Just Deserts and Letters of Devotion

In order to garner loyalty to Kim Jong Eun
following the execution of Jang Song Taek earlier this month, many North Korean civilians have been
instructed to write “resolutions of loyalty” to the regime, Daily NK has learned.
The authorities are showing their concern over the risk of domestic civil unrest in the wake of Jang’s execution, and one response to this threat is the holding of meetings designed to help with surveillance activities.

A source in North Hamkyung Province told
Daily NK on the 23rd, “At a workplace ideological session held last
Saturday, they informed Workers’ Party and Federation of Trade Unions [full
name: General Federation of Chosun Trade Unions] members that they should write
resolutions stating that they would be loyal to the Marshal [Kim Jong Eun], so
they all did and handed them in.”

“The Party secretary first issued a condemnation,
saying, ‘The Jang clique disobeyed Party orders, which was a stupid act that
gave enormous harm to both the Party and the nation,’” the source said. Then, “‘No
matter how much the rats try to conspire, we will follow the Marshal.’ Then he
ordered the resolutions to be written.”

“Party men keep telling us that we must live
resolutely in the belief that ‘We have nobody but the Marshal’ and that ‘No
foothold must be given to factionalists within the Party,’” the source went on.
They claim that ‘True loyalty is with those who would die for the Marshal.’”

According to the source, such officials and
Party workers are particularly determined to show off their surfeit of Party loyalty in the
wake of the execution of Jang Song Taek, and that this is leading only to harassment for
ordinary people, who have little option but to accommodate the circumstances.

“If we violate the Party’s instructions or
engage with them in an insincere fashion then we could be punished as an example to others, so people
think the best thing is to be very careful. That’s why most people are saying that
Jang’s execution was his just desert.”

“At the beginning people said it was a bit
much to execute the husband of the leader’s aunt, but recently it has been a
case of ‘it is right that the enemy who betrayed the General is dead’,” the
source added. “That shows how hard the authorities are working to enforce
loyalty to Kim Jong Eun.”