And, talking of North Korea (below), here's the latest from the Daily NK on the desperate situation there following the Great Currency Confiscation:
As predicted by experts on North Korea’s economy, since the authorities have yet to officially release state prices, the North Korean people are now surviving by bartering.
A defector, who spoke with his family in North Hamkyung Province on Tuesday, reported the news to the Daily NK, “I called my family to send some money to them as I had heard they were in trouble, and they told me that the current situation is unspeakably terrible. They live only by bartering with others.”
He explained further, “For now, state-designated prices are still not public, so people think that selling goods for cash now would mean making a loss. Therefore, bartering has become the main method of trading for the people.”...The source noted, “People complain that the authorities keep stressing the idea of a strong country in the 21st century while the people’s living conditions are no different from in ancient times.”
He added, “On January 8, people had a day off for Kim Jong Eun’s birthday, but it did not interest them. The succession issue cannot hold people’s interest; they just want everything to be put in order.”
Effectively abolishing the currency...closing markets...public executions...it's a government at war with its own people. Here's the official voice of the Korean Central News Agency:
A fierce struggle should be waged against the class enemies within the socialist society.
All those who try to destabilize the socialist society are the enemies of socialism. They include remnants of the exploiting classes who harbor antipathy towards the socialist system, those who work hard overtly and covertly to bring down the socialist system after being greased by imperialists, those who have degenerated ideologically and morally, taken in by the imperialists' ideological and cultural poisoning and those who are introducing corrupt bourgeois way of life into society. Only when a fierce struggle is waged against them is it possible to protect and reinforce the position of socialism.
Normally when I link to the KCNA it's, basically, to take the piss. There's nothing funny about this though; on the contrary, it's chilling. A fierce struggle should be waged against the class enemies within the socialist society. We know what this means. We saw it in the war against the kulaks in the early years of the Soviet Union, when millions perished in the famines and the gulag; we saw it in Mao's Cultural Revolution; and we saw it in Pol Pot's Year Zero. This is not looking good.
I agree. And you're the only voice in England that seems to care a jot.
And when the regime collapses and the deathcamps are opened up, will Philippe Sands be urging charges against former DPRK leaders? Will there be anguished articles on Cif (sorry, of course there will be. The tough choices facing the DPRK in the face of isolation and American imperialism).
Posted by: tolkein | January 22, 2010 at 09:28 AM
No doubt Stop the War's Andrew Murray can explain how everything is all right really.
Posted by: Bob-B | January 22, 2010 at 10:05 AM