Open Sources: N. Korea Closes Universities for 10 Months

Reports in South Korea indicated that the government in Pyongyang on Monday ordered all universities to cancel classes until April of next year. The only exemptions are for students who will be graduating in the next few months and foreign students. The reports suggested that the students will be put to work on construction projects in major cities while there are also indications that repair work may be needed in agricultural regions that were affected by a major typhoon recently.

Analysts in Japan claim there may be other reasons behind the decision to disperse the students across the country. [Daily Telegraph, hat tip to James]

The expression that comes to mind is “don’t eat your seed corn,” but then, maybe this is an implicit recognition that society can function just fine after depriving a generation of 10 more months of juche ideology.

While I agree that this signals some sort of desperation, in North Korea, long mass mobilizations are certainly not unprecedented. In 2009, the regime ordered a 250-day mass mobilization that send thousands of city dwellers out to work in the fields. I’ve speculated that the main point of this was really to keep people too exhausted to oppose the regime, but dispersal makes sense, too, and the explanations aren’t mutually exclusive. The last mass mobilization was extremely unpopular, and no doubt, this one will be, too.

So how thoroughly have South Korean DVD’s penetrated the North Korean market? According to the Chosun Ilbo, North Korean dramas can no longer compete in their own domestic market.

Phil Robertson of Human Rights Watch publishes on food aid for North Korea, which falls just short of persuading me that we should donate. What adds to my skepticism? The fact that two weeks ago, the World Food Program agreed to answer a detailed set of interview questions by e-mail — most of them about distribution and monitoring — and I’ve yet to hear back from them.

Remember that report of North Korea purchasing riot gear to prepare for the possibility of demonstrations? The Daily NK doubts it, raising the same question I did and saying that “even if a riot were to break out, the state would simply break it up with live ammunition. That sounds right to me.

Here’s another North Korea photoblog for those with an interest.

More demonstrations in Chinese-occupied Mongolia. You know what this reminds me of? The demonstrations that broke out in Russian-occupied Kazakhstan back in the 1980’s.