Class Conflict Rises in Potato Country

Central Party cadres dispatched to October 18th
Cooperative Farm in Baekam County, Yangkang Province are drawing the ire of local residents as they prove enduringly corrupt, Daily NK has learned.

A source located in the region reported on the 22nd,
“It’s the lean spring period and food is quite scarce, but these three cadres
sent from Section 4 of the Central Party Agriculture Department still eat pork
almost everyday. People are really unhappy. There are these kids of people who
might get meat just once or twice a year out there in front of their lodgings
just to smell it cooking.”

Cadres were first dispatched to the farm in 2008 to oversee
the potato harvest, the source explained. In addition to having their own
housekeeper, they regularly order the manager of their accommodation to
purchase piglets, which they then raise.

“At a time when more and more people in the Okcheon Unit are
running out of rice, the cadres can continue to live in their own world.  People attack them, pointing out that ‘workers
starve while the ones ordering them around are living well. They can eat till
their stomachs stick out,” the source went on.

“Just last month a man in
the unit starved to death,” she continued. “People say that he couldn’t harvest last
autumn, so his wife went to get frozen potatoes out of the ground and tried to
make a living by making food out of their skins. He passed away while his wife was
left behind to try and sell what she had made.”

“When [cadres] go to Pyongyang they take a ton of potato
starch with them, and tens of farmers are mobilized for the indignity of loading
the freight,” she alleged. “They don’t care; they just say, ‘When going back,
you shouldn’t go empty handed. If you want to get help with things like farming
equipment, there’s no choice; you have to give something before you can get
anything.’”

At the dawn of the 2000s, the Chosun Workers’ Party ordered
a revolution of sorts on the nation’s potato farms. Discharged soldiers were sent en masse and as the region morphed
into the heart of North Korea’s potato farming industry they received farming equipment. However, cadres dispatched from Pyongyang to provide specific
support and guidance on farming brought corrupt practices with them, sources
say.

Every year, the authorities and media tell of “model” results after
the spring and autumn farming seasons at the location in a bid to encourage
production elsewhere. However, people in the area witness corruption with their own eyes.

“The only thing cadres do is pretend that work is being
carried out well and that the state is worried about the people,” the source
said.