North Korean leader Kim Jong Un recently ordered the Korean People’s Army (KPA) to take the initiative in farmwork and reforestation this year, Daily NK has learned.
Since soon after taking power in 2012, Kim has shown his commitment to resolving the food shortfall by pledging to take personal command of the reforestation campaign and by describing the farm sector as the “front line” for defending socialism. This year, he seems especially determined to make active use of the military in agricultural and reforestation programs.
“Kim’s order as commander in chief to deploy the Korean People’s Army to the reforestation campaign and the agricultural front to secure an ample supply of food this year was delivered to the general staff of relevant units throughout the military by the General Staff Department on Feb. 11,” a reporting partner inside the North Korean military told Daily NK on Wednesday, speaking on condition of anonymity.
North Korea’s General Staff Department is the senior military leadership of the country’s armed forces.
Daily NK’s reporting partner said that the General Staff Department’s instructions stated that “the supreme commander of the armed forces has ordered that the trusted and beloved personnel of the Korean People’s Army be deployed to the two front lines [the agriculture and reforestation fronts] as we seek to lay a rigorous foundation for 10,000 years of building a powerful socialist state in our own [North Korean] style.”
The General Staff Department also called on the Korean People’s Army to take the lead in the reforestation and agricultural fronts.
“When the people faced hunger and other difficulties during the grim revolutionary struggle against Japan and even during the grave days of the ‘Arduous March’ in the 1990s, the Korean People’s Army has always stood in the vanguard and forged a path forward,” the department stated in the order, adding that “the reforestation and agricultural fronts should provide an opportunity for maximizing the strength of unity between the people and the army.”
The North Korean military is currently engaged in wintertime drills that began on Dec. 1, 2022. The military exercises are set to continue until late March.
The General Staff Department emphasized that rearguard military corps, training centers and commands should assign some of their staff to agriculture and reforestation projects without neglecting routine guard duties and their operational and combat work in the wintertime exercises. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Defense has begun designating farms and reforestation areas to each military unit that is being mobilized for work, the reporting partner said.
Notably, the General Staff Department and the defense ministry asked the staff of each military unit to revitalize forests while embodying the fighting spirit through which North Koreans dedicate themselves to producing food to send to the front lines. They also emphasized that the KPA should take the lead in planning projects by which each unit can vigorously aid the agricultural front so that the North Korean people can achieve food self-sufficiency.
The reporting partner also told Daily NK that, in accordance with the order from the military’s commander in chief, the General Staff Department instructed military units to assign soldiers to the reforestation and agricultural campaigns starting in mid-March. The General Staff Department further said that performance reviews of the wintertime exercises should be pushed forward to early March and carried out over one week.
Translated by David Carruth. Edited by Robert Lauler.
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