Yet Another Report of Anti-Regime Leaflets in N. Korea

It’s the second such report I’ve seen this week, which is pretty extraordinary for North Korea:

North Korea’s National Security Agency (NSA) has launched a hunt for the individual or organization responsible for scattering 5,000 won bills scrawled with words criticizing the Kim Jong Il regime in Chongjin, North Hamkyung Province.

A source reported on Thursday that around the Kim Il Sung statue in Pohang and parts of Shinan district in the city, large numbers of 5,000 won bills inscribed with criticisms of the regime were scattered on the 26th of June. Chongjin NSA is conducting an investigation.

The new 5,000 won bill, which was issued on November 30 last year, features Kim Il Sung’s portrait. On the reverse side of the bills distributed in Chongjin were the criticisms and the words, “Defection National Salvation Action Group. [Daily NK]

The security forces barricaded off that area of the city and restricted movements out of the city. If this is the Kim Il Sung monument they’re referring to — and let’s face it, there’s more than one of those — we are speaking of an area in the middle of the city, where an intrepid dissident could easily have slipped out of town on a passing train.

Rumors about the defaced bills spread quickly in spite of the regime’s controls.

After the last such story, I’d wondered if the leaflets were spread by balloon, but Chongjin is a tough target to hit up in the far northeastern corner of North Korea, and the Daily NK’s sources suspect that the leaflets are of local origin, but possibly made with some support from defectors. Hmmm ….

There have been reports like this for years, of course, but the acts they describe have all been too fragmentary and too easy to contain to amount to much.