A group of approximately one thousand discharged soldiers dispatched under state policy to “10.18 Cooperative Farm” in Baekam County, Yangkang Province are causing considerable problems locally, Daily NK has learned. Notably, the soldiers are proving to be persistent stealers of the assets and possessions of residents.
The group was sent to rural Yangkang Province in April this year to fulfill Kim Jong Eun’s order that potato production be increased. This is not an unusual event: teams of hundreds or a few thousands of discharged soldiers are often injected into state projects at specific times of year, nominally to improve efficiency or drive the related project to completion. Since the late 1990s, this has included potato farming in Yangkang Province.
According to the source from the province, “Since April this year when the discharged soldiers were dispatched to the farm, they have been going into people’s homes in secret and stealing food and kimchi. Worse still, they are even taking soybean paste. The spring hardship period makes life exceedingly difficult as it is, but with discharged soldiers going around like insurgents stealing stuff, it feels like we’re fighting a war every single day.”
The response of local people to these ongoing acts of criminality is, in essence, “All they learned in the military is how to take our stuff, so they just do the same thing when they get out,” the source said. However, while people are angry about the situation, the Ministry of People’s Security, the North Korean police, is reportedly doing little to stop the soldiers because they were initially dispatched on the orders of the leader, Kim Jong Eun.
“People reckon that what they can get from farming their private vegetable gardens is less than the amounts being stolen by discharged soldiers,” the source went on. “Some households are guarding their homes to try and stop the thievery.”
“When the soldiers were first dispatched, the Party secretary from the military came out and there was this celebratory event to welcome them, but now people think that we were welcoming thieves,” the source said. “They are wondering whether the soldiers actually received orders from the Marshal to go and steal people’s belongings!”
Soldiers discharged from the Chosun People’s Army having done more than ten years of military service are systematically dispatched to take part in state projects. They do not officially have a say in where they are sent.
