[imText1]Public execution used as an “educating method” for the people in North Korea. In short, it is used a method to educate the people “obedience” by indoctrinating by creating “fear.”
Although North Korea is a feudal absolutist Suryeong (Supreme Leader) regime, it defines itself as a “proletarian dictatorship” as the former communist countries. In fact it is a country, based on the federal workers’ union, form an alliance between workers and peasants yet practicing dictatorship to the opposition groups (props, capitalists, religious etc.) Furthermore, in order to control the people, the government practices ‘the Collective Principle’. The Collective Principle categorizes the people in North Korea into three groups, ‘the subjects to educate’, ‘the subjects to be fixed’ and ‘the subjects to be defeated’ and educate them according to the categories.
Who are subjected to pubic execution?
The ultimate goal of North Korea is to first establish a complete communist state on the northern part of the Korean peninsula, and liberate the nation (which means reunification of the Korean peninsula and build a Communist Korean peninsula). In other words, North Korea is still envisioning an antique dream that is far behind the age.
There are many rival factions deservedly since the characteristic of the nation is the struggle of classes based on the working class. Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il visited the safety department and security department and encouraged to aggrandize the level of dictatorship by saying, “We have to be a tiger against the enemies against the class struggle.”
North Korea still clearly defines the construction of social classes. The descendents of the assets class (who have earned assets by following capitalistic practices) who were purged after the Korean independent, political prisoners and the former convicts are the main targets of the dictatorship. Their family members receive the so-called “linear pressure” according to the “guilty-by-association” system. The relatives those targeted live in the abysmal and dark spots of the society merely because they have not yet died.
The subjects for the dictatorship and the starters of anti-regime movement are immediately executed. The people who were recently executed publicly must be from the “purely penniless” families with no connections to the government whatsoever, with no government officials or party cadres in their families.
However, there were many people newly executed with gun shot apart from those subjected by the dictatorship. In the mid 1990s, after the drastic food crisis, many people became criminals for illegally transgressing the national border in search for food. In October 1995, in Maram-dong Yongsung-zone in Pyeonyang, there was an incident where many people were robbed of their valuable including the two interpreters/ lecturers in Chosun Revolution Museum who had their “Kim Il Sung watches” robbed, which at the time they were wearing on their wrists. The “Kim Il Sung watches” are the Swiss-made Omega gold watches which are highly valued in the foreign countries.
The director of the museum at the time, Hwang Sun Hye, visited the official residence of Kim Jong Il in person and reported the accident. As he heard about the incident, Kim Jong Il ordered the public execution himself saying, “Now the sound of shooting (gun) is needed in Pyeongyang as well.”
Effectiveness of the Public Execution
By holding the public execution, North Korean authority aims to acquire a multiple effect. First of all, they separate “the people has the possibility to convert and those who do not” during the investigation step of the prosecution. In other words, it sorts out people who will obey Kim Jong Il from those who will not.
Those subjected to publicly executed usually have bad family roots thus are “subjected by the dictatorship.” By doing so, the regime announces that the leader (of a criminal act previously mentioned) was “subjected by the dictatorship” who deserves the public execution and by doing so it maintains the regime. The conspirators who are classified as “the subjects to be fixed” are sent to the long-term labor detention camp in calculation of transforming them to well obeying people of Kim Jon Il after long their punishment.
The second effect is that by holding and showing the execution openly to the public, it creates “fear” and by doing so, prevents people from complaining. How horrible this fact the state “educates people” with murder?
The day before the public execution takes place, they post notices on the buildings or electronic poles in every corner of the downtown. The security officers order the day-off to the managers of the factories and farms and make everyone watch the execution. The security officers in charge of the execution block the streets and bystreets and encourage the residents to attend the public execution.
The place for execution is decided to be held in the hometown of the to be executed or the spot committed their crimes. This is done in effort to execute them where their family members can see their executions, in order to maximize the fear of the remaining families, relatives and neighbors of the to be executed.
If there are any people harmed by the to be executed, they allow the families of victims to throw stones to be executed until the victims and their families feel their revenge has been fulfilled. The family members of the “criminals” fall unconscious even before they see these horrific scenes. Kim Jong Il is makes people hold grudge aginst each other so that the people will be loyal to only Kim Jong Il.
Even Hitler was not as vicious as Kim Jong Il. Hussein is only a ‘naïve dictator’ comparing with Kim Jong Il.
The Effect of Killing Only the Leaders
In the mid 1990s, North Korean authority killed all ten of them if there were ten conspirators, but later it only killed one or two prime conspirators (leaders), in thought that perhaps it is creating too many enemies against the regime. If two are killed, then the rest eight are “educated until they wet their pants.”
Here, the government also has a plan. It only lets know of who will be “labeled as leaders” to be sentenced to death at the very end of the trial. For this reason, the faces of all the conspirators (criminals) are sunburnt and become black. Those sentenced to death are not told that they will be executed by gun. When the criminals sees that the execution is to take place outside, not inside, only then they realize they will be executed with gun.
Kim Jong Il maintains his dictatorship by drying up the people’s livers (scaring the people to death).
