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(CORR) South Korean Website Views North Army's Role in Securing Grain Supplies

Posted on: Friday, 7 October 2005, 09:00 CDT

(Correction: Changing "North Korean" to "South Korean" in headline)

Text of report Kim Young-jin, Changbai of China and Han Young- jin, reporter, defector from Pyongyang, entitled: "North Korean army in a decade-long gun battle to secure food"; published in English by South Korean newspaper The Daily NK website on 7 October, subheadings as published

Currently, soldiers are involved to harvest the year's farming in the farm areas. Every fall, food is harvested and taken to the army, and the military is involved mainly to protect food from people stealing food.

Shin Ja Min, a Chinese descendent Korean who visited China on 2 October, says "soldiers come down every fall to harvest food and they are the soldiers sent to secure every grain".

Shi, whom The DailyNK met in Changbai, added, "The military sent as food inspectors stop all the cars [which] pass by and go through all the belongings.["]

His description of the situation is an evidence of continuation of the military surveillance to secure food that started in the mid 1990s

After the "military-first movement" was declared in 1995, the military gained a significant amount of social power. "Purge of reactionary element", which was carried out by the National Safety and Security Department (government organ similar to the National Intelligence Service of South Korea) before, is not conducted by the army headquarters and the "anti-socialist crack down" usually done by the Social Safety Department (police) is now a responsibility of the military headquarters as well.

After that, the military in North Korea became fear itself for the people. On top of that, now the military is responsible for harvesting grain.

Shi says 10 to 20 armed soldiers go around the towns and farms to look over the grain in his home town since September.

"Robbers of the military food the enemy destroying socialism"

[The] military started harvest in the mid 1990s with the start of the food crisis. Before that, military food was controlled by the "No 2 Management Department" of the party [which] was responsibility for the military food.

Military was the number one subject of the (state) food providence, and the state distributed food [to] the people with what was left. During the mid 1990s, in the period so-called "march of tribulation", people would steal corns even before they were ripe. There was no food for even the military.

As the situation worsened over time, the state allotted the cooperative farmed previously controlled by the "No 2 Management Department" to the military compounds and made each compound to collect the food for themselves. Because there was a possibility that food can be stolen if it goes through an organ made up of civilians, they made a system where military directly collect the food for themselves.

The farmers of the cooperative farms are under special surveillance. For this reason, there is a high resentment among the leaders of the cooperative farm staff, who protest, "Who farms and who controls?"

Soldiers watch over the grain plants and corn plants so the people cannot steal [from] them and sometimes they even conduct surprise inspections to confiscate food from the people. They do not even allow making a meal for the people who come to visit in support of the agriculture sector.

The military sent to control the food exercise special privilege of power as local martial soldiers. They have arm patches that say "inspection staff" and they stop the cars on the streets and conduct inspections of belongings, especially for grain. People's resentment about such military activities is ever more increasing.

The guard soldiers each carry one misfire and two bullets when then go out for night patrol. The commander orders them, "The first shot is for warning and if the robber does not stop then the second could be used for a real shot." The soldiers say, "Those who steal military food are enemies who are trying to destroy the socialism (socialist regime).["]

During the food crisis, there are so many people who died from gunshot of the military. People [who] had few corns under her basket had her face burn because they threw a misfire to her, a man of his twenties dies on the spot of gunshot for entering a corn field.

Civilians are thieves, military are robbers

People say, "If we are thieves, then the military are robbers." The military illegally circulate the harvested food, and commit many illegal activities, such as allowing people's stealing of military food by bribes.

The inspection soldiers are sent, they already have a "place" to go. The owner of the place and the soldiers make deals. During the soldiers' stay, the owner provides liquor and meat and is paid in grain. Even the generals turn blind eye on such deals when they receive this kind of illegal treatments.

For example, when a soldier catches a food thief, he takes away the food and sells the food at the ratio of 5:5 to the "place". Sometimes the soldiers allow the owners of the "place" [to] steal the food from the farms. They sell the food stolen together and divide the profit also in the ratio of 5:5. If the food does not get sold immediately, the soldier usually yields to the owner and receives the money later.

The people who have survived through the food crisis say, "If you do not work (steal) a day in the fall, you starve ten days in the spring." So spent sleepless nights "working". In 1997, half of the food were stolen from the farm in the beginning of fall even before the time for the harvest. It was an evil cycle created by the Kim Jong-il regime.

The party sent the military to guard on the food, the soldiers are making a profit working hand in hand with the civilians, by stealing and smuggling food. In the end, the government has "let the cat guard the fish".

It will worrisome whether there will be any food left to reach the people this year as previous years after the military take their food and some smuggled into illegal markets.

Source: BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific

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