По данным журналистов, в пассажирском поезде ехало большое число китайцев, однако точная цифра не называется. Всего в результате взрыва на станции Рончхон области Пхенан-Пукто по неофициальным данным погибли и были ранены до трех тысяч человек.
Return to *North Korean Studies*
(in Russian)
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...В
момент столкновения и взрыва двух товарных
поездов, перевозивших нефть и сжиженный газ,
на северокорейской станции Рончхон стоял
пассажирский поезд, большинство пассажиров
которого были гражданами Китая. Об этом
сообщает южнокорейская газета «Чунан ильбо». По данным журналистов, в пассажирском поезде ехало большое число китайцев, однако точная цифра не называется. Всего в результате взрыва на станции Рончхон области Пхенан-Пукто по неофициальным данным погибли и были ранены до трех тысяч человек. |
Руководство КНДР не дает никаких комментариев по поводу случившегося. В то же время, южнокорейское информационное агентство «Ренхап» сообщает о введении в стране чрезвычайного положения. Также, по его данным, северокорейские власти отключили международную телефонную связь, чтобы не допустить утечки информации о железнодорожной катастрофе.
By Sang-Hun-Choe in Seoul, April 23, 2004
| As many as 3000 people were killed or injured today when two trains carrying oil and liquefied petroleum gas collided and exploded at a North Korean train station, South Korean media reported.
North Korea has issued a state of emergency. The North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il, reportedly had passed through the station as he returned from China hours earlier. The number killed or injured could reach 3000, South Korea's all-news cable channel, YTN, reported, citing unnamed sources on the China-North Korea border. |
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South Korea's Yonhap news agency, quoting sources in the Chinese city of Dandong on the border with the North, said the explosion occurred about 1pm (2pm AEST) at Ryongchon. It said Kim passed through nine hours earlier, returning to Pyongyang.
Ryongchon is about 20 kms from the Chinese border.
"The area around Ryongchon station has turned into ruins as if it were bombarded," Yonhap quoted its unnamed sources as saying.
"Debris from the explosion soared high into the sky and drifted to Sinuju," a North Korean town on the border with China, it added.
Yang Jong-hwa, a spokeswoman of South Korea's Unification Ministry, said her ministry could not immediately confirm the reports. The ministry is in charge of relations with North Korea.
The Associated Press
The Yonhap and Korean media contains some more detail and a lot more speculation, including:
- The N.Korean government cut national phone service to prevent news of this getting out.
- It's speculated that the trains carrying oil and liquefied petroleum gas may have been gifts from China.
- Even wilder is the speculation that Kim Jong-Il had passed through the area not terribly long before the explosion, and there is a outside chance that this was intended to decapitate the NK leadership.
| В четверг на одном из вокзалов в Северной Корее столкнулись и взорвались два поезда, перевозившие легковоспламеняющийся груз.
Как сообщает Reuters со ссылкой на южнокорейское информационное агентство Yonhap, инцидент произошел через девять часов после того, как через станцию проехал специальный поезд главы КНДР Ким Чен Ира, возвращавшегося с переговоров в Китае. Уточняется, что столкнувшиеся поезда перевозили бензин и сжиженный газ. |
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По данным китайских источников, пострадало много человек. Власти Южной Кореи заявили, что им известно о сообщении агентства, но пока они не могут подтвердить или опровергнуть эту информацию.
Signs of internal power struggle seen in N. Korea. East-Asia-Intel.com, April 20, 2004
A bitter power struggle is unfolding over who will succeed North Korea's "Dear Leader," Kim Jong-Il, according to South Korea's intelligence and a Japanese newspaper report.
Jang Song-Taek, husband of Kim Jong-Il's younger sister, has been widely regarded as a leading candidate. He was recently demoted by a group of senior ruling party officials in the powerful military who back Kim's son, Kim Jong-Chol.
Jang, 58, the first deputy director of the powerful Organization-Guidance Department of the Workers' Party, was recently dismissed from the post that controls party appointments, an intelligence official said.
Japan's Tokyo Shimbun newspaper said Jang was sent to an in-house education facility to study economics. But a South Korean intelligence official said Jang has assumed a new party office involving trade with South Korea. He said Chang's demotion could be temporary.
Ko Yong-Hi, 51, Kim Jong-Il's current wife who is ill with breast cancer, has recently stepped up efforts to boost her son, Jong-Chol, 23, as the country's next leader. "Those who supporting Kim Jong-Chol have focused their efforts to drive Jang out of the leadership race," said another North Korea watcher.
Kim Jong-Chol is competing for the leadership with his 20-year-old brother Jong-Un and half-brother Jong-Nam, 33 and unidentified figures in the party and military. But Jong-Chol is widely seen as the front-runner to take control of the nation.
Jong-Chol was recently named to succeed one of important posts held by his father - director of the party's Organization-Guidance Department. Kim Jong-Il has assumed the post concurrently with that of general-secretary of the party.
Kim Jong-Nam, 33, the son of Kim Jong-Il's second wife, Song Hae-Rim, seems out of contention since Japanese authorities caught him attempting to enter Japan illegally in May 2001, an act that caused Pyongyang severe diplomatic embarrassment. Song Hae-Rim died in 2002 in Moscow.
But some North Korea watchers see as likely the possibility that Jong-Nam would inherit the power because he is the eldest son of Kim Jong-Il. North Korea is a deeply Confucian country that honors seniority. A Japanese diplomat said Kim Jong-Nam was expected to return home in the near future to take charge of the country's powerful secret policy agency.
North Korea watchers in Seoul say Kim Jong-Il is expected to designate his successor this year since it was exactly 30 years ago that he himself was designated as the sole successor to his father, Kim Il-Sung who was 62 at the time. On Feb. 16, Kim Jong-Il turned 62, the same age as his father in 1974.
Posted by: Sonia | April 21, 2004 07:29 PM
Jang Song-Taek has been regarded as the practical second man in North Korea thanks to Kim Jong-Il's special trust regardless his official title.
Jang have reportedly confronted with Prime Minister Park Bong-Joo, who is economic reformist especially about partial introduction of market economy. Tokyo Simbun see Jang's relegation as by-product of internal line conflict in North Korea.
The idolization of Ko Yong-Hi as the "Mother" of the country has been noticed in some military education materials, and this became very distinctive these days. Given the fact North Koreans start idolization far before official confirmation, this kind of elevation of her status is telling something.
Some NK watchers mention the chance of Kim Jung-Un, the second son of Ko Young-Hi to be the ultimate succeesor, because Kim Jung-Il personally loves him most.
15 April 2004. В столице Северной Кореи Пхеньяне открылся первый, и, похоже, пока единственный в КНДР круглосуточный магазин. Он располагается недалеко от района Мунсудон, где проживает большинство иностранцев - сотрудники посольств, международных организаций и торговых представительств. Остальные магазины в городе закрываются достаточно рано, как правило, в шесть часов вечера. Тем, кто не успевал совершить необходимые покупки днем, приходилось дожидаться утра.
С появлением круглосуточной торговой точки эта проблема отпала: здесь можно приобрести необходимые продукты питания, хлеб, молоко, пиво, сигареты, цветы и даже мебель. Цены на товары в этом магазине несколько выше, чем в остальных - посетители обязаны доплатить за удобство. Пока поток посетителей невелик, поскольку еще не все знают о его открытии, но, судя по всему, со временем торговая точка, призывающая ночных клиентов мерцающим светом неоновой лампы, будет пользоваться большей популярностью. Об этом сообщает NEWSru.com. in Russian
From Richard Lloyd Parry in Seoul
AMONG the many things for which North Korea is remarkable, it must have the densest concentration of slogans in the world. “Destroy the aggressors with merciless annihilating blows,” counsels one, emblazoned above a Pyongyang highway. “Each Korean must perform selfless feats to glorify the heroic deeds of leader Kim Jong Il,” advises a second.
In recent years visitors — and defectors to Seoul, the South Korean capital — have described the strangest of all. It is seen in schools, gymnasiums and other places where children gather.
Compared with the usual tone of socialist ferocity, it is direct and almost pleading: “Try to grow taller.”
It is the closest thing to an official acknowledgement of one of the hidden catastrophes of North Korea: after a decade of food shortages, and four years of outright famine, a generation of its children has stunted growth.
Those few foreigners allowed to visit or live in the country report the same experience: encountering a group of children several years older than they appear. Teenagers look like pre-pubescent children. Young soldiers doing their military service look like 14-year-olds.
Professor Pak Sun Young, a South Korean anthropologist, has conducted studies on North Korean defectors in Seoul, and on refugee children living clandestinely in the bordering regions of China. They had escaped the worst privations of a homeland where between a few hundred thousand and a few million people died of hunger in the late 1990s. She found that 70 per cent of the survivors of that catastrophe were stunted, and 25 per cent underweight.
The average 14-year-old boy was 10in (25.4 cm) shorter than his average South Korean peer and 42lb (19kg) lighter. The average 17-year-old was 5ft tall, compared with 5ft 8in in the South.
Even with improved access to food and medical care, many will never catch up.
The situation has consequences for North Korea’s national defence, its economy and for any future reunification with South Korea. Young North Korean defectors in South Korea are taunted and discriminated against already because of their short stature.
“It’s not that being short is bad in itself. The problem is the idea of body image in South Korean society,” Professor Pak said. “Tall people are respected, and North Koreans feel very uncomfortable about being shorter.”
Kim Jong Il, North Korea’s hereditary leader, is reputed to wear platform boots to boost his 5ft 3in.
Getting accurate information from the most closed country in the world is almost impossible, but the few available statistics indicate the scale of the problem. Despite great improvements in food distribution since the famine of 1995-99, malnutrition has left 42 per cent of North Koreans stunted, according to the United Nations World Food Programme.
North Korean children are being encouraged to play basketball, which is believed to promote growth. In this, they can point to a great success: in a bitter irony, Lee Myong Hun, the world’s tallest player at 7ft 9in, is North Korean.
Kang Cheol-hwan, [email protected] 2004.03.10.
North Korean authorities, fearing the food situation will worsen this spring, have ordered the family members of the State Safety and Security Agency -- North Korea's internal security force -- to start trading in order to overcome "temporary" difficulties.
In a telephone conversation with this reporter, a mid-level managing official of the North's State Safety and Security Agency currently on visit to China said, "In an official document handed down by central authorities to officials in the State Safety and Security Agency and Ministry of Public Security, the families of State Safety and Security Agency in each district were ordered to trade in order to defeat difficulties in obtaining food." The official said North Korean authorities ordered this in accordance with expectations that aid from the international community will decrease as a result of the failure of the second round of six-party talks in Beijing.
He said, "The internal document included reports that our ally Russia suspended grant aid in February, and there's a possibility that China will also suspend grant aid from March... Because of this, North Korean authorities have instructed all local administrative organs and groups to make thorough advanced preparations to overcome temporary difficulties."
A Chinese trader who lives in Dandong, Liaoning Province, China, and does business with North Korea said, "Exports of corn to North Korea have been completely prohibited from February to April... One of the reasons is that last year's corn harvest in China wasn't very good, but I wonder if, in reality, this is part of sanctions against the North." He added that as soon as corn exports were stopped, the demand for flour in the North skyrocketed. China has named food along with crude petroleum to its list of "strategic goods" and tightly controls their export to North Korea.
Kim, a defector who crossed into China some time ago, said, "The difficulties in obtaining food nowadays reminds me of the late 1990s, when the situation was at its worst... In some regions, a single kilo of rice has reached W500 -- the North Korean currency's largest denomination. The value of the dollar has skyrocketed, with US$1 being exchanged for W1,400." Since economic controls were reformed in July 2002, the situation has become such that the common laborer -- who earns an average of W2,000 a month -- cannot afford even four kilos of rice on his salary. North Korean authorities have set the official price of rice at W46 a kilo, and the official dollar-won exchange rate is W160 to US$1.
In the case of North Hamgyeong Province's Musan Mine -- the North's largest supplier of iron ore -- workers are taking all the iron ore they dig out of the ground, selling it in China and buying food in order to avoid difficulties in obtaining provisions. One defector from the area said, "Because of the difficulties in finding food, all the iron ore that was supposed to go to Kim Chaek Steel Mill is being sold in China. Because of this, the cost of food around the Musan Mine is fairly low -- one kilo of polished rice costs W380.
The defector also said that because agents from the State Safety and Security Agency and the police are not getting their rations, official corruption is now a problem. North Korean authorities may be completely opening their marketplaces and permitting trade, he said, but starving police officers are seizing on every little infraction to confiscate property and residents' grievances grow as time passes.
With civilians and even whole battalions of soldiers facing difficulties in obtaining food, one cannot rule out the possibility of a recurrence of mass famine this spring if aid from the international community is late.
by B. C. Koh, Director, IFES, March 04, 2004
The second round of Six-Party talks, which was held in Beijing from February 25 to 28, can be rated in various ways depending on the type of yardstick one is using. Unlike the first round, held in the same city six months ago, however, this one had led many observers, and most of the participants, to expect some tangible results--some sign of forward movement in the direction of resolving the 16-month-old standoff over North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.
What is indisputable is that the results of the second round failed to measure up to the expectations of the participants and observers alike. Substantively, the two main antagonists, the U.S. and the
DPRK, failed egregiously to narrow their differences, let alone find common ground, however small. In some sense, the gap between them may even have widened.
Stylistically and symbolically, however, the second round appeared to be marginally or, even significantly, better than its predecessor. For talks proceeded in a business-like atmosphere, spawning serious discussions and potentially useful suggestions. Although the goal of adopting a joint statement of some kind proved to be elusive, the parties did agree on a chairman’s statement, a slight improvement over the chair’s verbal summary that was offered last time. The agreement to hold a third round by the end of June and to set up a working group to prepare for it is something new, thus signaling that at least half a step may have been taken in the long, uncertain journey toward a nuclear weapons-free Korean Peninsula...
by Dr. C. Kenneth Quinones, Director of Korea Peninsula Program-International Action, Washington, D.C.
February 17, 2004
The Six Party talks between China, Japan, the two Koreas, Russia and the United States regarding the impasse over North Korea’s nuclear ambitions are poised to resume on February 25, 2004. It has taken five months of diplomatic effort to set the stage for the second round. All the participants, except North Korea, have repeatedly professed their desire to continue the talks. Lingering mutual mistrust and intense animosity in Washington and Pyongyang could, however, further stall the talks. Here we concentrate on North Korea to examine its tactics, and also assess prospects for the next round.
North Korea likes to avoid any appearance that it is anxious to engage in these talks. This is typical North Korean negotiating tactics. In this way, Pyongyang hopes to maximize the benefits to gains from the other participants while minimizing the concessions it must give them. Since the first round concluded in Beijing last August, Pyongyang has repeatedly proclaimed its reluctance to participate in future Six Party Talks. At the same time, however, it has continued to hold the door open to attending another round, but only if it receives security assurances, and is convinced that the United States has relinquished its “hostile” policy toward North Korea and is willing to contribute material aid to sustain the Kim Jong Il regime...
An Interview with Prof. Gavan McCormack, February 15, 2004
(Gavan McCormack is author of the just released Target North Korea: Pushing North Korea to the Brink of Nuclear
Catastrophe, New York, Nation Books (available at Amazon.com for $11.16). He has published widely on aspects of modern and contemporary East Asia and his books have also been translated into Japanese, Chinese and Korean. A research professor at the Australian National University, he is currently also a visiting professor at International Christian University in Tokyo. He was interviewed via email by Stephen R. Shalom and Mark Selden.)
1. Could you summarize political and economic conditions in North Korea today?
Till the 1980s, North Korea was one of the more industrialized countries in Asia. Thereafter it has been reduced to penury and near-collapse by a combination of circumstances, some the consequence of its own choices, others beyond its control.
With the end of "socialism" in the 1990s, both Russia and China shifted from "friendly" to commercial terms of trade, which meant skyrocketing prices for North Korea's energy imports, especially oil. The country's heavily chemical and machine intensive agriculture suffered a severe blow, on the eve of a succession of unprecedented climatic disasters -- the country became chronically unable to feed its people, and many starved. People were urged to adopt a two-meals-a day regimen, when for many even one became too much to hope
for...
by Thor May, 14 February 2003
North Korea has been an international drama since its inception, and after half a century it is natural to feel jaded with adrenalin overload. Certainly many South Koreans seem to have learned to live with the rhetoric of metropolitan Seoul (22 million people) being turned into 'a sea of fire', if they pick a fight with comrades in the north. They are generally more concerned that ramping up the drama in the north will be bad for business, both personal and national. That's easy to sneer at from the comfort of another continent, but it is a genuine and immediate worry for South Koreans, and the true meaning behind polls which show that they overwhelmingly "fear Washington more the Pyeongyang". Experience has taught them from the first days of American post World War II administration on the peninsular that American ignorance can be deadly...
Pyongyang, February 4, 2004 (KCNA) -- A spokesman for the Korean Asia-Pacific Peace Committee (KAPPC) today in a statement issued as regards the unprecedented slump in the tour of Mt. Kumgang warned that if the tour is suspended, the U.S. and the south Korean authorities would be held wholly accountable for the consequences to be entailed by it. The statement said:
The tour of Mt. Kumgang now underway between the KAPPC and south Korean Hyundai Asan is a symbol of the inter-Korean economic cooperation. The start of the tour helped wipe out the long-standing mistrust and misunderstanding between the north and the south and laid a foundation of reconciliation and cooperation between them and in this course they witnessed such landmark events as the historic Pyongyang meeting and the publication of the June 15 joint declaration.
The tour of Mt. Kumgang that had gotten brisk amid people's interest and support after it started thanks to the nation's noble patriotic idea and will for reunification has reached such a state of depression that its prospect remains unpredictable. Ever since the beginning of the tour, a joint undertaking between compatriots, the U.S. has disturbed it overtly and covertly, displeased with it. The U.S. has left no means untried to hamstring the payment for the tour, a publicly recognized international practice, grumbling about "its diversion to a military purpose."
In fact, the U.S. was chiefly responsible for the death of the pioneer of the tour of Mt. Kumgang as it instigated the south Korean ultra-right conservative forces to kick up a "racket of special inspection of the remittance to the north." As a matter of fact, the south Korean authorities should have taken measures to revitalize the tour to meet the demands and interests of various circles in south Korea in protest against the U.S. hindrance to the inter-Korean economic cooperation. The north can not keep the road of tour open any longer now that the payment for the tour is being steadily delayed due to the south Korean authorities' indifference and tourists are no longer available due to the suspension of the tour by sea.
by Michael E. O'Hanlon, January 2003
The United States, together with regional allies South Korea and Japan as well as China and
Russia, needs a new North Korea policy to handle the rapidly intensifying nuclear crisis in Northeast Asia. The current Bush administration policy of refusing to talk until Pyongyang changes course stands too great a chance of failing.
Either North Korea has decided that it needs a substantial nuclear arsenal to avoid being the next target of President Bush's new policy of preemption, and of regime change in particular, or it is engaging in brinkmanship because it cannot think of any other way to convince the world community to provide it more aid and diplomatic recognition. Or a mix of the two.
Any policy needs to account for all of the possibilities. The Bush administration should outline a policy toward North Korea that is defined by tough
conditions, including efforts to scale back conventional arms on the peninsula,
but one that holds the possibility of engagement, normalization of diplomatic ties, and more aid...
BY CLAUDIA ROSETT, Wednesday, January 14, 2004 12:01 a.m. EST
Give North Korea credit: Even the killer regime of Kim Jong Il has not managed to stamp out every last glimmer of creativity. Some of the most innovative diplomats hail from Pyongyang, where they have just introduced an intriguing new twist in the war on terror: nuclear tourism.
How else to describe North Korea's hosting last week of a private American group including such has-beens as former State Department envoy Charles "Jack" Pritchard and former Los Alamos director Sigfried Hecker, as well as Stanford China scholar John Lewis and two aides of Sens. Richard Lugar and Joseph Biden--all of whom should know better? Handpicked by Pyongyang, this group was brought in to tour that forbidden holy of holies, North Korea's Yongbyon nuclear reactor complex. There they were reportedly invited to gaze upon what a Pyongyang spokesman described as North Korea's "nuclear deterrent force." Most likely what they saw was some portion of Kim's already well-advertised plutonium hoard.
This select group of visitors, now a tourist attraction in its own right, has in recent days been wending its way home via Seoul and Tokyo. Next comes the Washington opening of this road show, at which point we may learn such thrilling details as whether Kim chose to display his isotopes in, say, a lead-glass case, like jewelry, or in more utilitarian housing, such as bombs.
But unless Kim threw in a true surprise -- say, Osama bin Laden making his own tourist video by the Yongbyon cooling
ponds -- North Korea's arsenal is hardly news...
Bruce Cumings writes about US policy on North Korea
In June 1994, Bill Clinton came close to launching a 'pre-emptive strike' against North Korea's nuclear reactors at Yongbyon, about sixty miles north
of Pyongyang. Then, at the last minute, Jimmy Carter got North Korea to agree to a complete freeze on activity at the Yongbyon complex, and a
Framework Agreement was signed in October 1994. The Republican Right railed against this for the next six years, until George W. Bush brought a
host of the Agreement's critics into his Administration, and they set about dismantling it, thus fulfilling their own
prophecy and initiating another dangerous confrontation with Pyongyang. The same folks who brought us the
invasion of Iraq and a menu of hyped-up warnings about Saddam Hussein's weapons have similarly exaggerated
the North Korean threat: indeed, the second North Korean nuclear crisis began in October 2002, when 'sexed-up'
intelligence was used to push Pyongyang against the wall and make bilateral negotiations impossible.
[...] CIA estimates in the 1990s about North Korean weaponry, however questionable and flawed, seem both careful and modest compared to the exaggerations of the Bush Administration and its emissary to Pyongyang, James Kelly. Coming into office when the CIA's 'one or two devices' estimate was nearly a decade old, Bush contrived to hype the threat, while at the same time downplaying the idea that its size made a difference: the North might have two or six or eight atomic bombs, but that didn't constitute a crisis. Rather, Saddam Hussein - whom we now know to have been disarmed by years of UN inspections - was so much more dangerous as to justify a preventive war. The result was chaos as far as US policy was concerned, and free rein for North Korean hardliners to move ahead with producing nuclear weapons.... (31 October 2003, Bruce Cumings teaches in the history department at the University of Chicago, and is the author of North Korea: Another Country).
By Anders Lewis, PhD
University of Chicago historian Bruce Cumings is the left's leading scholar of Korean history. In addition to contributing to documentary films on Korean life, Cumings has written a massive and highly critical multi-volume account of the Korean War and published a general history of Korea, titled
Korea's Place in the Sun. And he is not shy about his opinions. In a 1997 article in the Atlantic he called for an end to U.S.-Korean hostilities. U.S. troops, he insisted, should be brought home and relations with North Korea (the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, or
DPRK) should be normalized.
Cumings has also been a critic of other aspects of American foreign policy. He has participated in broad and spirited debates with numerous scholars, including John Lewis Gaddis and Ronald
Radosh. In one debate with Radosh he was asked if he thought communism was evil. He said no, and insisted that large numbers of people enthusiastically embraced communism. Cumings is also a frequent contributor to the Nation magazine, where he went on record in opposition to the Bush administration's successful war to liberate Iraq from Saddam Hussein. But it is Korea that is Cumings's main focus, and in his new book,
North Korea: Another Country, he sets for himself one basic goal. Cumings wants to convince Americans to abandon what he considers to be George Bush's simplistic and dangerous Korean policy.
Cumings believes that North Korea is a misunderstood land. Its leaders are not dangerous megalomaniacs. Rather, DPRK leaders have always been pragmatic and nationalistic. During the Cold War, they avoided dependence on the Soviet Union, created a productive economy, and improved living standards. The society they created is impressive. North Korea's streets are clean, its people humble, and crime is almost non-existent. Kim Il Sung, the father of North Korean communism, was a "a classic Robin Hood figure" who cared deeply for his people. North Korea's current leader, Kim Jong Il, is "not the playboy,
womanizer, drunk, and mentally deranged fanatic ‘Dr. Evil' of our press." Instead he is a "homebody who doesn't socialize much, doesn't drink much, and works at home in his
pajamas." The Dear Leader also loves to tinker with music boxes, watch James Bond movies, and play Super Mario video games. The cover of Cumings's book neatly summarizes his views. On it is a photograph of a group of uniformed women performing some type of dramatic production for North Korean soldiers. With smoke in the background, one woman stands tall and points a gun to the horizon. Coming out of the gun is a red flag. Everyone looks on in awe. The image implies that under communism, North Korea's future - though not without struggle - is bright...
By Christopher Lingle, 01-02-2004 19:01
** Christopher Lingle is a member of the Korea Times Economic Board of Editors and professor of economics at Universidad Francisco Marroqu´in in Guatemala. [email protected].
There is no consensus over the best course for the appropriate transition for North Korea from authoritarian socialism to an open society and market economy. Most observers favor either a Big Bang or gradualist approach. Those supporting the Big Bang point to rapid institutional changes (short, sharp shocks) to introduce welfare-maximizing incentives. Gradualists promote step-by-step sequencing. Either way, the bottom line is to establish the institutional framework to support markets and private property rights as the basis for economic growth.
Supporters of gradualism conjure up nightmare scenarios of millions of refugees fleeing from a collapsing economy in North Korea or armed conflict triggered by internal chaos. But it is wrong to imagine reconstruction of communist economies as painless. Costs hidden in the seams of communist systems must be paid, whichever reform strategy is chosen.
So, it is a myth to imagine gradual transformation as a way to avoid these costs that can only be delayed. But gradualism is like a weak dam holding back mounting pressures of a rising flood that will eventually burst. In this sense, China's success at gradualism will be eroded.
And so, China is a poor model for the modernization of North Korea. Moving gradually towards a market economy under ironclad Leninist-fascism with tight controls on economic matters extends misery and delays hope for an open society.
Under the Chinese approach, economic development toward a market economy is seen as impeded by democracy. North Koreans must not suffer indefinitely under the current regime.
An important observation often missing in discussing transition policies is that many observed economic problems are residual effects of communism and are not caused by markets, per se. As it is, the institutional framework of communism is the source of observed inefficiencies and irrationalities that emerge clearly during the transition process. Thus, the examination of post-communist regimes often confuses symptoms with cures.
As such, the selection and interpretation of actual transition policies may not clearly identify the nature of the systemic transition. Suggestions of a supposed vicious cycle of under-development and chaos (shrinking output and rapidly rising prices) arising from the choice of policies, ignores the pre-conditions determined by communist institutions.
The Big Bang strategy departs from a commitment to real and rapid transformation. Economic as well as political rationales provide support for this approach. The economic effects of rapid and sweeping implementation convey political payoffs. Bunching reforms at the outset can involve a sort of economy of scale upon the structural incentive adjustments within both the polity and the economy.
In such situations, unavoidable costs of economic rationalization are offset by some immediate benefits. Implementing a rational pricing system and monetization of the economy are important steps. Hidden, non-price costs of socialism are exchanged for obvious costs that are mistakenly associated with the choice of the transition program. Slower transition will allow recollections and disadvantages of shortages to be more distant. The low quality and the lack of imports under communism likewise become relics of a forgotten past.
The strategy of the gradualists is oriented towards tinkering, such that deep changes in institutions are put off for an uncertain and unspecified future. One major problem of this piecemeal approach is that the source of distortions is obscured. As suggested above, there is a tendency to confuse symptoms of the hangover with the prescription for the cure.
A common argument set forward by gradualists is that conditioning under socialism leaves afflicted populations ill-prepared to confront the harsh realities of capitalism. A counterpoint to these claims is that Chinese peasants, despite their complete lack of experience with the market, adjusted with great alacrity to agricultural reforms begun in 1979.
Even if the theoretical arguments are inconclusive, the actual results of transition provide interesting results. Beginning with an evaluation by region, experiences in Europe provide evidence in support of the accelerationist approach.
Among Big Bang economies, Estonia and Poland shot out of the starting gate with high economic growth. The Czech Republic was among the economic growth leaders with low unemployment and Hungary attracted massive amounts of foreign capital. In the Asia-Pacific region, New Zealand had notable success with Big Bang policies by shaking off the interventionist stranglehold imposed by successive socialist governments.
Among countries relying upon gradualism, Russia's economy remains a pre-modern construct of a Soviet-style system were murky private property rights and political corruption run rampant. Latvia and Lithuania soon found themselves in the grip of chronic stagflation common to countries that follow gradualist policies. While afflicted by civil war and ethnic conflict, Georgia and Yugoslavia are sad cases of gradualism and the Ukraine, Slovakia and Romania are also economic laggards.
Proponents of gradualist reform seem unable to understand that high rates of unemployment and sagging production are elements of the residual failures of state socialism. While rapid transition forces hidden unemployment into the open, the gradualist approach continues the charade.
Whereas most European transitions began with democratization, many Asian reformers operate authoritarian regimes. Democracies allow citizens to seek out the means for improving their own conditions. The democratization of socialist economies requires shedding the practice of the state hoarding labor.
Success in transition in North Korea should involve rapid withdrawal of the Communist state sector from the economy, through privatization and restructuring. Reluctance to reduce state intervention will worsen future growth prospects by interfering with emergent private entrepreneurs that are the engine of economic growth while misusing the necessary fuel of private savings.
By Ed Cropley, Reuters, Sunday, 21st December, 2003
PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - Besides dog meat soup and Pyongyang cold noodles, a new North Korean restaurant in the Cambodian capital is offering a rare glimpse of life in the reclusive Stalinist state.
Open for only two weeks, the chintz-laden eatery in downtown Phnom Penh is already doing a roaring trade, with customers ranging from expat North Koreans yearning for home to South Koreans and Japanese hungry for an insight into their communist neighbour.
"We tried to make it just like a restaurant in North Korea, but in Pyongyang I think it is a bit more modern," said Ho Se Ryong, 16, whose mother runs one of a small but growing number of North Korean restaurants in southeast Asia.
Phnom Penh's 'Pyongyang Restaurant' was launched off the back of a sister outfit in the Cambodian resort town of Siem Reap, near the famed 800-year-old Angkor temples, while a 50-seat North Korean fast-food joint opened in October in Vietnam's bustling commercial hub of Ho Chi Minh City.
"When we saw how well our business was doing in Siem Reap, we just had to expand in Phnom Penh," Ryong said.
Despite his assurances, it is hard to see where the restaurant, with its neon lights, lavish gold curtains and a karaoke machine the size of a small car, should turn for that additional touch of modernity.
Old or new, dining there is certainly an experience.
After wading through the smoke of Korean barbecues simmering away on heavily lacquered wooden tables, guests are shown to their seats by stern-faced waitresses in lime-green floral-print dresses that were already out of fashion in the 1950s.
Trained in one of Pyongyang's finest restaurant academies they might be, but it is hardly service with a smile.
Only when they take to the karaoke stage to bash out old favourites such as 'Kim Il-Sung's Song' -- in honour of the country's 'Great Marshall' or founder -- or 'Kim Jong-il's Song' -- in honour of his son and heir -- does the scowl soften...
By JAMES BROOKE
November 19, 2003.
SEOUL.. North Korea's tentative turn at opening markets is best captured in snapshots of
happy South Koreans touring Pyongyang, a long forbidden city lampooned as "a Stalinist theme
park."
This fall, a South Korean travel agency started flying the first regular tour groups to the North's showcase capital.
Charging $2,000 a head, the tours put a human face to South Korea's quietly swelling trade and
investment with its isolated northern sibling. In the first 10 months of this year, South Korea's trade with North Korea jumped 40
percent.
Pushing private enterprise in the Communist North, South Korean companies are now building cars, roads, railroads and a huge industrial park.
The United States, in contrast, is tightening the economic screws on North Korea, believing that economic pain
will force the North to give up its program to build nuclear bombs. Through satellite surveillance and
maritime interdiction, the United States is trying to curb North Korea's exports
of missiles and drugs. In Australia, a North Korean captain and crew are on trial on charges stemming from the seizure of a North Korean freighter
and $150 million of heroin.
All this external pressure is causing North Korea to miss out on a series of billion-dollar infrastructure projects.
On Friday, a multinational consortium announced in Moscow that it would route a $17 billion, 3,035-mile natural
gas pipeline around North Korea. By laying the pipeline on the floor of the Yellow Sea, the BP-led group
avoids the political and financial risks of a country the White House calls a "rogue state." South Korea, one destination
for the Siberian gas, wanted the pipeline to go through North Korea, feeding thermal power plants along
the way.
On Nov. 21, another multinational consortium, the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization, is to
formally announce the suspension of a $4.6 billion project to build two nuclear power plants in North Korea.
South Korea was the largest investor, spending about $931 million so far for the
power project, which was to be a trade-off if North Korea abandoned its nuclear bomb program.
Western pressure is also slowing North Korea's only oil exploration project. Sovereign Ventures, a Singapore
company, intended to drill 15 wells this year, but has so far failed to drill one. Canada placed a travel
advisory on North Korea, prompting Sovereign's Canadian operating partner to withdraw.
Desperate for oil, North Korea last month awarded a major offshore seismic survey contract to Global Geo Services, a Norwegian company.
With world financial markets allergic to North Korea projects, there is little progress on Russia's $2 billion plan
to rebuild North Korea's railroads to connect South Korea with the trans-Siberian railroad.
Now, many Americans say they believe that Asia's last bastion of Communism faces collapse.
"In our view, it's only a question of time when North Korea collapses because its current economic model is not
sustainable," John Chambers, managing director for sovereign ratings at Standard & Poor's, told
reporters here recently. An S.& P. statement added: "Although some other Asian
nations that used to have centrally planned economies have successfully moved to
a market-based system, the North Korean leadership probably lacks the flexibility and the vision to undertake such a change."
Citing North Korea's nuclear bomb program and its economic backwardness as justification for not raising South
Korea's bond rating, Mr. Chambers said that rebuilding the North could cost the South up to $1.4 trillion,
roughly twice the cost of unifying the two Germanies.
Rebuilding North Korea is expected to fall largely to South Korea because it has the deepest pockets and the
greatest interest in a united Korea. China and Russia, the cold war patrons of the North's Communist government,
have less interest in paying for extensive redevelopment. Japan has promised to pay billions of dollars in
compensation for its colonization of northern Korea during the first half of the 20th century.
But instead of pushing for a collapse, South Korea is quietly pursuing the kind of market-oriented development
that could one day ease a transition in the North from Communism to capitalism.
During the first half of this year, 427 South Korean companies took part in 557 projects producing $340 million
in bilateral trade, according to South Korea's Unification Ministry, a government agency. That figure climbs
to $587 million with the addition of South Korean humanitarian aid projects, including two sets of cross-border
railways and roads, an industrial park and a mammoth meeting center for divided families.
South Korea, which spends billions of dollars to defend itself from the threat of North Korea's military, is now
North Korea's largest foreign investor, and, after China, the North's second-largest trading
partner. South Korean companies now makes shoes, beds, television sets and men's
suits in North Korea.
The southern company Pyeonghwa started the recent group tours of Pyongyang, offering the average South Korean citizen the first opportunity to
visit Pyongyang since the Korean War split the country half a century ago. Hyundai
Asan, a branch of the Hyundai conglomerate, has offered ferry and bus trips to Mount Kumgang in the North, near the border of the two Koreas.
"There is a perception among Westerners of North Korea being locked up, but that adds to the intrigue, makes
people want to visit the place," said Neil Plimmer, a New Zealand tourism consultant who led an international
tourism industry study tour of the country in September. Mr. Plimmer, who plans to
deliver his team's recommendations next week to North Korea's National Tourism Administration, said by telephone from
Wellington: "They seemed to be very open to ideas, wanted to show us a full range of their product
- the mountain scenery, the caves, very old Korean temples, some going back to the
11th century or earlier."
Last year, about 100,000 foreigners visited North Korea, while about 5 million visited South Korea. China
accounts for the largest number, about 35,000 a year. Some are attracted by casinos, which are illegal in
China. Some come for "retro tourism" - to get a sense of what their country looked
like in the Red Guard days of the 1970's.
Foreign visitors increasingly see evidence of a grass-roots market economy. This year, large market halls have been built in Pyongyang and in most
of the major cities and towns. There, people buy and sell vegetables, grain, shoes, clothes and cosmetics at largely free-floating prices. The
markets legalize what was a flourishing black market and make up for the state's
inability to maintain its food and clothing rationing system.
Increasingly, farm managers choose their crops and individuals now make money repairing bicycles and
renovating apartments, according to Kathi Zellweger of the Catholic charity Caritas, who also toured North
Korea in September. "Small family-size businesses or cooperatives are now providing
services or producing goods hinting at a start of a bottom-up process," Ms.
Zellweger, who is Swiss, wrote of her 2,000-mile tour of the nation, which is largely
closed to Americans.
Over the last year, North Korea has sent three economic fact-finding
missions to Vietnam. Some analysts here believe that Pyongyang is following that nation's slow move to open markets, a controlled shift that
allows the Communists to keep power.
In North Korea this year, government-run companies won more freedom to invest their foreign exchange earnings
in production. Private groups increasingly are leasing from the state restaurants, hotels and shops.
Giving a modern business patina to Pyongyang, about 3,000 cellphones, largely Motorola or Nokia, have gone into service
this year.
Moving toward a free floating exchange rate, Pyongyang banks now pay around 900 North Korean won for the
dollar, near the black market rate, and far above the fixed rate of 2.1 won to the dollar of 18 months ago.
In September, a new impulse to markets may have come with the appointment of Pak Pong Ju as the nation's prime
minister, a post with power over economic affairs. Last year, as chemical industry minister, Mr. Pak led a group
of North Koreans on a tour of semiconductor plants in South Korea.
But, without an agreement on the nuclear weapons issue, the main source of foreign investment in North Korea
will probably be South Korea. Over 1,300 small and medium-size South Korean companies have applied
to set up factories in an industrial park that is to be built next year at
Kaesong, just over the North Korean border, about 40 miles north of Seoul.
Designed to match Northern labor with Southern capital, the park offers Southern industrialists Korean-speaking
workers willing to work for 26 cents an hour, compared with South Korea's $2.25 an hour. Since 1990 about
22,000 South Korean companies have set up businesses in China. The new park is seen
as a first step to divert this capital flow to develop North Korea.
Much of this cross-border economic activity is done in a low-profile way to minimize attention from Washington.
When a ground-breaking ceremony was held at Kaesong last June, no foreign reporters were invited.
But even if officials see Kaesong as a model for a future reindustrialization of North Korea under free-market lines, the
project will collide with American, Japanese and European penalties, in the form of
high import duties.
"Goods from the Kaesong complex can be competitive owing to the low wages of workers there, but should their
origin be printed as North Korea, they can no longer maintain price competitiveness," warned Kim In Seok, an
official with the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry, a business organization
in Seoul. "In that case, exports to the United States are almost impossible." (www.nytimes.com/2003/11/19/)
By Aidan Foster-Carter, Asia Times Online, 19 November 2003
Our last column (Re-Orienting: Seoul's new No 1 market, October 16 - over a month ago: sorry about that) noted that China had just surpassed the United States as the main market for South Korea's exports, and it speculated on the potential political implications of what history may see as a key turning point. We also posed a cognate question concerning the other Korea: Which nation last year overtook which other nation as the principal buyer of North Korea's distinctly more meager exports?
This one is harder, for several reasons. First, find the figures. Ask Pyongyang? Forget it. Despite boundless official wishful thinking in Seoul, North Korea's slow-motion shuffle in the direction of economic reform doesn't yet extend to publishing any regular statistics. Not any. None. Nada. Even this year's budget speech, which gave a few percentages, did not contain one single actual hard number.
That in itself tells you something important. Normal countries publish figures. Even less than normal countries manage a few. The numbers may be lousy, or indeed lies, but this is what states do; for their own self-respect, because the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) insist upon it and above all, because without numbers no one can be sure what is really going on, and so how can investors or other economic actors commit themselves and make meaningful market decisions? Therefore, when the DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) Central Statistics Bureau starts doing its job in public, then (and only then) will we know that reform in North Korea is for real and irreversible.
Until then, others must struggle to plug the gaps. For obvious reasons, the most and the best of them are in South Korea. There was a time when these sources were tainted with propaganda, but no longer. Or rather, the bias has gone into reverse. Whereas before they did their damnedest to put the red swine down, these days, if anything, the folks in Seoul bend over backwards to bathe their Northern brethren in the kindliest light. Yet on certain matters they themselves are also, as we shall see, inordinately modest and self-effacing.
Like all good bureaucrats, those in Seoul have a strict division of labor. For the North Korean economy this is threefold. The ROK (Republic of Korea) central bank, the Bank of Korea (BOK), estimates national income, growth and output by sector using intelligence data and arcane formulae of its own. Meanwhile KOTRA (Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency) - a division of the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy (MOCIE) - tracks foreign trade and economic trends generally. Separately again, the Ministry of Unification (MOU), as its name suggests, monitors all matters inter-Korean, including trade and aid. With me so far?
Like the proverbial blind men and the elephant groping in the dark, the BOK does its best to weigh and reconcile a whole raft of unknowns. Its methodology has been attacked, especially when it pronounced that the North Korean economy grew by 6.2 percent in 1999 suggesting a dynamism not visible on the spot.
But with trade, we should be on firmer ground. It takes two to trade - so even if Kim Jong-il ain't telling, his partners would. This entails much toil, and involves ferreting through the rest of the world's customs records and trade figures to dig out their (usually microscopic) intercourse with North Korea.
Beside hard graft, there are pitfalls for the unwary. JETRO (Japan External Trade Organization), Japan's equivalent of (and model for) KOTRA, which used to be one of the main sources for North Korean economic data before Seoul got interested, once discovered a new and unexpected Pyongyang partner when Mexico suddenly emerged from nowhere as a major exporter to North Korea - only to pop up a year later as a leading importer. That was obviously suspicious. Trade patterns tend to be fairly stable over time; although in fact North Korea's are less so than most suggesting a pattern of one-off deals (unpaid for, perhaps?). Mexico, it turned out, was quite imaginary - some Mexican customs officials simply got their Koreas muddled up and ticked the wrong box, so a certain amount of the much larger trade with South Korea got classed as Northern by mistake.
Human error is one thing, deliberate obfuscation another. I've a bone to pick with Seoul's statisticians, and pick it I shall. But back to our initial question, simple and straightforward: What country last year was the main market for North Korean exports? And which other country did it dislodge from the top slot?
Well, the KOTRA website offers a seemingly full account of Pyongyang's trade in 2002, complete with lots of tables. I salute their hard work, which produces some fascinating nuggets. One is that, reversing the normal sequence, primary goods have become the main export item while manufactures are in decline. Thus, last year animal products, mainly seafood, displaced textiles as North Korea's top earner.
Overall, KOTRA tallies North Korea's trade totals in 2002 as almost identical to the 2001 figure of US$2.26 billion - pretty puny by today's Asian or global standards. Imports of $1.52 billion against exports of just $735 million left, as usual, a hefty trade deficit. As for its partners, China and Japan - again, as usual - ranked first and second with $738 million and $370 million respectively, accounting for nearly half of total trade.
With Beijing, Pyongyang's exports of $271 million nowhere near covered its imports of $467 million, though at $196 million the shortfall was less than half of 2001's gaping $404 million. South Korea has tallied the cumulative China-DPRK trade deficit since 1990 - when Moscow finally pulled the plug on its maverick protege, and Kim Il-sung simply took his overdraft elsewhere - at a cool $4.4 billion.
Beijing is pretty fed up with this, and occasionally tries to get Kim Jong-il to pay up. But like his father before him with the then Soviet Union, he defaults and gets away with it because he can. Russia is still owed some $3.6 billion in Soviet-era debts, some now belatedly being repaid by sending contract labor - or latter-day serfs, according to human-rights critics - to forestry and other projects in eastern Siberia.
While comrades are for milking, with Japan, North Korea is careful to stay in the black and earn some yen. Last year exports of $234 million tidily exceeded imports of $135 million. The country's next-largest trade partners, according to KOTRA, were Thailand, India, Germany, Singapore and Russia, with all of whom North Korea once again ran sizable deficits. (Do they ever pay anyone, you wonder?)
But hold on. Something is missing here. While the article occasionally mentions South Korea - noting for instance that inter-Korean textile processing on commission (POC), which means getting garments made in Pyongyang to order, with materials and sometimes machinery supplied, is rising while POC with Japan has fallen - it suddenly dawns on you that the other Korea is completely absent from all of these tables and from most of the analysis and conclusions. Very odd. Don't the two Koreas trade?
Of course they do. But Seoul, in its wisdom, classifies this as internal - thus avoiding World Trade Organization (WTO) rules and duties. Hence a different sidebar takes you to what they pointedly call "intra" (not inter)-Korean trade - and a whole new set of substantial and important figures, which completely change the above picture.
Here, and in more detail on the MOU website, we learn that not only do the two Koreas trade, but that their intercourse is positively leaping ahead. Last year inter-Korean trade - as I shall continue to call it: this is foreign trade between two separate states, so can we please stop being silly? - shot up by 59 percent, from $403 million to $642 million. In fact, Seoul's $370 million of Northward exports were mainly aid goods. By contrast, North Korea's Southward exports of $272 million were nearly all real commercial deals.
Obviously, to get a true picture of North Korean trade we must smash KOTRA's statistical apartheid and integrate all these figures. Doing that quite transforms the situation. China is still Pyongyang's No 1 partner - but South Korea is not far behind at No 2, pushing Japan into a distant third place.
Also, this bumps up North Korea's total trade to $2.9 billion, and exports to just over $1 billion - credit where it's due, I say. So it's false for KOTRA to say that Japan and China make up 49 percent of North Korean trade. It's really 38 percent. More to the point, China, South Korea and Japan account for 60 percent of the total.
And whom did Pyongyang sell to most in 2002? What Seoul's statisticians seemingly don't want you to know is - you've guessed - it was them. A total of $272 million in Northern exports to South Korea just pipped the $271 million worth sent to China. You'd think all good Korean nationalists would rejoice at this doing business together, and shout it from the rooftops. Instead they hide it under a bushel. Most odd.
And since we're tracking trends, with another year almost over, how about 2003? KOTRA, helpfully, has collated the numbers for the first half of this year. North Korea's trade with Japan is way down at $134 million, its lowest for a decade, due to worsening political relations: nukes and kidnaps in a nutshell. China is holding steady: $378 million in total, with $108 million in exports and $270 million imports.
And South Korea? A total of $269 million in the first half of 2003, comprising $112 million in Northern exports and $157 million in imports. Seoul is well on track to retain pole position as Pyongyang's top market, and second place in trade overall. But in fact since July the trend has accelerated, to reach $587 million in the first 10 months. That means South Korea is snapping at China's heels, and poised to overtake it next year as North Korea's main trade partner.
Which of course is as it should be: a good thing, a step toward reunification. So why try to hide it? To purport to analyze North Korean foreign trade minus South Korea is like Hamlet without the prince. I bet Koreans would be annoyed if foreigners were to do it. Well, this foreigner takes a dim view of so-called Korean nationalism, when it fiddles the numbers to make a petty and irrelevant political point.
Why don't Seoul's statisticians do what Koreans traditionally were happy to do, and practice sadae (look up to China)? Whatever criticisms may be made of Chinese statistics for exaggerating growth, at least they don't let politics mess up the units of analysis. For foreign-trade purposes, Beijing lists Hong Kong, Macau and even Taiwan as separate entities: even though the first two are legally part of China now, while the People's Republic notoriously rejects Taiwan's claims to political independence.
Politics is politics, but numbers are numbers - and we need the right stuff. So, dear KOTRA: next time you analyze North Korean trade, please be less self-effacing. The fact is, Seoul is now a central player in Pyongyang's foreign trade. To exclude this is frankly mendacious. So please, count yourselves in.
Aidan Foster-Carter is honorary senior research fellow in sociology and modern Korea, Leeds University, England.
(Copyright 2003 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact [email protected] for information on our sales and syndication policies.)
Nov 19, 2003
Первый открытый для всех желающих базар начал работать в Пхеньяне. Сюда допущены даже иностранцы, которым раньше вход на рынки был строго воспрещен. Теперь на базаре Тхониль, работающем без выходных, можно приобрести практически любые продукты питания и ширпотреб за "народные" воны. С открытием этого рынка в КНДР "раздвоился" курс воны к евро - основной валюте, принятой для внутренних расчетов с иностранцами в стране после запрета на хождение доллара США в декабре прошлого года. Отныне, помимо курса Банка внешней торговли КНДР - 1 евро к 166 вонам, появился курс базара Тхониль - 1 евро к 910 вонам.
Обмен по рыночному курсу осуществляется свободно и легально, однако время от времени "народные контролеры", надзирающие за порядком на рынке, без объяснения причин перестают пускать иностранцев в пункт обмена валюты. Крытый базар занимает площадь более чем в 5000 квадратных метров. Четыре продуктовых ряда (почти стометровой длины), три ряда одежды и обуви, два - электротехники и стройматериалов, один - лекарств народной медицины. Нет ни одного свободного торгового места. В выходные все пространство между рядами занято деловито снующим народом. Здесь можно торговаться, но сильно сбить цену не удастся.
Примечательно, что этот рынок стал первым местом в Пхеньяне, где человека с европейской внешностью не провожают взглядами. Он вообще не привлекает лишнего внимания - продавцы относятся здесь к иностранцу чисто по-деловому, зазывая потенциально богатого клиента покупать товар; покупатели же полностью поглощены своими покупками.
Вокруг рынка создана минимальная инфраструктура. С западной стороны огорожена небольшая платная парковка (50 вон за въезд), с восточной стороны площадка побольше отведена под велосипеды и тележки продавцов - 10 вон за въезд. Оживленный рынок представляет собой яркий контраст с окружающим "флегматичным" городом. Поэтому неудивительно, что привыкшие к чопорным полупустым парадным пхеньянским проспектам иностранцы, впервые посетив этот базар, выходят с вытянутыми лицами и с одной и той же фразой на устах: "За годы, проведенные в КНДР, я и подумать не мог, насколько северные корейцы предприимчивы и деловиты". Об этом сообщает "Эхо планеты".
By Mark Nicol, 08/06/2003
Cannibalism is increasing in North Korea following another poor harvest and a big cut in international food aid, according to refugees who have fled the stricken country.
Aid agencies are alarmed by refugees' reports that children have been killed and corpses cut up by people desperate for food. Requests by the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) to be allowed access to "farmers' markets", where human meat is said to be traded, have been turned down by Pyongyang, citing "security reasons".
Anyone caught selling human meat faces execution, but in a report compiled by the North Korean Refugees Assistance Fund (NKRAF), one refugee said: "Pieces of 'special' meat are displayed on straw mats for sale. People know where they came from, but they don't talk about it."
The NKRAF, an aid body set up in China five years ago which helps to smuggle food and medicines into parts of North Korea off-limits to WFP officials, interviewed 200 refugees for the report.
"If a funeral takes place during the day and the burial is performed that evening, the grave may be dug open and the body stolen before morning," said one refugee.
Another witness, named only as Lee, 54, said he feared that his missing grandsons, aged eight and 11, had been killed for food. As he searched widely for them,
the boys' friends said they had vanished near a market. Mr Lee said police who raided a nearby restaurant found body parts. The business's owners were shot.
Gerald Bourke, the WFP's representative in Beijing, said it was difficult for his organisation to substantiate the reports of cannibalism as they were unable to get to the markets. "As in any desperately poor country, it is something we might stumble on," he said. "It's not just a problem for us, but also our donors." Because of the food shortages, many people were having to survive on nine ounces of rations a day - less than half the recommended minimum daily intake.
North Korea's ability to feed itself has been hit by floods, deforestation and lack of farm fertilisers and equipment.
The WFP says Japan provided 500,000 tons of food aid in 2001, making it the biggest donor, but sent nothing last year. Food aid from America has been cut from 340,000 tons in 2001 to 40,000 tons so far this year. Washington has pledged to send a further 60,000 tons if Pyongyang lifts restrictions on the operations of agencies such as the
WFP.
MIRO CERNETIG finds even clocks are controlled by the founder of isolated totalitarian state
PYONGYANG -- The sirens sound just before dawn, the daily wakeup call from Great Leader commanding the masses to rise from their slumber for another day of toil in the people's paradise of North Korea.
Within minutes, thousands fill the empty streets of Pyongyang, anonymous shadows shuffling through the unlit capital in eerie silence. Encountering a foreigner, adults avert their eyes and often turn their backs to avoid spiritual pollution; a small boy, wrapped in a ragged coat, runs away in fright.
This is Year 90 in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, a police state so removed from the rest of the world it marks time with a calendar in which Year Zero is 1912, the birth year of dictator Kim Il-sung. Although he died in 1994 and lies embalmed inside a crystal crypt, officials believe the so-called Eternal President still rules, making North Korea the only country in the world run by a dead man.
Proof of that can be seen along the edge of a crumbling sidewalk, where a women's brass band raises tarnished trumpets to strike up a rousing military march. It's an order from Great Leader, a North Korean official explained, to keep life from being too dreary in a country where people don't have enough to eat and children are so malnourished a 16-year-old often passes for a 10-year-old.
"The Great Leader is still with us and he wants to make the people happy, to raise spirits," explained the guide charged with ushering a group of Canadian diplomats and journalists on a rare, though carefully controlled, tour of the world's most hermetically sealed capital.
"But please do not talk to the people. They are very shy"...
The Globe and Mail, Saturday, March 10, 2001
Visiting one of the last Soviet-style police states can get a little surreal, MIRO CERNETIG says
PYONGYANG -- Check into the Koryo Hotel, the hotel for foreign guests in the North Korean capital, and you'll notice something odd about Room 2708: A massive mirror fills an entire wall, offering a full reflection of the room, its twin beds and a bit of the washroom.
There's an identical mirror, measuring 2 metres by 2 metres and just as strategically placed, in the room next door. And an equally gargantuan mirror graces the hallway just before you enter each room. If you pause to look, you'll notice that between the three mirrors there seems to be a
cubby-hole, just big enough for someone to secretly watch your every move. Is there someone on the other side of the looking glass?
"It's North Korea," said one European aid worker, who has made the Koryo -- which can best be described as past its heyday -- his home away from home for the past few years. "Of course you are being watched. Everything you do here is watched and listened to, all the time. Everything."
At that point in our discussion in the hotel lobby, a North Korean man in his late 30s walked into the area, clearly unhappy that the aid worker was communing with another foreigner.
"Say hello to my shadow," said the European, who asked not to be named and is one of about 90 foreigners working in North Korea.
"Everywhere I go, he goes. When I check into a hotel, he checks into the room next door to
me"...
