A brief report from the Daily NK on the situation in North Korea, after the Great Currency Confiscation:
The North Korean authorities continue to crack down on the private economy following the currency redenomination, as exchange rate instability and rising prices continue. Predictably, this has led to extremely high rates of inflation and forced the authorities to ramp up their reign of terror.
A Daily NK reporter met with two North Korean refugees in China on the 15th who described the social atmosphere, “Although the authorities are executing and arresting rule breakers, foreign currency dealing keeps happening. The stronger the regulation the authorities adopt, the more skillfully people avoid it.”
According to a source from Pyongyang, the authorities recently publicly executed two women from the Pyongcheon district of Pyongyang on suspicion of circulating foreign currency. The source said they were killed as an example to others during the crackdown on foreign currency usage.
On January 5th, in Soeho-ri, part of the Heungnam district of Hamheung, three women were also executed publicly on charges of receiving and circulating Yuan and dollars from fishermen and the crews of other ships returning from international voyages.A source from South Hamkyung Province explained, “When fishermen land their catch, they sell it directly to Chinese fishermen for Yuan. This is because if they submit the catch to the North Korean Fisheries Department, they won’t see any benefit.”
The executed women were foreign currency dealers. They exchanged the Yuan and dollars which the fishermen got from the Chinese for won.
“Following this incident, inspections of all fishing boats belonging to the Seoho Fisheries Department were initiated and their captains placed under investigation,” the source claimed.
Meanwhile, some grim but predictable news on Robert Park, the US-Korean evangelist who marched into North Korea on a lone mission to shame the regime for its record on human rights:
An evangelical activist who walked across the frozen Duman (or Tumen) river into North Korea on Christmas Eve to demand improvement of human rights got as far as Bangwon-ni village in Hoeryong, North Hamgyong Province, where he was arrested by North Korean boarder [sic] guards.
Sources say Robert Park, an ethnic Korean, told them he is an American citizen and came to call for human rights improvements and to urge leader Kim Jong-il "to repent." In response, the guards beat him to within an inch of his life. Even remaining silent while another person denounces the leader or the system is a punishable offence in North Korea, so the guards were unlikely to react with equanimity in such an uncompromising climate.
The guards then checked Park's passport and reported the event to the provincial office of the State Safety and Security Agency, who relayed it to headquarters. Officers from headquarters arrived within three days and took Park to Pyongyang.
They merely rebuked the guards for being over-zealous in their beating of Park. "I heard from soldiers that he was beaten so severely that he will need several months to recover," said a Hoeryong resident who recently fled to China.
North Korea seems to be in a quandary. Chances are that Park will continue his resistance by going on hunger strike or other means. But since his demands go to the core of what the regime is about, they cannot just leave him alone or release him. If the North decides to release him only because he is an American citizen despite denouncing the North Korean system, the double standards could exacerbate anger among the population, where discontent is already fomenting due to deteriorating living conditions.
Dealing with Park is apparently causing confusion since there is no precedent for such cases in North Korea. Some sources say the regime has to make an example of Park, but the regime will have trouble making any decision as the case is being monitored closely by the U.S. since he is an American citizen.
Where are the calls for isolation of the NK regime? Where are the protests on Cif? Where is the Left on this? (I don't expect anything from the Right. The North Koreans are poor people a long way away, so don't expect the Right to care.)
At least this Christian is trying to do something. His actions should shame us all.
Posted by: tolkein | January 19, 2010 at 11:33 AM
With regard to the new currency and the inflation, it sounds very much like Zimbabwe before the Zim dollar was abolished. I wouldn’t be surprised if senior politicians in NK are buying foreign currency at official rates (i.e. pegged) and making a tidy sum for themselves, like Zanu-PF ministers did all through the noughties.
Posted by: brian | January 19, 2010 at 01:10 PM