North Korean state media published this photo of young people enthusiastically signing up for a petition to enlist in the military. (Rodong Sinmun-News1)

Discontent among young North Koreans is growing in response to recent government efforts to coerce them to petition to enlist or re-enlist in the military, Daily NK has learned.

“Recently, Hyesan authorities have been pressuring young people and recent high school graduates to petition for enlistment or re-enlistment in the military. Young people are growing increasingly upset about the coercion,” a reporting partner in Yanggang Province told Daily NK yesterday, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Recently, North Korean state-run media has claimed that “the United States and the puppet state of South Korea are staging unprecedented military provocations to threaten our country through their joint military exercises” and emphasized that young people should take the lead in efforts to defend the motherland. In other words, the North Korean authorities are using the pretext of the large-scale US-ROK joint military exercises (“Freedom Shield”) to raise tensions and encourage young people to petition to enlist. 

On Mar. 20, Rodong Sinmun reported that “the ranks of young people boldly stepping forward and bracing themselves for battle are growing day by day in response to [the people’s] soaring anger and hostility towards the rampaging American imperialists and South Korean puppet traitors and their schemes to provoke nuclear war.” The newspaper also claimed that “as of Mar. 19, 1.4 million young people from across the country have ardently petitioned to enlist or re-enlist in the People’s Army.”

The day before, the paper also reported that “the entire nation has been galvanized by soaring hostility towards our sworn enemies, with whom we can’t even stand to share the same sky.” It went on to report that “on Mar. 17th alone, as many as 800,000 students and young party workers of the Socialist Patriotic Youth League have ardently petitioned to enlist or re-enlist.”

While North Korea may be reporting that young people are volunteering to enlist out of their own sense of animosity towards the US and South Korea, the reality is that these petitions are being coerced and domestic discontent is growing as a result. Daily NK’s reporting partner said that young people who have been coerced into re-enlisting are particularly outraged.  

“It’s already unfair to graduate from high school and then have to spend the best years of your life in the military, but then to be forced to petition to re-enlist? That would make anyone furious,” the reporting partner said. “Yet, they have no choice but to petition, because if they refuse they will be branded as reactionaries.”

The reporting partner spoke with a young man in Hyesan whose name had been put on the list of petitioners to re-enlist. “I don’t even want to think about the time I spent in the military, it was so awful,” the petitioner said. “I couldn’t get enough to eat so my face became swollen and flabby, making me look strange. Yet, I endured it and returned to society, only to get put on the list to re-enlist soon after I had gotten out.

“I begged the party secretary and manager at my workplace to take me off the list since my health is poor, but they criticized me instead, saying things like ‘You’ve served in the military, and if a war began you’d be one of the first to go out and fight – how could you ask something like that?’ and ‘I bet you have other reactionary tendencies too. It’s people like you who are reactionaries.’”

“If it really seems like North Korea will be going to war, make discharged officers come back and put on the uniform. Why only pick on young people?” Daily NK’s reporting partner pointed out. “Young people are dragged into the military or labor brigades and have their youth stolen away from them by the state, but instead of taking responsibility for the rest of their lives, the state doesn’t care at all. There won’t be a single person who is happy to do their military service.” 

Translated by Rose Adams. Edited by Robert Lauler. 

Daily NK works with a network of reporting partners who live inside North Korea. Their identities remain anonymous due to security concerns. More information about Daily NK’s reporting partner network and information gathering activities can be found on our FAQ page here.  

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