Mick Hartley

The Daily NK, with its links to informants (necessarily unidentied, of course), is probably the best place to go for a feel of public opinion inside North Korea. Of course it's only very recently – maybe since the currency revaluation fiasco – that such a thing as public opinion, separate from the official Juche ideology, has had a voice at all. A couple of recent reports…first from yesterday:

The biggest side effect of the currency redenomination has been that a profound distrust of the government has taken deep root in the people. Sources say that while nobody really blamed the regime for the catastrophic famine of the late 1990s, now if small groups of people get together, they are quick to criticize the state.

The target was mid-level cadres. This was because after the July 1st Economic Management Reform Measure of 2002, bribery became the main source of income for cadres charged with regulating the activities of the common people. Bribes became an institutionalized way of life for cadres in markets, factories and on collective farms, not to mention in the National Security Agency and People’s Security Ministry.

But then, in the redenomination, people lost a lot of their hard-earned assets, which they had obtained and retained in many cases by offering bribes to cadres to look the other way. There was also a redenomination in 1992, but at that time the notion of private enterprise was alien to the people, and there was little to lose.

The inability to get the distribution to which one is entitled is totally different to being deprived of one’s own property, obviously. Naturally, the more one has, the more one has to lose. Consequently, criticism turned towards the regime.

The follow-up measures only added fuel to the flames. Closing the markets hit seriously those who were living from hand to mouth. As food prices soared, food traders did not release food into the market. Some even starved in the border areas and smaller provincial cities. The authorities released emergency aid, but it was not enough to get over the crisis without difficulty.

Food distribution, which was supposed to fill the space left by the closed markets, was limited to Pyongyang. However, there was nothing to distribute, even in food distribution centers and procurement stores. The promise of the Chosun Central Bank, “Thanks to the redenomination, state-designated prices will fall by 100 times, and we will increase the people’s purchasing power 100 times by offering the same salaries as workers were receiving,” came to nothing.

Therefore, the source said, “Now, even soldiers and cadres criticize. More than 80 percent of the population no longer believes the authorities.”

Since February, the markets have opened again and a theoretical ban on foreign currency use has been discarded, but distrust of the authorities is carved deeply in the people’s minds. People believe that, looking back, the measures were all based on lies.

People have also reacted weakly to lectures on the Cheonan incident.

Although the North’s media insists that the Cheonan incident was “a fabrication made by the South Chosun authorities,” people either do not care or do not believe it.

The Daily NK’s source reported, “Until April, military and Party cadres boasted about the incident, saying, ‘Our heroic Chosun People’s Army took revenge on the enemy’, but now their words have completely changed. Now they say, ‘It was a South Chosun [Chosun = Korea – MH] fabrication.’”

He added, therefore, “The people now have an indifferent attitude toward official pronouncements, and say that they don’t care whether a war breaks out or not.”

And, in a similar vein, from today:

Domestic North Korean political events have attracted little except criticism and bemusement from the North Korean people.

In a new interview, a Daily NK source gave an example: “In the second meeting of the 12th Supreme People’s Assembly on April 9th, a delegate from Hamju in South Hamkyung Province reported that on each cheongbo (9,917m²) paddy they had produced 11 tons of rice, and in similar size fields they had produced 15 tons of grain. However, people said that what he said was all crap.”

Then, he added, “In the same meeting, there was a resolution adopted whereby the Sungkang Steel Mill would guarantee iron for both the construction of 100,000 households in Pyongyang and the Heecheon Power Plant. People reacted to that sarcastically, asking, ‘How can they guarantee those materials when they even import chopsticks from China?’”

“When cadres applauded a report by the Director of the Ministry of Electric Power Industry that power production in 2009 had reached 154% of the plan, people looked down on it too, saying, ‘Puppets! How can they applaud when they have no electricity in their houses?!’”   […]

One interesting point is that complaints even extend to the General and his successor.

With respect to Kim Jong Il’s visit to China, the idea that Kim was spurned by the Chinese leaders has been spreading, the source said. People also look upon Kim Jong Eun coldly, he said, asking, “How can a kid rule the country?” or pointing out, “He is a mere puppet, so cadres will be able to squeeze us more tightly.”