Fractured Monolith
The quality and quantity of the Daily NK’s reports from inside the North just seem to get better. This week, two new reports fill in gaps in our knowledge about economic and social conditions; both are absolute must-reads. The first is filled with pictures of gritty scenes of daily life in the North. It’s astonishing to see the extent to which the blockade has eroded when pictures like these come out.
On this day, the brawl began as 2 young security guards (noncommissioned officers in their early-20’s) tried to forcefully stop a service car on its way to Hwangju province. Apparently, the security guards ordered for the car to halt, but the driver ignored the guards and sped up. As a result, the security guards jumped onto the passenger side and smashed the glass window. This led to a fist fight between the security guards and driver.
The people sitting at the back of the truck yelled abusive language in protest against the security guards who fought arrogantly even after having broken a window.
No, fistfights aren’t necessarily the sparks of revolution, but they do much to correct our impression that the people can’t, or won’t, challenge the regime’s forces. The difference between disorder and revolution is an idea. Read, if only for the pictures.
The next story is simply bleak, and suggests that my dire predictions about the food situation are coming to pass:
At Sunam markets in Chungjin, North Hamkyung province a bag of rice surged 1,400 won ($0.46) a kilo. Since last May when prices skyrocketed to 1,300won this is the highest prices have reached.
The cost of 1kg of corn is a high 450won. The districts within North Hamkyung province such as Onsung, Hoiryeong and Musan are no different. The cost of a kilo of rice at Onsung and Hoiryeong averages 1,200won ($0.40) and has risen to 1,300won at Musan. On average corn is costing 380~400won per kilo.
Although autumn harvest has begun throughout all of North Korea, the cost of food at Jangmadang continues to rise and the common North Korean experiences greater difficulties as a result of food shortage. Defectors have informed that poverty has become so severe in North Hamkyung province that the nightmares of mass starvation in the mid-90’s is once again tormenting a laborer’s dinner table with the reappearance of “˜grass porridge.’
The story suggests that most workers aren’t receiving rations. Again, government diversion and hoarding are suspected. Much more on the food situation here. All we can hope is that if a new famine arises, that the international response will be more principled and coordinated than it has been in the past.
I noticed the same thing. I keep thinking of Dr. Lankov’s report early September. About 6 years ago, I heard a Korean Chinese man with relatives in DPRK tell me that “everybody” in North Korea watched South Korean TV shows. I remember asking Dr. Lankov 5 years ago if this was true. Back then, he replied that VHS was still out of the price range of most North Koreans and it was highly unlikely that “everyone” in DPRK could do this. That was then, and this is now, and it appears that indeed, “everyone” in DPRK now watches South Korean TV shows. The much improved NK daily reports gathered through, what is presumably cell phone converstaions from North Koreans also show that information blockade is effectively broken in DPRK. Just a day or two ago, Norimitsu Onishi at NYT was reporting about how it was easy for anyone with money to broker out a North Korean resident to South Korea. DPRK must be losing control. The news are clear this time. I hear the unraveling sounds.
We know that KJI will never go 6 party and Bush will never go bilateral. So sanctions will continue. And we also know that even South Korea stopped sending food and fertilizers to DPRK since the missile tests, and that the foreign aid services left DPRK. We also know that the weather had an impact yet again on their agriculture this year. China who knows more than anybody about what is going on there is rebuilding the fences.
I think this is it. The time has finally come. 1 year? 2? I just hope we can avoid a war.
Funny thing about Roh Moo Hyun who is transferring military command back to South Korea. Presumably he probably thinks that this will decrease the risk of war on the peninsula. But Uri party popularity is low as it can get, and how does he know that some new old GNP presidential candidate has secret ambitions to reunify the peninsula through a much more Syngman Rheesque technique? Roh Moo Hyun will probably be remembered as the absolute worst South Korean president, who was elected to office only due to the excess of the GNP past.
Final thought concerning the nuke test: It may be remembered as the final grasp of leaves of a drowning man.
They must have thought that if missile tests won’t force US to pay the blackmail, nuke tests must. But I think more important then that, KJI must have realized that he couldn’t “give in” to US demands of 6 party talks for whatever internal reasons. Also, he must have realized that another time of mass starvation is approaching. only the detonation of a nuclear bomb could give justification to the North Korean people that their suffering wasn’t for naught. That DPRK, in it’s ultimate wisdom, suffered so that it can reach power parity with the US. Well, at least, that must be the propaganda that they must think will justify the coming suffering.
The ultimate good news is that the detonation appears to be a fizzle, and DPRK must now do some serious soul searching about whether to do a 2nd test. Because US isn’t giving in while Bush is in office, and by the time Bush is out of office, so will Roh Moo Hyun. KJI seems to act as if he is pretty tight on time to force everyone’s hands.