Home  >  Regime Change  >  Resistance

Category: Resistance

December 11, 2009

Great Confiscation Updates

A DAY AFTER I excoriated the New York Times for its awful North Korea coverage (well, it is …) their Ideas blog links and recommends my New Ledger post about the Ajumma Rebellion. I prefer to think they’re trying to appease me. =================== NORTH KOREA SANCTIONS ITSELF: So, exactly how much of a North Korean economy is still left if you suddenly and arbitrarily confiscate private savings and eradicate private markets? South Korea’s Hankyoreh newspaper quoted sources in China’s border...
Categories NK Economics/Resistance
December 9, 2009

More Violence Reported in N. Korea

The Wall Street Journal’s Evan Ramstad, picking up on reports of the Ajumma Rebellion and fresh reports from Open Radio, writes: New reports emerged Tuesday of protests and deadly violence in North Korea as the country’s authoritarian regime over the past week seized most of its citizens’ money and savings via a new-currency issue. Open Radio for North Korea, a Seoul-based shortwave radio station that broadcasts news to the North, said police killed two men in Pyongsong, a market center...
Categories Resistance
December 6, 2009

North Korea Completes Great Confiscation (Upated)

[Updated below.] By now, it is December 7th in Pyongyang, and the period for exchanging old currency for new has passed. By filling the streets with troops and police, the regime has, for the moment, managed to contain the “fury and frustration” of people who, robbed of their savings and deprived of food rations, no longer know how they’re going to make it through the winter. For now, only isolated outbreaks of dissent are reported. The people know that this...
Categories NK Economics/Resistance
December 1, 2009

North Korea Revalues Currency, Wipes Away Savings of Millions (Updated)

North Korea has shocked its entire population with a sudden announcement that it will replace its currency with new notes that drop two zeroes from the denominations. The new North Korean currency’s official exchange rates will increase by a hundredfold. The move is causing widespread outrage, panic, and a run on U.S. and Chinese currency. North Koreans throughout the country and at every socioeconomic level are reacting with shock, tears, and anger. According to some reports, people are literally weeping...
Categories NK Economics/Resistance
October 15, 2009

Anti-Kim Jong Il Posters Trigger Massive Dragnet in Small Farming Town

A story sourced to Open Radio (link in Korean) reports that in the small farming town of Kwaksan-Up, North Pyongan Province, anti-government posters were placed on the door and window of the local party office. The posters denounced the top local party official, complaining that in his ambition to curry favor with Kim Jong Il, he had created unbearable conditions for the local people. The posters were signed by a group calling itself “Seo namu dan,” or “pine tree group.”...
Categories Resistance
September 29, 2009

Good Friends Reports Strike in N. Hamgyeong Province

Interesting if true: One day one of supervisors got drunk and cursed at some laborers taking a break. It caused an explosion of suppressed anger on the part of the laborers. A laborer named Cho Dong-Soo (alias) challenged the supervisor, “How come you people fill your stomachs with alcoholic beverage and pork while idling away time and yet shout at us? We feel so hungry and weak in this hot weather. Don’t we deserve some rest?” The supervisor’s response was,...
Categories Resistance
August 30, 2009

Daily NK Reports Uprisings in Labor Camps, Factory

Recently, the North Korean regime decided that its emaciated slaves hadn’t worked hard enough and declared a “150-day battle,” sending more of them to labor in the countryside and in the factories. The “battle,” however, appears to have taken a turn the authorities didn’t anticipate, according to an exile organization called North Korean Intellectuals Solidarity: It reported, “In a provincial labor-training camp located in Dongheung-district, Hamheung, South Hamkyung Province, a camp inspector, who was also a manager in the Department...
Categories Resistance/The Camps
January 18, 2009

North Korea Fails to Stamp Out Private Markets

I wonder how long it will take for a North Korea “expert” in some South Korean university to call this a sign of reform: North Korean leader Kim Jong-il slapped restrictions on farmers’ markets last year, but his writ does not appear to run there. The North Korean regime said permitting the markets to operate had been “a transitional step taken under difficult economic conditions,” and according to a notice posted at Haeju Market, South Hwanghae Province that the Chosun...
Categories Famine & Food Aid/Resistance
June 10, 2008

You’re Quasi-Evil. You’re Semi-Evil….

So Kim Jong Il sent Kim Jong Chol, his son with the (ahem) hormonal imbalance, to Chongjin to carry out some “inspections,” and things did not go well: In particular, for Kim Jong Cheol, who is being considered as Kim Jong Il’s leading successor, this seems to be an opportunity for on-site training and testing his leadership and insight. However, the source remarked that Kim Jong Cheol could not perform according to Kim Jong Il’s expectations. Another source said, “Jang...
Categories Kremlinology/Resistance
April 5, 2008

MUST READ: BBC on Clandestine Journalism in N. Korea

[Update: The Daily NK has more.  There is no English Rimjingang yet, unfortunately, but you can read a somewhat clunky google translation of their home page here.] The North Korean regime has a name for journalism that it does not control: espionage. I need not elaborate on the penalty for those caught. Seven months ago, North Korea reminded us (ht) of how seriously it takes the surreptitious possession and use of a camera, and we’ve seen relatively little of that...
Categories Inside NK/Resistance
April 4, 2008

N. Korea Food Situation Continues to Worsen: Protests Continue in Chongjin; Food Prices Skyrocket; Kim Jong Il Asks China for ‘Massive’ Food Aid

[Update: A reader — one you and I both respect — writes to warn that we shouldn’t rely too heavily on the reports of Good Friends. Well, yes, the obvious caveats apply here: this being North Korea, we tend to treat third-hand rumors and hearsay, possibly further garbled by translation, as news. What I try to do here that news sites don’t do is to put each report in the context of other facts reported by other sources, either previously...
Categories Famine & Food Aid/Regime Change/Resistance
March 25, 2008

Defector Newspaper Reports Food Protests in North Korea

Amid reports  that North Hamgyeong Province (among others) totters on the brink of famine,  the  North Korean regime is desperately trying to shut down markets and regain state control of the food supply.  The regime has long used food to sustain those it trusts and control those it doesn’t.  I’ve written about  North Korea’s accelerating food  crisis  in some detail recently.   Map of protest locations (click to enlarge) This year, food shortages are reported even in elite Pyongyang, a...
Categories Famine & Food Aid/Regime Change/Resistance
September 11, 2007

Newsweek Reports on Son Jong Nam, North Korea’s Only (Possibly) Living Dissident

A new Newsweek piece about North Korea’s underground movement reports on the plight of Son Jong Nam.  If Son still lives, he sits on death row in Pyongyang for spreading his faith.  You will recall that I previously wrote about him here, and told you how you can join in a campaign to save his life.  Newsweek estimates that there are between 20,000 and 100,000 underground Christians in North Korea. You can’t bring Christianity to such a place on a...
Categories Inside NK/Religion/Resistance
July 12, 2007

Korean Church Coalition Joins N. Korean Human Rights Movement, and an Appeal for a Condemned Man

[Update:   Barack Obama endorses  the rally and its cause with a nicely written letter.  Read it here.  Of course, it would be great to think that Obama will be as persistent and passionate on this issue  as Sam Brownback, who introduced this resolution  in the Senate.  That’s two presidential candidates, one from each party.  In a particularly  bipartisan gesture, one prominent  Republican staffer even  sent me a copy of Obama’s letter(!).  If the KCC turns out a good crowd...
Categories Human Rights/Religion/Resistance
June 26, 2007

Anju Links for 6/25

*   There’s another report that a  North Korean border guard has defected, only this time, he brought a few things with him: At the time of arrest, Kim was armed with an automatic AK rifle, 5 magazines, 30 cartridges and [a]sword.  [Daily NK]   Then, the Chinese caught him.  They’ll send him back to North Korea, where he’s certain to face a firing squad at 19 [because Koreans calculate age from the time of conception, he’s just 17 or...
Categories Anju Links/NK Military/Resistance/Uncategorized
April 4, 2007

Stage 4 Watch: Are North Korean Diplomats Going Native?

An order from Pyongyang directing North Korean diplomats in overseas posts to send their children back home has been met with defiance, sources in Beijing said yesterday. Pyongyang has extended the deadline for sending the children home until the end of this month in the face of the diplomats’ reluctance to obey. On March 6, the JoongAng Ilbo reported that the communist Workers’ Party of North Korea had issued the order in February, but no explanation was provided. Under the...
Categories Kremlinology/Resistance