Darkness is illuminating in North Korea

By Nopporn Wong-Anan

PYONGYANG (Reuters) – It is eight o’clock on a Saturday
night and darkness envelopes virtually all of Pyongyang,
serving as a vivid reminder of communist North Korea’s pressing
energy needs.

World leaders such as U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice have talked of satellite pictures of the Korean peninsula
taken at night that show a brightly illuminated South and the
North in total darkness.

Miles beneath the high-tech flying eyes, Pyongyang
residents have become adept at riding bicycles through the
gloom, playing cards by the light of hotel billboards or
negotiating sidewalks with shuffling, tiny steps to avoid
collisions.

Apart from a few illuminated windows in apartment blocks,
the only lights on are at the hotels for foreign visitors and
the halls designed to show the greatness of the North Korean
system of self-reliance.

The floodlights were blazing inside the cavernous May 1
Stadium for weekend ceremonies celebrating the end of World War
Two, but the thousands of students waiting to perform the mass
choreography had to queue up in the darkness.

A couple of blocks away, as dozens of people waited for an
electric tram — already packed with passengers — the only
light came from the occasional passing car.

“We can’t turn on many street lights because energy is
scarce,” a North Korean official told a group of Thai
journalists through his translator over a dinner after the mass
dance show.

“Our country faces many problems, but the most serious one
is we don’t have enough energy,” said the official, who spoke
only Korean and French and identified himself as “Mr. Choi.”

North Korea has sought help from the outside world,
particularly South Korea, to alleviate its power shortage.

One of the stumbling blocks in recent six-party talks on
ending its nuclear weapons programs was whether Pyongyang
should have the right eventually to civilian nuclear power.

North Korea has the potential to generate about 7,800
megawatts of electricity, but fuel shortages have cut output to
nearly a third, data from South Korean state agencies show. The
shortage has kept more than two-thirds of its factories idle.

Conversely, no power or expense is spared on the symbols or
ceremonies central to the history and ideology of the communist
state, one of the most isolated countries in the world, or the
few places foreigners are allowed to visit.

Electricity is available around the clock at the twin-tower

Koryo hotel, which charges customers at least 110 euro a
night for a twin bedroom on any of its 35 floors.

Lights are left on until at least 10 p.m. at empty hotel
restaurants. Outside, the streets are pitch black.

DAZZLING CONTRASTS

In the May 1 Stadium, the dazzling, 90-minute show of
Arirang dances, involving 50,000 performers twirling about to
mark the 60th anniversary of the end of Japan’s imperial rule
over the peninsula, provides an illuminating contrast.

The show tells how the country overcame the harsh foreign
occupation to become a prospering and productive state with a
powerful army in the 21st century.

But at his dinner with visiting journalists, Mr. Choi said
North Korea lacked the infrastructure and fuel to generate
enough electricity — hence its need for nuclear power plants.

“We don’t have enough coal nor water supplies to generate
power,” he said. “The solution is a peaceful nuclear program.”

South Korean state firms said the North had the capacity to
produce most of its power from hydroelectric plants with a
combined generation potential of 4,810 megawatts.

The North also has a five-megawatt reactor at the Yongbyon
complex, the heart of its nuclear programs. But the power that
generates is believed to be barely enough to run the complex,
let alone to be distributed outside.

The United States suspects that North Korea cannot be
trusted with a peaceful nuclear program because that could
merely serve as a figleaf for the continued pursuit of nuclear
weapons.

Seoul has offered to provide the North with electrical
supplies roughly equal to its current output if the
impoverished state dismantles its nuclear arms programs.

The answer may come when the six-party nuclear talks resume
in Beijing in the week of September 12.

Echoing top Pyongyang officials, Mr. Choi insisted that
North Korea needed a nuclear deterrent to ensure its peaceful
development and self-defense.

“Look what happened to Afghanistan and Iraq. If we did not
have nuclear weapons to defend ourselves, we would end up like
them,” he said referring to the US-led invasions.