A high-ranking official at the Sinuiju customs office recently arrested for using a river cruise ship for a family event may be punished harshly for violating important rules governing the country’s citizens, Daily NK has learned.
The incident comes as North Korea has attempted to prevent the spread of COVID-19 by restricting many ships from leaving the country’s ports.
“North Pyongan Province’s party committee labeled it [the man’s actions] a serious criminal act that violates national disease control guidelines and the party’s ideology and orders. The committee aims to hand down harsh punishment [against the official],” a source in North Pyongan Province told Daily NK by phone on July 24.
North Korea has implemented an “emergency disease control system” against COVID-19 since late January, closing national borders and banning ships from leaving port. Given this situation, using a river cruise ship for personal reasons could be viewed as a serious crime that breaches orders handed down by the country’s communist party.
“The North Pyongan Province Party Committee recently submitted a report to the Central Committee’s Organization and Guidance Department [OGD] about how well the province is implementing the party’s disease control orders, and this incident was included in the report,” the source noted, adding, “The OGD assigned the case to the Ministry of State Security [MSS] to conduct an impartial investigation and decide on the punishment.”
The MSS, commonly known as North Korea’s secret police agency, also oversees customs offices in the country. The OGD is part of the communist party’s Central Committee and is tasked with implementing the teaching and decisions of the leadership.
“A joint investigative team from the MSS and OGD stationed in the border region has begun looking into the incident,” the source said, noting, “The investigation team claims that cadres who are supposed to be serving the people have instead abused their positions and privileges granted to them by the party.”
VIOLATION OF THE “TEN PRINCIPLES”
According to the source, the investigation team is planning to hand down “severe punishment” to the official.
The investigators have reportedly deemed the man’s actions as an “incident of bureaucratism” that violated the communist party’s “Ten Principles for the Establishment of a Monolithic Ideological System.” The source noted that the incident is being viewed as an opportunity to “completely obliterate” the “seeds of factionalism.”
The “Ten Principles” are regulations that govern the everyday lives of the North Korean people toward the “Supreme Leader” and are considered more important than the country’s constitution or rules laid out by the communist party.
The joint investigative team has reportedly focused on the fact that the incident took place just five days after a politburo meeting where North Korean leader Kim Jong Un called for stronger disease control measures to be implemented.
On July 2, Kim pointed out during the meeting that the prolonged quarantine had led to chronic “complacence and inaction,” and emphasized that disease control measures must be tightened until the threat of the pandemic has completely disappeared.
North Korean authorities are viewing the incident involving the customs official as an impudent act that flies in the face of the Supreme Leader’s latest order, making it likely that the official will receive harsh punishment to make an example out of him.
“During his interrogation, the official stated that he wanted to rent out a restaurant [for the family event] but chose the boat instead,” the source said. The man apparently thought that holding a family event in a confined space would “be a problem” due to the pandemic.
Now, however, “everyone involved with the event on the boat has become a target of the investigation,” the source pointed out.
North Korean river cruise ships docked in Sinuiju Port have routinely been hired by high-ranking officials and the donjuLiterally "masters of money," donju refers to people who hav... More (North Korea’s wealthy entrepreneurial class) for expensive weddings or other family events.
A Daily NK source based in China witnessed the boat leaving Sinuiju Port on July 7. “The North Korean ship sailed near Sino-Korean Friendship Bridge for about an hour that afternoon,” he said. “There were dozens of people on the upper deck of the ship who appeared to be having some sort of party, and there were a lot of people on the lower deck, too.”
(Video filmed by a Daily NK source in China shows the river cruise boat in question)
The source also noted that North Korean cruise ships typically sail close to the banks of Dandong to get a closer look at the Chinese scenery on the opposite side of the river. On this occasion, however, the boat reportedly avoided crossing the middle of the river and tried to stay as close to the Sinuiju side of the river as possible.
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