Open Sources: The Economics of Extortion

North Korea, which was removed from the list of state sponsors of terrorism on October 11, 2008, has again threatened war against South Korea for its refusal to pay extortion money:

North Koreans gathered Monday at a massive rally in Pyongyang to denounce the conservative government of South Korean President Lee Myung-bak as a “group of unparalleled traitors.” More than 100,000 citizens, soldiers and senior government and army officials flocked to Kim Il Sung Square, according to footage from Associated Press Television News in Pyongyang. [….]

The North’s official Korean Central News Agency quoted General Jang Jong Nam as saying that “there remains between the North and the South only physical settlement of returning fire for fire.” [AP]

Open News reports that regime officials who can’t make ends meet on their salaries alone are branching out into loan sharking.

“Just recently in North Korea,” reports a source in Sinuiju, “an organization which charges interest on loans called Interest Money has come into being.” It has been providing large loans to illegally operating businesses. Large numbers of people are paying 10 – 20% monthly rates on the money they have borrowed.

Inspectors charged with regulating the private markets which have sprung up around North Korea are raising the heckles [sic] of the people operating the markets. Disgruntled North Koreans say the officers are cracking down independently of officials orders in order to line their own pockets.

A Pyongyang source on a visit to relatives in China said, “Recently the inspectors have strengthened their regulation over the markets. There have been no new officials orders to come down heavily on the marketeers but individuals inspectors have taken it upon themselves to be more heavy handed as a means to boost their own livelihoods.” “The inspectors are in receipt of a fixed ration from the regime,” said the source, “but it’s evidently not enough for them.” The source added that they regulate more keenly to provide themselves with a higher standard of living. [Open News]

Fun Reading, and Possibly Even True: The Chosun Ilbo claims that an increasing number of North Korean soldiers and officers have recently been caught watching or screening forbidden South Korean films in their homes and barracks. Given that North Korean soldiers aren’t allowed to get married during enlistments that often last ten years or more, it’s not surprising that pornography makes an appearance. (Decide for yourself whether to believe the apocryphal account of one officer starring his own productions; if true, this would mostly prove that the impulses endemic to certain men know no borders or ideology.)

I think the Chosun Ilbo overstates the significance of porn as a sign that military discipline is collapsing; after all, what makes a South Korean video subversive is backgrounds, scenery, and plot, and those aren’t exactly qualities for which porn is held in high esteem. Porn in the barracks would be considered a disciplinary problem — but hardly a sign of the apocalypse — in many armies, including our own.

The word is “megalomanocracy:” Two fresh news reports suggest that Kim Jong-Eun has gone under the knife no less than six times to make him resemble his grandfather, and that his uncle (Kim Jong Il’s half-brother and Kim Il-Sung’s son) is under house arrest because he resembles Kim Il Sung too much. No word on whether the surgical procedures performed on Jong-Eun included liposuction.

I can’t vouch for the veracity of the reports, but in any place but North Korea, we’d reject them out of hand. The logical conclusion? North Korean agents abduct Hwang Woo-Suk and order him to clone Kim Il Sung, who is currently serving as North Korea’s Eternal President and its largest stockpile of preserved meat.

Despite the flaws in the World Food Program’s assessment and monitoring, the E.U. has donated $14.5 million to the WFP’s emergency feeding program for North Korea. The contribution still leaves the WFP far short of its goals, and for comparison, represents less than 10% of what the United States was giving during most of the Bush Administration.

Chris Green of the Daily NK interviews Marcus Noland about the prospects for North Korea’s special economic zones. Noland isn’t optimistic that the zones are a harbinger of economic reform. Separately, Nicholas Eberstadt reaches a similar conclusion:

“It is a safe bet that Kim Jong-il’s visit to China in May 2011 was a sort of fundraising tour aimed at securing some of the many billions of dollars envisioned by this ambitious plan,” he said in a report titled “What is wrong with the North Korean economy?” [….]

“Yet all North Korean efforts at ‘opening’ and ‘reform’ to date have been confused and half-hearted, and every one of these initiatives has ultimately ended in failure,” he said

ABC (Australian type) profiles the North Korean guerrilla cameraman who brought out the latest images from his homeland.

“Canada, fire this diplomat.”

Congratulations to Jared Genser — lawyer, scholar, and long-standing activist for the human rights of the people of North Korea — who after many years with mega-firm DLA Piper, has opened his own practice. (Genser was rumored to be a possible pick for Special Envoy for Human Rights in North Korea, and it’s hard not to think that he’d have been a more effective public advocate for the issue than Bob King has been.) These are tough times for lawyers, so Genser should have no trouble recruiting top-notch talent. I wish him well, and a little free publicity from the Washington Post can’t hurt.

Brilliant Chinese soft-power diplomacy continues to influence the policies of nations all over Asia.