Graver threats loom over new Kim statues

Construction to erect statues of North
Korea’s two former leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il is well underway in
Hyesan City, Yangkang Province. However, facing a shortage in construction
supplies, state authorities have been forcing individuals to provide basic
materials and even cement, going as far as threatening to ship people off to
labor-training camps if they do not meet their quota, Daily NK has learned. 

“Following orders from the Central Party to
complete the statues by October 10th (Party Foundation Day), state enterprises
have been allocating supplies to individuals,” a source in Yangkang Province
told Daily NK on Friday. “Cadres from the enterprises have been threatening
that they will send people to labor-training camps if they do not manage to
fill their quota.”
 

With the statues running behind schedule,
the provincial Party committee is pushing for residents to carry out individual
assignments to complete the project as soon as possible, she said, adding that
residents are under orders to turn in gravel or sand amounting to one cubic
meter a day or 20 kg of cement–all within 10 days.  
 

These individual projects have been handed
down because cadres feel the pressure to complete the project soon with October
fast approaching, according to the source, who surmised that this effort illustrates
how low their expectations for attempting to procure the materials through
voluntary ‘loyalty payments’ would have been to resort to these mandatory
assignments.  

“Men who head the households, as well as
women and other family members leave their homes at the crack of dawn, only to
return after night falls,” the source explained, lamenting that working on this
construction is “practically like working in a labor camp without a fence”
considering all are burdened with other individual workplace assignments or
simultaneously mobilized for other construction or city improvement work. 

With the overbearing amount of labor to
deal with, people say it is hard to find anyone who tries their best and puts
in as much as they can; excessive competition to prove loyalty these days can
actually result in punishment if such actions are not well-received by the
cadres overseeing the project.
 

“The times are not like before, so no one
works as passionately as they used to,” the source said. “It has been a long time since
people have voluntarily tried hard to express their loyalty. That’s why
progress is so slow on projects like the statue construction.”
 

Meanwhile, along with the statue project,
authorities are also attempting to clean up cities in Yangkang Province. “This
is because there’s the expectation that the Marshal (Kim Jong Un) might attend
the unveiling ceremony for the statues. No one cares that residents are going
through the lean period when food supplies are short,” she lamented.