Chongjin residents are expressing their discontent after the authorities ordered each household in the city to contribute 100 kilograms in scrap metal, Daily NK has learned.
A source in North Hamgyong Province told Daily NK on Tuesday that the neighborhood watch unit of Chongjin’s Unhye-dong district convened a meeting on Oct. 3.
“The meeting tasked each household with providing 100 kilograms of scrap metal by Dec. 10,” he said.
According to the source, the people’s committee of Chongjin had previously held an emergency meeting of neighborhood office heads, with the committee handing families in each neighborhood watch unit an “additional” task to procure scrap metal. The committee called on families to carry out this task by Dec. 10.
At the neighborhood watch unit meetings that followed, the authorities reportedly emphasized that the “task to provide scrap metal is an important effort contributing to strengthening national defense,” and that “this activity is not optional; all residents must unquestioningly carry it out by the designated date with a sense of patriotism, no exceptions.”
Every year, North Korean authorities task families in each neighborhood watch unit with contributing a year’s worth of all sorts of items, including scrap metal. The authorities evaluate residents’ performance of these tasks through quarterly reviews.
In particular, Chongjin’s authorities caused the city’s residents significant consternation in early September when it called on them to carry out their fourth quarter scrap metal contributions early. With the authorities now forcing residents to provide an additional 100 kilograms of scrap metal per family “as per an order from Pyongyang,” the city’s residents are expressing their extreme frustration.
In fact, one resident of Unhye-dong told Daily NK that he had been unable to contribute his fourth quarter allotment because he had neither the metal nor the cash.
“When they called for another 100 kilograms, I thought I misheard at first,” he said. “Where can you get 100 kilograms of scrap metal? I think it’s too much to task people with absurd tasks, even if they are for strengthening national defense.”
One neighborhood watch unit in Chongjin’s Susong-dong instructed families contribute KPW 100,000 in cash if they have no scrap metal.
Some Susong-dong residents responded with displeasure saying, “We don’t know whether they really need scrap metal or whether this is just a way to gather money” and that, “Is the neighborhood watch unit an organization to task people with non-tax burdens, or was it created to look after the lives of the people?”
North Korea has long tasked people with “social tasks” for a variety of reasons to support state policy, but with the government suddenly handing down such a heavy task this time around, people feel even more bewildered.
The source said people even complain that they “don’t know how much longer they will have to sacrifice for social tasks ordered in the name of socialist construction and bolstering national defense.”
“The state says it must strengthen national defense [to protect] the happy lives of the people, but in fact, discontent will inevitably grow since the lives of the people aren’t getting better,” he added.
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