A North Korean farmer was recently sentenced to unpaid labor for using recycled plastic film without permission to protect his rain-damaged home, Daily NK has learned.
Speaking anonymously, a Daily NK source in the province said recently that the clay-walled home of the 50-something farmer — identified by his family name of Kim — collapsed in the wake of five days of torrential rains in the border area of Hoeryong in late July.
To prevent rainwater from entering through the fallen wall, he rushed to the propaganda room of his farm work team and took some plastic film that was kept there. However, the farm authorities made an issue of this because he did so without permission.
Kim took no more than three 1.5-meter-by-5-meter sheets of plastic film. The film was not new; it was a recycled product that had been used for two months earlier this year to cover the corn seedbeds.
However, the farm’s managers said the farmer had “made the mistake of taking farm property without any procedures” and reported him to the local police.
At the police station, Kim explained that, with his home about to collapse, he had no time to find somebody to give permission to use the material. However, he was sentenced to 10 days of unpaid labor.
Farmers angered by unfair punishment
The incident aroused the anger of other farmers, who criticized the farm for reporting the worker to the police without considering the emergency he faced when he committed his supposed crime.
Farm workers vented their rage, asking if he would have taken such tatty plastic film unless the situation was so bad that the inside of his home would have been obliterated after the wall had fallen. They also criticized the farm for not only refusing to help the farmer repair his home but also reporting him to the police over some old plastic film.
The farm’s management responded to the anger by arguing that “procedures must be followed regardless of how hurried you are, and that the farmer must take responsibility for taking farm property.” The farm also said that it could provide new homes to people who lost their old homes in the rain but that the farmer in question should repair his home on his own because “the damage didn’t even warrant a major repair.”
The farm workers were greatly perturbed by this, calling what their comrade did “a drop in the ocean compared to the corruption of farm officials.”
“Regarding the attitude of farm officials who simply stand on principle without considering the circumstances of farm workers hit by the rains, the farm workers complained that taking some plastic film is nothing compared to farm officials who pilfer everything from fertilizer in the springtime to produce such as potatoes, soybeans and corn,” the source said.
The farm workers also had unkind words for the police officers who sentenced their coworker to unpaid labor.
“The farm workers complained about how life grows harder for the powerless,” the source said. “They said, ‘People in important positions uniformly throw the book at people with nothing to eat. If Kim had given the cops at least a packet of smokes, they clearly would have dropped the matter after he’d made a single appearance.'”
Daily NK works with a network of sources in North Korea, China, and elsewhere. For security reasons, their identities remain anonymous.
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