A soldier working at an underground military rocket storage facility near Nammun District in Kanggye, Changgang Province, complained openly about the state of military affairs and WKP policies while drunk and may be expelled from the facility, North Korean sources have reported.
A high-level North Korean source in Pyongyang told Daily NK on November 13 that the solider, a Private Ri, got drunk and made unfavorable comments about the current state of affairs and that his comments were reported to an agent of the Ministry of State Security (MSS) and he was immediately arrested and detained by the MSS.
“Private Ri received a one year sentence in a disciplinary labor center for the crimes of drinking while on duty and criticizing the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK),” the source said. “He will be dishonorably discharged from the military after serving his sentence and will be sent to a mine as a day laborer.”
In South Korea, negligence of duty (Section 35 of the Military Code) can lead to a sentence of one or more years in jail, and in extreme cases can warrant a life sentence. However, North Korea’s military code has not been made public, making it difficult to determine whether the sentence fits the crime.
Article 74 of North Korea’s Criminal Code states that the “crime of neglecting to execute commands, decisions and orders” entails a sentence of at least one year in a labor correctional facility if the person in question has “failed to accurately execute in proper due course the commands of the DPRK President, director of the National Defense Committee, or the First Director of the National Defense Committee; the commands, decisions or orders of the Central Party’s Military Committee; or the decisions and commands of the National Defense Committee.”
Private Ri may also be punished for complaining about working in the military during a period in which the two Koreas have entered peaceful relations, said a source in Chaggang Province.
“Private Ri complained that ‘South Korea and the US have said they won’t start a war if we [North Korea] refrain from making rockets and nuclear weapons,” the source continued.
He added that the private made other comments, including, “The US and South Korea all want peace right now, so it’s ridiculous that we have to serve in the military for 10 to 13 years to protect these underground facilities […] It’s sad that hundreds and thousands of young people have to spend their best years in these underground storage facilities […] We [the DPRK] need to revise our strategy to fit the new peaceful state of affairs.”
The North Korean authorities regularly conduct surveillance over ordinary residents, but soldiers and Party officials are monitored at a much higher level because they constitute the state’s power apparatus.
The soldier’s comments were reported to the MSS by another person.
There is now an atmosphere of fear toward unseemly comments made amongst North Korean soldiers due to the incident.
“The soldiers are saying to each other that if they are caught by MSS spies saying something wrong, their lives are over,” said a separate source in Changgang Province. “They are saying they can’t trust anyone and are being careful to distance themselves from the incident.”
He explained that the North Korean military authorities are using the incident as a way to strengthen discipline within the military.
“After the incident occurred, the military authorities held lectures to emphasize the need to thoroughly eradicate any instances of listening to the words of the enemy,” he continued. “Lectures are being aimed at strengthening revolutionary and military ideology among soldiers.”
