Two Jailbreaks Reported in Hoeryong
As North Korea tries to enforce a crackdown on cross-border smuggling of people and subversive items, it finds that control isn’t as easy to maintain as it once was. Both incidents involved suspected (cross-border?) smugglers:
The source said that in the evening, around 10 PM, unknown arsonist set fire on armory that caused confusion. Amid fire, two smugglers broke the prison bars and escaped. Although the Manghyang district security guards declared state of emergency over Hoiryeong and tried to catch the jail breakers, they failed. [Daily NK]
(Images — location and two views of Hoeryong City, Ryanggang North Hamgyeong Province, N. Korea; image of the nearby border here.)
The two took advantage of the fact that the jail was understaffed. The timing was close to the Lunar New Year and just four days before Kim Jong Il’s birthday celebrations, so it’s possible the police may have been on furlough. And as we know, there have been some disciplinary problems with border guards in that area, plus an ongoing crackdown on cross-border defections and smuggling. It’s equally possible that some of the jail staff were sent away to watch the border or chase fugitives. Here’s a description of the second incident:
On the next day of escape incident in Manghayng district, the other three criminals also escaped from a district security office in Osandeok, also in Hoiryeong. Osandeok district is located near Kim Jong Suk statute, that of Kim Jong Il’s mother, in downtown Hoiryeong.
The escapers of Osandeok security office are also known to be related to smuggling activities.
“No such thing (prison break) would have been even imagined in the past,” the inside source said, “and I think Hoiryeong is particularly vulnerable to this kind of acts because the city is close to China thus easier to be escaped.Â
The Daily NK adds:
Recently, North Korean residents are increasingly defiant against security authorities; fight with them has become widespread. In addition, series of prison break incidents indicate collapse of authority of North Korean government and increasing sense of popular unrest.
Let’s hope so.
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Think Christmas Day 1989 and Nicolae Ceausescu.
It is coming … regardless of Seoul’s best attempts for it to be otherwise.