully defected to China and South Korea, said the facility housed more than 1,000 people. 

North Korea has between 80,000 and 120,000 prisoners detained in political prison camps, or about one of every 200 citizens, according to a report issued in February 2014 by a United Nations Commission of Inquiry on human rights in North Korea, which documented the network of such prisons and the atrocities that occur inside them.

“This report finds that, after their repatriation from China, thousands of North Korean women have been arbitrarily arrested — and detention facilities for women have notably expanded,” said Greg Scarlatoiu, executive director of HRNK, in a printed statement.

Inside labor camp No. 12, young women detainees were forced to work as wig and eyelash makers, while older women performed heavy labor such as agricultural production, animal husbandry, tree felling and log cutting.

Violation of human rights

The imprisonment of women who have left the country and been forcibly repatriated is a violation of article 13 (2) of the Universal Declaration of Human rights, which says everyone is free to leave his or her country and return, the report said. In addition, many of the interned women had not committed acts recognized as crimes under current international law.

“What was most interesting was the senselessness and the perniciousness of punishing these women for having gone to China in search of food because of the chronic food shortage,” said David Hawk, the report’s author, who interviewed former female prisoners from labor camp 12 earlier this year.

Furthermore, such “labor correction” facilities violate Article 10 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which says all people deprived of their liberty should be treated with dignity and humanity, the report noted.

Women who have been forcibly repatriated have been subject to systematic torture and beatings during interrogations, severe food deprivation, and naked strip searches and compulsory exercises to dislodge money or valuables hidden in inside their bodies, the report said.

Those who were pregnant when they were repatriated have been forced to undergo abortions if authorities thought they were carrying babies fathered by Chinese men, it said. 

“Their detentions constitute crimes against humanity,” Hawk said. “These are the worse-case violations that shouldn’t be occurring in the 21st century, and the only recourse available is to try to mobilize international public opinion.”

The United Nations Commission of Inquiry’s report on human rights in North Korea found that the severe mistreatment of and routine atrocities committed against imprisoned women amounted to criminal inhumanity. 

Based on the report’s findings, the U.N. recommended that North Korea be referred to the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity. The General Assembly approved the recommendation, but it has been held up in the Security Council.

“The reason why it’s important [for HRNK] to do periodic updates is because we’re in the odd situation of only being able to find out about human rights violations in North Korea between two and five years after the violations occurred,” said Hawk, former executive director of Amnesty International USA.

Authorities have released some female prisoners to their families when they appeared to be on the brink of death, in some cases after having lost half their body weight due to malnutrition or illness, the report said. 

Others were released after they had completed their sentences or their families bribed guards to let them go, it added.

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Kim Regime Imposes Mandatory Donations on North Koreans For Flood Recovery

North Koreans have condemned mandatory, regime-imposed donations of cash and goods to help with flood recovery efforts in the northeastern city of Rason, disparaging leader Kim Jong Un as a “vampire” who uses such guises to exploit the people, sources inside the country said.

North Koreans hurl curses of “vampires of the central government” against Kim Jong Un and Workers’ Party officials, who have been ordered to oversee such collections, every time they are forced to make the cash and in-kind contributions to support various “social tasks,” the sources said.

The regime has mandated that every household contribute various goods, including gloves and soybeans, as part of the recovery efforts for flood-stricken Rason, along with a directive that each adult over 17 years old pay 2,000 North Korean won (U.S. $0.25), a source in Yanggang province told RFA’s Korean Service.

“The affected North Koreans, whose harsh criticism of Kim Jong Un is growing, keep asking what the heck he knows about anything except reaping cash and in-kind goods?” he told RFA’s Korean Service.

“They’re just lamenting that there is no Im Kkeokjeong in this country,” he added, referring to a Korean Robin Hood-like figure during the mid-16th century, who led a group of peasant thieves in robbing the wealthy and redistributing the booty to the poor.

More than 40 people are believed to have lost their lives during the recent floods in the Rason Special Economic Zone, which the government set up in the early 1990s to promote economic growth through foreign investment, while 1,000 homes were damaged and numerous roads washed out.

In August alone, the cash and in-kind contributions that North Koreans were forced to fork over to authorities amounted to dozens of Chinese yuan (1 yuan = U.S. $0.16) per household, sources said.

The Kim regime had issued another directive last month for cash and in-kind contributions from the public for People’s Army soldiers who are training for a military parade and helping to build new construction projects to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the founding of the Workers’ Party, the source in Yanggang province said.

Each household had to pay about 40 Chinese yuan (U.S. $6.26) for these efforts, he added.

The total value of cash and in-kind goods that each family has given to the regime so far this year has amounted to more than 300 Chinese yuan (U.S. $47.12), most of which they have provided in the form of soybeans, he said.

Authorities also have forced North Koreans to donate gold, dog skins and medicinal herbs, which the regime can sell for foreign currency, under the “Loyal Campaign for Foreign Exchange Earning” program that supports notable political events, such as the anniversary of the founding of the Workers’ Party, he said.

“The North Koreans would not have been exploited like this even during the Japanese occupation period,” a source in Jagang Province told RFA. “Kim Jong Il, who also was greatly criticized by the people for his many directives on social tasks, could pass for a decent guy compared to Kim Jung Un.”

The total amount of cash and in-kind contributions reaped by provincial authorities in the name of Kim Jong Un’s verbal directives are equivalent to what the central government has collected, resulting in double or triple exploitation of North Koreans, the source said.

The forced contributions are financially taxing on North Koreans in the impoverished country, where analysts estimate per capita income is U.S. $1,000-$2,000 compared to around U.S. $28,000 in South Korea.

North Koreans who build appliances and other products for South Korean companies at the Kaesong Industrial Complex have some of the best-paying jobs, earning at least about U.S. $74 per month, and about twice that amount for overtime work.

Foreign-invested companies with operations elsewhere in North Korea have reported to RFA that they pay their workers U.S. $47-$70 a month.

Reported by Sung-hui Moon of RFA’s Korean Service. Translated by Changsop Pyon. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

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North Koreans Arrested For Viewing Chinese Military Parade Broadcast

Authorities in North Korea have arrested a number of people who were found to have removed jamming devices on their televisions in order to watch coverage of a massive military parade in China last week, according to sources inside the reclusive state.

Television sets produced in North Korea have included equipment to prevent access of foreign broadcasts since the early 1990s, but sources told RFA’s Korean Service that as word spread of the parade marking the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, many residents of provinces along the country’s northern border with China had the jamming devices removed in order to view the Sept. 3 event live.

A source from North Hamgyong province, across the border from the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China’s Jilin province, said that local residents can easily access Chinese broadcasts once the devices are removed from their television sets.

“At the border areas of North Hamgyong province, it is easy to get reception of Chinese Yanbian Korean-Chinese TV and Chinese state TV channels,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

However, local authorities became aware that residents were planning to view the parade—during which China unveiled its newest military technology to an audience which included several top foreign dignitaries—and launched a crackdown, arresting anyone found to have accessed the broadcast.

“In the cities of Onsong, Hoeryong and Musan, the 27th division of North Korea’s State Political Security Department conducted spot inspections … arresting many people who watched the parade,” the source said.

Those who were detained were able to secure their release by paying “fines” in Chinese yuan, he said, noting that the currency is preferred for its stability over the weak North Korean won. It was unclear whether the fines were official or a form of extortion.

North Korea at ‘child’s level’

A source from Yanggang province, which also lies across the border from Jilin, confirmed the crackdown on North Koreans who viewed the parade, but said that efforts by authorities to stifle information about the event were futile.

“Despite strict monitoring and controls, news about China’s military parade has spread rapidly,” said the source, who also declined to be named.

“In particular, many North Koreans were shocked to see South Korean President Park Geun-hye through the broadcast of the parade, as well as scenes that included modern weapons and officials from various foreign countries filling Tiananmen Square.”

Park is routinely vilified in North Korean media, which portrays South Korea as a lowly puppet of the United States, but she enjoyed a prominent place on the parade viewing stand, next to  Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

According to the source, the spectacle left North Koreans embarrassed about their own country’s status within the international community.

Residents began talking about how North Korean parades were at a “child’s level” in comparison, he said, with many expressing expectations that an upcoming event to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the foundation of the ruling Workers’ Party on Oct. 10 would be “a public shaming.”

“So the State Political Security Department believed that those who had witnessed the event were the origin of the discussions, and found and punished them, to stop the conversation,” he said.

Forbidding foreign media

North Korea’s government maintains an iron grip on the flow of information in the country, and routinely punishes citizens for accessing foreign radio and other media. 

In April, the Committee to Protect Journalists, an independent U.S. monitor group, ranked North Korea the world’s second most repressive country for media, noting that the official Korean Central News Agency—a government mouthpiece—provided “nearly all the content” of newspapers, periodicals, and broadcasts.

North Korean authorities have long tried to block South Korean soap operas, movies, and music from entering the country in an attempt to keep unwanted foreign influences from seeping into the Hermit Kingdom. 

In November 2013, authorities publicly executed some 80 people in a wave of capital punishment across seven cities, many of them for watching foreign media, South Korean media reported.

Reported by Jieun Kim for RFA’s Korean Service. Translated by Ahreum Jung. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

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North Korean Teachers Gear Up For ‘Ideological Battle’ With Students

North Korean authorities have organized nationwide lecture classes to prepare teachers in all schools for an “ideological battle” with students over an increase in socially undesirable behavior and criminal acts among young people, sources inside the country said.

The newly launched classes at teacher training schools are based on educational goals presented at last year’s National Education Workers’ Convention to teach educators in cities and counties across the isolated country about their role in the ideological battle to prevent young people from engaging in behavior that runs counter to that which the regime advocates, they said.

North Korea’s education system at all levels emphasizes indoctrination based on the greatness of the ruling Kim family, sacred revolutionary sites, the political ideology of juche, or self-reliance, and moral rectitude.

“At the instruction of the Education Department of the Korean Workers’ Party, there have been lecture classes for education workers across the country since Sept. 2,” a source in Jagang province told RFA’s Korea Service. “The current classes, which will last until Sept. 5, have been designed to discuss various issues raised at frontline education spots.”

Authorities set up the current classes to review the accomplishments and shortcomings of the goals presented at the 13th National Education Workers’ Convention held last Sept. 5 on Education Day, the source said.

Education Day is held every Sept. 5 to commemorate the publication of a treatise entitled “Theses on Socialist Education” by North Korea’s founder Kim Il Sung on that day in 1977.

Despite heavy indoctrination, more and more students have been committing crimes and engaging in socially unacceptable behavior, such as using illegal drugs, gambling and engaging in premarital sex, sources said.

Youth League cadres and instructors, school principals and assistant principals, and Boy Scout instructors have been required to attend the classes at the behest of labor unit secretaries in local branches of the Workers’ Party and the head of the Party’s Education Department, the source from Jagang province said.

A tense atmosphere

The current atmosphere in the country’s education sector is tense, as educators fear they may be replaced en masse by more capable teachers under a Workers’ Party directive that calls for those considered too old or nonperformers to be relieved of their duties, he said.

“The lecture classes this time basically seek to deal with students’ crimes and misdemeanors that are growing more and more violent, rather than focusing on the fostering of innovative and talented students,” a source in Yanggang province told RFA.

For example, there have recent reports about a spate of incidents in the province’s Hyesan city, where students were caught using drugs, gambling and watching illegal videos, he said.

In addition, some students from advanced middle schools were involved in sexually immoral behavior, according to the reports, for which local education authorities came under heavy criticism, he said.

In early August, police in Hyesan arrested about 14 boys and girls from Sunghu Advanced Middle School for playing the Chinese gambling game mahjong, the source said.

Since then, North Korean authorities have forbidden the selling of mahjong tiles at all jangmadang, or quasi-legal open markets, he said.

Reported by Sunghui Moon for RFA’s Korea Service. Translated by Changsop Pyon. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

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Global NGO To Redistribute Flood Aid in North Korea’s Rason

The Red Cross plans to reallocate disaster relief funds to North Korea to assist with cleanup and rebuilding efforts from recent floods that devastated a special economic zone in the northeastern part of the country, sources familiar with the situation said.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) and North Korea’s Red Cross Society are conducting a comprehensive joint needs assessment to determine whether to redirect money from the Disaster Relief Emergency Fund recently delivered to the isolated nation last month.  

If approved, the funds would be redirected to rebuilding and restoration work in the Rason Special Economic Zone in northeast North Hamgyong Province. Heavy rains brought by the tail end of Typhoon Goni on Aug. 22-23 pounded Rason, causing landslides and forcing residents to flee to higher grounds.

More than 40 people are believed to have lost their lives in the SEZ, which the government set up in the early 1990s to promote economic growth through foreign investment, while 1,000 homes have likely been damaged, RFA’s Korean Service previously reported. 

An IFRC official, who declined to be named, told RFA on Monday that the organization would reallocate about $200,000 of the fund, which had been delivered to North Korea early last month to provide emergency relief operations for damage caused by floods from torrential rains in North and South Hwanghae provinces. 

The official, however, did not provide any further details about the assessment results except to say that the organization would issue them after further confirmations. 

Some 500 foreigners, including those participating in the 5th Rason International Trade Exhibition in late August, left for Yanji, the seat of the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in eastern China’s Jilin province, after being stranded for two days in the city by floodwaters that destroyed bridges and railroads, sources who visited the region said.  

North Korean officials were going to open a detour road as a temporary passage between Rason and the Wonjong Border Customs Office on the border with China, said an official from a nongovernmental organization (NGO) that operates in North Korea, who declined to be named. 

After the heavy rains, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who is also first secretary of Korean Workers’ Party, issued an order at an extended meeting of the Central Military Commission that troops should perform repair work from the flood damage so that necessary restorations could be completed before the 70th anniversary of party’s founding on Oct. 10, the country’s official news agency KCNA reported last week. 

Extensive damage

Kim Jong Un’s order, however, has sparked worries among citizens that the flood damage is more serious and extensive than what was initially reported, some NGO staff members said. 

KCNA released video footage of the flooding in Rason and reported that it had damaged nearly 100 buildings, including government offices, schools, nurseries and hospitals, as well as covered 1.24 million square meters (13.35 million square feet) of farmland.

One travel agency specializing in North Korean tours, which declined to be identified, said on its website that while it was difficult to get a full picture of the flood damage, it was much more severe than what was officially announced, and the death toll was expected to be much higher. 

The agency called for urgent support from the international community, saying that $700 would buy a ton of rice for those affected by the flooding, while $450 would buy a ton of soybeans for cooking oil.

Foreigners are helping with the clean-up efforts in Rason, according to the travel agency.

But it appears that North Korea has not asked for any flood aid from the international community yet, various NGOs working with the country said.

The U.S. NGO Americares, which regularly sends medical aid to North Korea, told RFA on Monday that it has no plans to respond to the recent flooding in North Korea. 

The organization, added that it would ship some $500,000 worth of regular medical aid, including antibiotics, cardiovascular medicine and prenatal vitamins, as well as winter clothing to North Korea in October.

Reported and translated by Hee Jung Yang for RFA’s Korean Service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

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North Korean Authorities Purge Border Guards After Shooting Incident, Defections

Scores of officers and rank-and-file soldiers from North Korea’s border guard unit have been rounded up and are under investigation by a special inspection team of the country’s Workers’ Party, following an incident earlier this year in which two of the guards crossed the border and killed two Chinese, sources inside the country said.

The team stormed the headquarters of the 25th brigade in the neighborhood of Yonbong 2 in Hyesan city of Yanggang province earlier this month, and arrested as many as 40 soldiers on the spot, said Hee-yun Doh, a representative of the Seoul-based Citizens’ Coalition for Human Rights of Abductees and North Korean Refugees, citing information from a local North Korean source.

Those arrested included the leader of the third platoon from the fourth company of second battalion and six staff sergeants, he said.

“The 25th Brigade is controlled by the Border Guard General Bureau in Pyongsung city, South Pyongan province, and this time its second  battalion in Hyesan city and fifth battalion in Bochon County, Yanggang province, were subjected to an intensive inspection,” he said.

The inspections and arrests were preceded by an incident in early April when soldiers from the 25th  brigade crossed into the Chinese border area and shot to death two Chinese civilians, Doh said.

It was not clear why the North Koreans crossed into the border area, but it is believed that they were trying to obtain food when they killed the two Chinese, according to reports.

The killings generated a diplomatic dispute between Pyongyang and Beijing, which resulted in the dismissal of the chief of the Border Guard General Bureau, although North Korea did not officially confirm the shooting.

“After the incident occurred, the new chief of the Board Guard General Bureau, acting on the instructions of [North Korean leader] Kim Jong Un, dealt sternly with the border guards who assisted defectors trying to cross the [Yalu] River,” Doh said. “With an order from above that not a single defector should be allowed to cross the river, he started a general inspection of the border areas.”

The Yalu River separates Hyesan from the Changbai Korean Autonomous County in northeast China’s Jilin province.

Then on Aug. 7, North Korean authorities secretly executed three staff sergeants from the 25th brigade, spreading fear among the brigade soldiers as the news spread, Doh said.

“Because of this incident, it is expected that defectors will find it very difficult to cross the river,” he said. “In particular, as almost 80 percent of the barbed-wire fences along the borders have been built, river crossings will become more and more difficult for defectors.”

In the meantime, 11 defectors were arrested in China after they crossed the Yalu River from the border area in Hyesan. Eight of the defectors from three different families who lived in Musan county, Hamgyong province, were deported back to North Korea after they were arrested in China.

After North Korean authorities discovered that their border guards assisted the defectors, they began  conducting a thorough inspection of the 25th Border Guard troops, local sources said.

Authorities had expected to complete the inspection by Aug. 20, but have extended it until Friday, they said.

Reported by Jae Wan Noh for RFA’s Korean Service. Translated by Changsop Pyon. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

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Interview: Korean Accord to 'Increase the Illusion of a Reasonable North Korea'

After marathon talks from Aug. 23 to 25, the two Koreas struck a six-point agreement to defuse military tension and increase inter-Korean cooperation. Under the agreement, South Korea halted anti-N. Korean loudspeaker broadcasts that made N. Korea bristle, while North Korea cancelled its semi-war status and withdrew its threat to shoot the loudspeakers. The two Koreas agreed to hold working-level talks to resume reunions of families separated since the Korean War.  Despite some positive signs for improved inter-Korean relations on the heels of the talks, there is still lingering skepticism that it will take some time to verify Pyongyang’s sincerity and willingness to carry out the agreement.

Changsop Pyon of RFA’s Korean Service interviewed Prof. Sung-Yoon Lee, professor at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in Massachusetts.  Prof. Lee, who teaches on Korea and U.S.-East Asia relations, has actively been involved in exposing the cruelties and contradictions of the successive North Korean regimes through his testimony before U.S. Congress and frequent contributions to major US media outlets such as The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post as well as appearances on ABC, CBS, NPR, BBC, among others.

RFA: What do you make of the agreement that came at the eleventh hour of the three-day negotiations on Aug. 25?

Lee: The agreement to stand down and work toward greater civilian exchange between the two sides has defused tension for now.  Certainly, in the short-term, the agreement will reduce the perception of inter-Korean tension and increase the illusion of a reasonable North Korea, one with which Seoul can do business.  In the long term, however, it will do little to deter Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs, its threatening posture against South Korea, or its extreme repression of its own people.  North Korea showed once again that it does not admit to culpability for attacks on the South or offer a “heartfelt apology” to South Korea.

RFA: According to the second clause of the agreement, the North expressed ‘regret’ over the recent landmine explosions that occurred on the southern side of the DMZ, but failed to specify who was responsible for the explosion, which is actually North Korea.  Short of a full ‘apology’, do you think there is any sincerity on the part of North Korea?

Lee: I’m afraid it’s a non-apology, devoid of subject-verb-object agreement.  It’s the kind of fake apology that Japanese Prime Minister Abe is prone to offering to Koreans and Chinese for Japan’s war crimes.  Hence, this is neither a concession made by the North nor a victory won by the South.  At the same time, it was unrealistic that North Korea would issue a straight-forward apology for planting the mines or its artillery fire on Aug 20, for North Korea has never apologized to the South on the record. Kim Il Sung purportedly apologized to KCIA chief Lee Hu-Rak in 1972 for the North Korean commando raid in January 1968. But that cannot be verified. There have been other instances of “regret” expressed, such as in the wake of the show of force by the ROK and US following the “axe murder incident” on August 18, 1976. But, again, that was no real apology.  And North Korea to date has vociferously denied culpability for major provocations and acts of terrorism like the 1983 Rangoon bombing, the 1987 Korean Airliner bombing, the sinking of the Cheonan, the shelling of Yeonpyeongdo, or the murder of Park Wang-Ja in July 2008 at Mt. Kumgang.

RFA: What’s also missing from the agreement is North Korea’s promise not to repeat similar provocations in the future. Seoul said Pyongyang promised it “verbally.” Do you think this kind of verbal promise by Pyongyang is enough to prevent any such provocations?

Lee: No.  Even a pledge written in blood is no guarantee against future provocations or lethal attacks, for North Korea has violated, without fail, every single major international agreement it has signed—both the letter and spirit of the agreement.  From the Korean War Armistice of 1953 to the inter-Korean agreements in 1991 and 1992, the 1994 Geneva Accord, 2005 and 2007 Six-Party accords to even the highly favorable June 15, 2000, Joint Statement…you name it, North Korea has violated it.

RFA: As a result of the talks, there is some hope that North Korea will refrain from making further provocations in the future.  Nonetheless, it’s most people’s educated guess that they will conduct another nuclear test or test long-range ballistic missiles on Oct. 10, the 70th founding day of the Workers’ Party. What is your take on this?

Lee: Since 2015 is the 70th anniversary of the founding of Kim Jong Un’s grandpa’s party, also known as the Workers’ Party of Korea, the young Kim has a compelling need to mark it with a bang, as he did 2012, the 100th anniversary of grandpa Kim Il Sung’s birth. That year, a failed long-range ballistic missile test came on April 13, followed by the successful one on December 12. Kim Jong Un followed through with a nuclear test on February 12, 2013, at a time of leadership transition in all the capitals of his neighborhood. From Kim’s perspective, these were all highly “rational” moves that raised his status as a major thorn in Northeast Asia even as opprobrium poured forth from the neighborhood—opprobrium that invariably fades out with time. Pyongyang is most likely to resort to a similar provocation before the year’s end despite the latest intense talks with South Korea. Casting a smokescreen by making a fake overture for talks before a provocation is a staple of the Pyongyang Playbook.

RFA: Despite the apparent lack of tangible progress in the lead up to the final day of negotiations, the North Korean delegation sat out the marathon talks instead of walking away.  Do you have any clue on why the North did so?

Lee: The biggest takeaway for the North from these extended talks is taming Seoul; that is, planting in the mind of the South Korean leadership the illusion of being able to get through to Pyongyang. With the next weapons test, North Korea’s neighbors will issue condemnation and call for another U.N. Security Council resolution. But, after a decent interval of, say, three months, Seoul will feel inclined to resume talks with Pyongyang, for it now has the experience of “getting through” to Pyongyang. This new dynamic in inter-Korean relations will favor the Kim regime, for increased economic and civil exchange programs between the North and South invariably involve money transfer from the South to the North. The question to ask is: Which side wants more to talk to the other side? The North or the South? Clearly, the latter. It’s a plain dilemma, a built-in handicap when a democratically elected leader facing a five-year, single-term presidency tries to deal with a dictator for life.

RFA: Given Pyongyang’s determination to conclude the talks, don’t you think Kim Jong Un wanted some sort of ‘political solution’ from the start rather than going to an actual war when they ordered a semi-war readiness? In other words, does it suggest Kim is politically savvy and cunning enough to manipulate this kind of crisis situation for his own purpose?

Lee: We all tend to underestimate North Korea and, when it comes to Kim Jong Un, it’s hard not to patronize him, as young, cruel, impetuous, and plain weird as he is. However, when it comes to propaganda, strategy, and choreography, North Korea is world-class. We should not underestimate the Kim regime or assume Kim is acting like a child who is prone to throwing a temper tantrum. Moreover, North Korea is not suicidal. The regime harbors no jihadist dreams. It will not start an all-out war under the present military dynamics despite what it says. In short, Kim Jong Un is following the Pyongyang Playbook built by his grandfather and father, applying pressure on Seoul and Washington through periodic provocations with the view toward reaping major concessions.

RFA: There is some consensus that North Korea felt itself most vulnerable to the psychological war as exemplified by Seoul’s anti-North Korean loudspeaker broadcasts that prompted the North to issue a semi-war alert, after all. Do you agree?

Lee: One takeaway for Seoul from last week’s events is that anti-North Korea propaganda makes Pyongyang bristle. Applied in greater force and scale, propaganda may be a more powerful deterrent than force. Pyongyang rightfully fears the precedent of Seoul responding asymmetrically with information warfare, just as it genuinely feared the U.S. Treasury Department’s financial sanctions in 2005 and 2006. This reaffirms that the Kim regime responds to pressure against its political contradictions and financial vulnerabilities. After all, it sought talks with Seoul. Just imagine if Seoul and Washington vastly increased funding for radio broadcast and other information operations into North Korea, as they well should. In an Orwellian world, “War is peace, freedom is slavery, and ignorance is strength.” In the surreal world of the DPRK, the past 62 years of de facto peace in Korea is war, a life of extreme servitude to the state is freedom, and national strength is preserved by keeping the people ignorant of the outside world. Informing and educating the North Korean people is not only the right thing to do, but also a potentially great leverage vis-à-vis Pyongyang. Moreover, it can save lives, too.

RFA: Under the agreement, the two Koreas will hold Red Cross talks in early September to resume separated family reunions. Can we take it as a positive sign for the improvement of inter-Korean relations?

Lee: Yes, it’s a positive sign—for the North, that is. While I shall never belittle the personal meaning of the family reunions for the individuals involved in these one-time, chaperoned meetings, on a state level, South Korea really should demand more of the North when it comes to these emotional family reunions. For example, demand that the family members be allowed to send and receive letters and occasionally make telephone calls to each other. Otherwise, Seoul will not pay for these meetings. This would not exactly be a rigorous political demand like asking Pyongyang to disarm. Again, which side is more dependent on these reunion events or eager to pay for them and hold them? It’s obviously the South.

RFA: South Korea has been pursuing the so-called trustpolitik towards North Korea since the inauguration of President Park Geun-hye in Feb. 2013, which basically seeks to establish mutually binding expectations based on global norms. Some say Park’s policy paid off in the sense that its principled practical approach led North Korea to make some concessions during the three-day talks.  Do you believe Park’s trustpolitik really worked this time?

Lee: A real principled North Korea policy would entail at least some of the following: Increased funding for raising human rights issues and also transmitting information into the North; call on Kim Jong Un to dismantle the gulags and downsize the hyper-inflated military; demand on the Kim regime that it grant the people the right to life—instead of, as the 2014 UN Commission of Inquiry human rights report charges, perpetrating the “inhumane act of knowingly causing prolonged starvation.”  The Park administration has yet to make any of such basic demands. It should use its moral and financial leverage and call on Pyongyang to grant the long-suffering North Korean people basic freedoms like the freedom of speech, information, assembly, religion, movement, and the freedom to eat. Any improvement in any of these areas would signal a degree of trust built. Seoul should bet on such real indicators of change in Pyongyang instead of betting on North Korea’s repeated lies.

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