As Daily NK has been reporting in detail of late, there’ve been wide-ranging
investigations in border areas since the beginning of the
year by a regime seeking to thwart smuggling and defection alike. Now, in the latest
phase of the battle between state security and ordinary citizens, an order has been
handed down calling for harsh punishments for border patrol guards and others who
smuggle illegal video recordings into the country.
A source from Yangkang Province told Daily
NK on the 28th, “There was this lecture about how ‘illegal
recordings trying to criticize and slander our society are entering the Republic’
and so ‘persons dealing in such illegal recordings should face severe
punishment.’ Recently there’ve been widespread investigations going on and now
there are these threats about illegal recordings. They’re making people who live off smuggling really worried.”
According to the source, the lecturer went
on to explain, “Those who want to see the undermining of socialism in our style
have been seduced by fancy things and black money (from South Korean intelligence).
They’re ideologically ruined, and so fall into intelligence traps all by
themselves. People who are not ideologically armed can be bought.’”
“In recent times there’ve been a string of orders from workplaces and people’s units not to get involved in illegal
recordings, and people who have experience of South Korean media are concerned
that if they are found out then they could be made an example of. That’s why they’re
laying very low.”
“Everyone else is suffering though,” the source went on, “because if border guards
approach when you’re fetching water from the river then you have to hide.”
“Some women go down to the Yalu
River to do their washing,” he went on, “but now they only have to see people moving on the Chinese
side to start wondering whether they will incur suspicion over smuggling. So
they just get up and leave. Rumor has it that the investigation will continue
until the General(Kim Jong Il)’s birthday, so people just want February 16th
to hurry up and pass by.”
“People who can’t even smuggle to
survive any more are pretty annoyed. They point out that if they actually
got rations or wages then they wouldn’t keep dealing with all the surveillance in
such cold weather just to smuggle stuff. They reckon that if the authorities dealt with
livelihood problems before they started telling people what they must not do then even if they
ordered people to smuggle they wouldn’t do it.”
In conclusion, the source stated, “The
authorities are trying to block off ideological changes by stopping information
coming in and emphasizing ideological conditioning for the system itself. But
in the end all that stepping up civilian controls like this will do is make people more
annoyed at the system.”
