Some Good Friends Updates

With busy times in recent days, I’ve fallen behind on posting Good Friends updates.  I’ll try to catch these up a few at a time, and I’m just going to post the summaries Good Friends sends as well, without having had time to read the bulletins themselves. 

Here’s number 139, dated June 9th:  good-friends-139.pdf

* Senior Officials at Gimchaek Steel Mill Meet Over Absentee Workers
* Difficulties at Gimchaek Caused by the Bankruptcy of the Jangsaeng Company
* Workers and Security Collude To Steal Equipment at Gimchaek Steel Mill
* College Students Get 120g of Ground Corncob Meal
* “When Did You Give Us Uniforms To Wear?” Protest Parents
* Crackdown on Uniforms: “Go Change and Come Back”
* Students Who Recently Entered Elementary School Were Placed in Second or Third Grade
* Parents Need to Pay Teachers’ Business Traveling Expenses
* Uncovering Embezzlement of a School Fund
* Mobilizing in Farming Areas is a Big Burden for Members of Democratic Women’s Union
* Expecting a Big Amnesty on the Founding Day of Korea Worker’s Party
* [Opinion] South Korea Should Give 200,000 MT of Food during This Farm Hardship Period Rather Than Just 50,000 MT

Number 140, dated June 10th:  good-friends-140.pdf

* Chief of the Farm Management Committee in Sookchun County Was Punished By the Party for Hinting at a Voluntary Resignation
* Woman Commits Suicide after Borrowing Money to Go To China In Search Of Relatives
* No Payment for Workers Who String Beads
* Murder over Display Space in Market
* Increased Suffering Due to Low Quality Products from China
* Party Officials in Pyongyang Shop at Pyongyang the 1st Department Store
* The Director of the Department of Education Issues a Punishment Warning for Unwholesome Video Tapes
* Human Trafficking, Coming To Light and Leads to Arrest
* Hamheung, Endless War with “˜Ice’
* At the Pyongsung Medical School , Rich and Poor Students Got Into a Gang Fight  

Number 141, dated June 11th:  good-friends-141.pdf

* “Get everything out, Survive “˜til the end of the Month”
* 100g Powdered Maize divided between the Family of Four
* Absenteeism Rampant Among Orchard Workers
* Workers at Kangsuh County Iron Mill Survive On One Porridge Bowl a Day
* Food Being Smuggled In Everyday in Small Amounts
* Chinese Government Grants an Additional 100,000 MT Permit To Import Food  

Number 142, dated June 12th:  good-friends-142.pdf

* Recruits Run Away After 2 Months:  “Too Hungry”
* Military Officers Are Surviving with Thin Porridge
* Chairman Kim Jong-Il Orders to Place “First Priority on Food Issues” (강여경)
* Only One or Two Meals a Day for the Soldiers Stationed in Kangwon Province
* “Willing To Sell One’s Body If It Enables to Get Some Food”
* Phone Call to Outside World Prohibited To Prevent the News of Food Crisis
* Real Reason Doubtful for Lee Myung-bak Government’s Announcement of Support of 50,000 MT of Corn

I have more of these to publish, which I will try to do in the next day or two.  Meanwhile, just to show you that the spirit of Walter Duranty lives, here’s what the Joongang Ilbo brings back from  a recent tour (carefully guided, naturally) of selected sites in North Korea:

North Korea’s economy has been gradually recovering from the country’s worst economic troubles since the mid-1990s. A JoongAng Ilbo special reporting team visited the North from May 8 to 13 and took a tour around the country.

Pyongyang’s electricity supply seemed to have stabilized and passersby on the streets looked livelier compared to observations made during the team’s first visit in 2006.  [Joongang Ilbo]

Look lively if you want to eat this month!

What’s  so risible about this report is its near-complete reliance on anecdotes from North Korean officials and quotations from official newspapers.  I’ve  urged  caution in relying too heavily on Good Friends’ quotations of North Koreans,  too, but there’s a vastly greater potential for manipulation of someone who enters the North as a journalist and is guided around the country for the express purpose of showing the regime in a positive light.  In the case of Good Friends, one can concede the possibility of some manipulation while realizing that most of its reports are  too inconsistent with the image the regime wants to protect to have been staged. 

Of course, the basic problem with any analysis that  speaks of the “North Korean economy” is that it necessarily  mixes two separate economies.  It’s entirely possible that while the people’s economy is plunging most North Koreans into famine,  the palace economy really is doing fine.  I don’t doubt that regime’s willingness, for example, to squander scarce resources on a useless Death Star, luxury swimming pools, and goodies for the elite  while  “expendable” people starve.   So it’s neither implausible nor  proven that the palace economy is doing fine, although  I would not expect to hear reports of starving soldiers and officers (see Good Friends 142 above)  if that were entirely the case. 

The report also cites some academics who relay statistics to support the idea of rising North Korean exports.   The questions this raises about authenticity and source bias are too obvious for me to need to repeat here, but one conspicuously misleading data point cited is the absence of blackouts in Pyongyang lately.  That’s become  a propaganda talking point, but any competent journalist ought to note the probability that this is attributable to the delivery  American heavy fuel oil.  

I find the report unpersuasive, poorly sourced, sloppy,  and at odds with  other, more plausible evidence, but by all means  read and decide for yourself.

An Update, via Bloomberg:  “North Korea’s Economy Shrank in 2007, Second Annual Contraction.”  Brilliant timing.