After a signalman with North Korea’s Ninth Corps in North Hamgyong Province died while riding on the back of a moving vehicle, the military is taking action to reinforce discipline and improve relations with the public, Daily NK has learned.
“A signalman in a brigade attached to the Ninth Corps in Rason was recently killed while transporting documents after being sucked under the tires of the vehicle he was riding. The documents being transported turned out to have problems of their own, leading to a campaign to improve discipline in the military,” a reporting partner in the province told Daily NK on Monday, speaking on condition of anonymity due to security concerns.
According to the reporting partner, the signalman who died in the accident was a man in his early twenties from Wonsan, Kangwon Province. He had joined the military three years but had struggled to adjust because of bullying. A year ago, his parents had helped him transfer to a unit stationed in North Hamgyong Province.
The signalman had hopped onto a vehicle to transport documents when he suffered the fatal accident.
News of the accident was urgently transmitted to the signalman’s unit, which collected the documents he had been transporting. But it turned out that the documents had not been filled out properly with name, date and duty officer signature, leading the incident to be treated more seriously because it involved not only loss of life but also mishandling of military documents.
As investigators sought to determine why the military documents had been mishandled, they began looking into the signalman’s conduct prior to the accident. They were soon shocked to learn that the signalman had left the base and slept at a private residence the night before the accident, promising to return with documents that were issued in the early morning hours.
The unit, after concluding that the incident was the result of freewheeling behavior by signalmen who paid frequent visits to private homes, suggested to the corps that the signalmen’s discipline needed to be reinforced. Given the connection to civilians, the unit also officially referred the matter to the party’s military committee in North Hamgyong Province.
“The Ninth Corps said the civilians who put soldiers up in their homes bear heavy responsibility for the incident and asked the province’s military committee to take steps to resolve the issue. In a hastily convened meeting, the military committee ordered that civilians be informed that they are not allowed to take in soldiers and be warned that any similar incidents will be handed over to the Ministry of State Security for prosecution on the charge of leaking secrets,” the reporting partner said.
“Subsequently, people’s committees in North Hamgyong Province held meetings at local government offices. During the meetings, civilians were told that while it’s laudable to care for and assist soldiers who are serving their country so diligently, they should never put soldiers up for the night since that could be a violation of military law.”
Translated by David Carruth. Edited by Robert Lauler.
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