A group of approximately one thousand discharged soldiers dispatched under state policy to \u201c10.18 Cooperative Farm\u201d in Baekam County, Yangkang Province are causing considerable problems locally, Daily NK has learned. Notably, the soldiers are proving to be persistent stealers of the assets and possessions of residents.<\/p>\n
The group was sent to rural Yangkang Province in April this year to fulfill Kim Jong Eun\u2019s order that potato production be increased. This is not an unusual event: teams of hundreds or a few thousands of discharged soldiers are often injected into state projects at specific times of year, nominally to improve efficiency or drive the related project to completion. Since the late 1990s, this has included potato farming in Yangkang Province.<\/p>\n
According to the source from the province, \u201cSince April this year when the discharged soldiers were dispatched to the farm, they have been going into people\u2019s homes in secret and stealing food and kimchi. Worse still, they are even taking soybean paste. The spring hardship period makes life exceedingly difficult as it is, but with discharged soldiers going around like insurgents stealing stuff, it feels like we\u2019re fighting a war every single day.\u201d<\/p>\n
The response of local people to these ongoing acts of criminality is, in essence, \u201cAll they learned in the military is how to take our stuff, so they just do the same thing when they get out,\u201d the source said. However, while people are angry about the situation, the Ministry of People\u2019s Security, the North Korean police, is reportedly doing little to stop the soldiers because they were initially dispatched on the orders of the leader, Kim Jong Eun.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople reckon that what they can get from farming their private vegetable gardens is less than the amounts being stolen by discharged soldiers,\u201d the source went on. \u201cSome households are guarding their homes to try and stop the thievery.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen the soldiers were first dispatched, the Party secretary from the military came out and there was this celebratory event to welcome them, but now people think that we were welcoming thieves,\u201d the source said. \u201cThey are wondering whether the soldiers actually received orders from the Marshal to go and steal people\u2019s belongings!\u201d<\/p>\n
Soldiers discharged from the Chosun People\u2019s Army having done more than ten years of military service are systematically dispatched to take part in state projects. They do not officially have a say in where they are sent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A group of approximately one thousand discharged soldiers dispatched under state policy to \u201c10.18 Cooperative Farm\u201d in Baekam County, Yangkang Province are causing considerable problems locally, Daily NK has learned. Notably, the soldiers are proving to be persistent stealers of the assets and possessions of residents. The group was sent to rural Yangkang Province in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":145,"featured_media":23685,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[645],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy"],"yoast_head":"\n