Open Dissent in the North?

You may recall this post from a few days ago, in which a North Korean guerrilla cameraman filmed members of the military hauling away what was purported a year’s supply of South Korean food aid … after South Korean monitors certified that it had been distributed to hungry civilians.

As it turned out, there was more to the film, reports the Daily NK.

In the video, a bill is posted in a black market near Dancheon Station, which read “˜People are starving to death because of the “Military first policy,” give rice to us, not the army.’

And also it features people having conversation in front of the poster. One female person in the video says that she saw a similar poster last year and a man responds by saying that the words are true. This is the first time that a scene, in which anti-Kim Jong Il poster is shown in a public space and people support such poster, is featured in a video clip.

The video is especially meaningful because of its suggestion of possibility of more widespread anti-Kim Jong Il activity inside North Korea.

The first question has to be whether the scene and the surrounding conversation are authentic, and of course, we can’t authenticate either. The scenes showing the food aid seem authentic, but people who can spot inconsistent details about that specific location are not easy to find. If the images are authentic, they suggest that the regime is reaching a saturation point at which it is no longer capable of containing dissent. If so, we’ll know soon enough. Highly repressive regimes must contain much higher pressures, and tend to move from the saturation point to the Ceausescu Moment quickly.