Recently in some regions of North Korea, the Party, along with the retraction of the market regulation, executed the decree of punishing related organizational parties, to which the hunger victims belong.
An inside North Korean source said in a phone conversation with the “Daily NK” on the 28th, “Due to the suicide of a family in South Pyongan Province on the 22nd, the decree was conveyed to discontinue regulating the market. In the case of hunger victims, the order from the Party has come down that the neighborhood officers, the persons in charge of organization (workplace) having jurisdiction and the People’s Safety Agency (of the People’s Party Unit) will be punished.”
The whole family suicide incident in South Pyongan occurred in Shinyang County on the 16th when a husband fighting against his wife over the critical food situation killed her and their two children and took his own life.
Due to the fact that the husband did not have business skills, the deceased wife had sustained the livelihood of the couple’s two-year old daughter and three-year old son by selling noodles and watching over the children, according to the source.
However, when the authorities prohibited noodle sales in the jangmadang (markets) under the pretext of food regulations, the wife had apparently remarked, “Other husbands are good at business,” which angered the husband. He hit his wife on the head with a laundry bat, which resulted in her death. After his wife fell down and the children began to cry, the shocked husband strangled the children to death one after the other.
After killing his entire family, the husband had bought two bottles of liquor on credit and drank them. He then hung a rope on the crossbeam connecting the kitchen and the bedroom and hung himself. The next-door neighbors apparently heard the couple fighting, but since it was a frequent occurrence, they had not paid much attention.
The origin of the incident was the critical food situation. Due to the fact that it was a family suicide, the news spread rapidly and was reported to the “Anti-Socialist Inspection Unit,” which had been dispatched to Shinyang at the time. The incident was also reported to the Party in Pyongyang.
Subsequently, the primary party secretary, the manager in charge of the organizational enterprise and the persons-in-charge of the workplace have strengthened their monitoring of families lacking food provisions.
In particular, in cooperative farms, the farm managing chair, the primary party secretary, the cell secretaries, the chairpersons of the people’s units, the commanders of the Worker and Peasant Red Guard Worker’s and Peasant’s Red Guard, including the provincial officers of the Safety Agancy in order to assist households in dire food shortage situations, were mobilized and began a food-raising propaganda in order to prevent starvation.
In cities, starving households in each People’s Unit were chosen and have been receiving preserved grains supplied.
Further, related to the food crisis, propagandistic materials calling for displaying kindred-mindedness based on the socialist principle and the revolutionary mind of the military have been issued on a daily basis. Those who are well-off, including Chinese emigrants, have actively been involved in nationalistic grain aid projects.
