Mick Hartley

More public executions in North Korea. From the Daily NK:

North Korean authorities have carried out public executions of approximately ten officials involved in what the regime termed “mega crimes” in Jagang province’s Usi county.

The executed officials included members of the county’s agricultural inspection organ and the chief of the local Ministry of Social Security branch. The executions took place on Jan. 31, following condemnation of the officials at the recent 30th enlarged meeting of the Secretariat of the Eighth Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea, where their actions were denounced as “anti-people” crimes….

According to Daily NK’s source in Jagang province, the incident began last autumn when local officials, under pressure to fulfill the party’s mandate to “unconditionally ensure” military rice supplies, demanded that ordinary citizens make up the shortfall in quotas. When public compliance proved insufficient, the agricultural inspection organ formed teams to conduct door-to-door searches.

“These home searches weren’t unprecedented, but this time they crossed a line,” the source explained. “The inspectors didn’t just seize grain – they took livestock and household appliances, devastating people’s livelihoods.” The severity of these actions prompted residents to draw stark historical comparisons, with some telling the inspectors that “not even Japanese police during the occupation would have done something like this” and that “times are even harder than during the colonial era.”

The situation worsened when citizens attempted to report the misconduct to the county’s Ministry of Social Security branch. Rather than investigating the complaints, the branch office alerted the agricultural inspection organ about the reports. This collusion ultimately led to the public execution of the branch chief alongside the other officials.

The source noted that such practices extend beyond Usi county: “This abnormal way of doing business is widespread throughout society. Yet as usual, the state addresses these issues by punishing specific individuals rather than addressing the root causes.”

Public reaction to the executions has been mixed. Some people questioned the necessity of such severe punishment for what they viewed as routine practices, while others expressed sympathy for officials who “died a dog’s death trying to carry out the party’s orders.”

“The authorities executed officials for their methods of fulfilling party policy to ‘unconditionally ensure’ military rice stores, calling it an ‘anti-people crime,'” the source said. “But whether this will end the practice of forcing the public to make up military rice shortfalls remains to be seen. The general hope is that the authorities will stop these executions and implement fundamental reforms instead.”

In other words, the officials were carrying out routine party policy, but were over-zealous to the extent that local complaints could no longer be ignored. So, instead of changing the policies, they just execute the officials and carry on as before.