Even though the General Staff has dispatched inspection teams to Chosun People’s Army bases nationwide to look into standards of food, clothing and other requirements for soldiers’ wellbeing, they are not making any difference, according to a source.
The North Korean military, just like the country at large, has been suffering from a lack of food and clothing caused by economic difficulties for some years. Now, to make things worse, cold weather has caused heating problems, placing military units in an even more difficult situation.
The source from a military base in Yangkang Province told The Daily NK on Monday, “Food and clothing problems are really serious on military bases, but more than that, the heating problem has given us real trouble.”
“We can stand hunger,” he added, “but the cold is really hard to take.”
He went on, “Even if we say we’ll go to the mountains to cut wood, they proclaim that ‘the base location will be exposed’ or ‘you’ll cut trees at a revolutionary site’, so soldiers complain that ‘we will be the ones who freeze to death’ and say ‘I wish the winter would hurry up and go’.”
It is in this situation that the General Staff recently dispatched the inspection teams to urgently check the military situation and introduce measures to counter it, the source explained, but they have failed to come up with a single solution, leading to further complaints.
Even though the inspectors have witnessed the dire situation, their answer is, “We don’t have a solution. Can we force you to go and steal something?” he said. Instead, they concentrate more on the delivery of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il idolization.
“It has been ten days, and not one policy has appeared,” according to the source. “They just sit around sponging off our rice.”
Freezing cold and hungry, the disinterested soldiers are forced to participate in study sessions on Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il’s greatness, a fact which does not please them one bit. “Does the study produce rice?” they ask.
Only spring will make it better, the source added, pointing out that Kim Jong Il’s birthday is looking bleak this year. “The day the soldiers are waiting for is February 16th, but it seems likely that, like now, there will not be sufficient provisions for the holiday,” he said.
