North Hamgyong province has started inspecting how well local propaganda monuments are being maintained. This happened after someone complained that animal droppings and garbage around a mosaic mural in a Sinhung county village had been left there for a long time.
According to a Daily NK source in South Hamgyong province recently, a university student doing farm volunteer work in Sinhung county complained to a Tanchon party official that the area around the mural was filthy.
Since North Korean authorities consider poor maintenance of propaganda monuments a serious political problem, the complaint was immediately reported up the chain to the provincial party committee through Tanchon’s committee. The secretary of the village party committee where the mural was located ended up getting an official warning.
“The ground near the mural with the ‘Great Fatherland’ slogan wasn’t cleaned properly—there were animal droppings and trash piled up everywhere, which should never happen,” the source said.
The provincial party committee warned the village party secretary and ordered village authorities to clean up the monument, saying that “sloppy work maintaining propaganda monuments could be seen as ideological weakness.” In response, the village party committee has organized local residents to take turns cleaning the mural site.
“People were originally supposed to rotate cleaning the statues, but that system eventually fell apart,” the source said. “Since this latest problem came up, farm work teams have been scrambling to avoid getting blamed.”
With the provincial party committee using this incident to inspect propaganda monument maintenance across the area, other villages in Sinhung county have gone into emergency mode.
Farmers who had been lazy about maintaining propaganda monuments like statues and memorial towers can now be seen gathering by the dozens in local squares every morning, carrying buckets to wash the monuments.
Many people don’t really care about the party’s order to “put their heart and soul” into maintaining monuments. But they have plenty to say about the university student who complained about the mural’s condition.
“Many people blame the student for bringing this up and causing unnecessary trouble,” the source said.
The provincial party committee’s propaganda department warned all local city and county party committees on June 18 that it would inspect and review how well revolutionary and historical sites were being maintained during the first half of the year. The inspections will happen without warning throughout the province until the end of this month.
