News about the DPRK’s satellite crash is quickly spreading in the China-North Korea border region, multiple sources told Daily NK last Thursday.
Many people are reacting coldly to the news as it spreads in the border region, including Yanggang and North Hamgyong provinces, they said.
On May 31, a North Korean satellite launched in the early hours of the morning crashed in the Yellow Sea at around 6 AM. Through KCNA, the North Korean government admitted that the crash had occurred around two hours after the crash, citing the reason as instability in the engine and fuel system.
The government, however, has not yet announced news of the satellite crash to its people. Despite the information blackout, news of the failure is spreading quickly in the China-North Korean border region among Chinese mobile phone users.
According to Article 35 of the DPRK Law Rejecting Reactionary Thought and Culture, the full text of which was acquired by Daily NK earlier this year, obtaining outside information through Chinese phones is illegal and subject to severe punishment. However, “there are more people than you think that want to find out the truths that the government wants to hide,” a source in Yanggang Province told Daily NK, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons.
In one area of the country, “rumors of the satellite’s crash have spread so much that people are saying that if you don’t know about the crash you are considered a reactionary,” he added.
Upon hearing rumors of the crash, many people criticized the government in light of the country’s difficult economic situation. Some said they were “speechless from heartbreak” at the complete waste of money spent on a failed launch. Others said they wanted to ask the government why it thinks creating and launching ballistic missiles and satellites is more important than the lives of the people during these difficult times.
Many expressed the belief that funds earmarked for the development of missiles and satellites should be redirected towards the civilian economy. Some said that if the government “shifted even 0.01% of the money and efforts currently being spent on making missiles and reconnaissance satellites to improving the livelihoods of the people, our situation would not be this desperate.”
Some people even directly criticized North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for not notifying the people about the satellite crash.
One source told Daily NK that some people were wondering why the government is so intent on hiding the news of the satellite crash, along with speculation that the authorities decided that the news would damage the image of Kim Jong Un.
Translated by Annie Eun Jung Kim. Edited by Robert Lauler.
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