[Cankor] Report #213

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Dear subscriber,

Welcome to issue #213 of the CanKor Report.

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The CanKor team

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CANADA-KOREA ELECTRONIC INFORMATION SERVICE

CanKor # 213

Thursday, 21 July 2005
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Beijing and Seoul confirm July 26 as the starting date for a new round of 
six-party talks. No limit has apparently been set for the duration of the 
talks, underscoring a strong desire by the nations involved to reach a 
breakthrough, even if it means extending the talks beyond the 4-day limit 
that has been adhered to during the three previous unsuccessful rounds.

Explaining the DPRK's decision to rejoin the talks, a DPRK Foreign Ministry 
spokesperson emphasizes that during contacts made in New York, US Government 
representatives "clarified that [the US Administration] would recognize the 
DPRK as a sovereign state, not to invade it and hold bilateral talks within 
the framework of the six-party talks, and the DPRK side interpreted it as a 
retraction of its remark designating the former as an 'outpost of tyranny' 
and decided to return to the six-party talks".

Amid questions about his connection to a suspect in the UN oil-for-food 
scandal, the contract of Canadian businessman Maurice Strong as top UN envoy 
to the DPRK fails to be renewed.

North and South Korean military authorities at their first face-to-face 
meeting in a year agree to set up hotlines to prevent naval clashes in 
bordering regions.

Activists at a conference organized by the US government-funded Freedom 
House reject suggestions by critics that pressure on the issue of human 
rights would upset delicate diplomacy at the six-party talks.

Famine, foreign aid, economic hardship, increased cross-border exchanges 
with a more open PR China, a growing black market -- these elements are 
leading to a shift in consciousness and perception of "ordinary" DPR Koreans 
about their place in the world and the state of their nation. In this week's 
"Inside DPRK" FOCUS section presents two companion articles by Barbara 
Demick, Seoul bureau chief of the Los Angeles Times, who gathered personal 
stories from residents of Chongjin, the DPRK's third-largest city on the 
northeast coast.
*************************************************

Contents:
1.   SIX-NATION NUCLEAR TALKS WILL BEGIN JULY 26 IN BEIJING
     http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/19/AR2005071900535.html
2.   DPRK ON DPRK AND US CONTACT IN NEW YORK
     http://www.kcna.co.jp/item/2005/200507/news07/11.htm#1
3.   TOP UN ENVOY TO DPRK LOSES POST
     http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5150292,00.html
4.   TOP MILITARY FROM KOREAS AGREE TO INCREASE CONTACTS
     http://www.voanews.com/english/2005-07-20-voa14.cfm
5.   US ACTIVISTS IN BIG PUSH ON DPRK HUMAN RIGHTS
     http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=2005-07-18T225143Z_01_N18291327_RTRIDST_0_USREPORT-RIGHTS-KOREA-USA-DC.XML

FOCUS: Inside DPRK
6.   POVERTY BEGETS BLACK MARKET
     http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/news/12166016.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp
7.   QUEST FOR SURVIVAL IN DPRK
     http://www.kentucky.com/mld/heraldleader/news/world/12158609.htm
*************************************************

1.   SIX-NATION NUCLEAR TALKS WILL BEGIN JULY 26 IN BEIJING
     by Anthony Faiola, Washington Post, 19 July 2005

A new round of six-nation talks aimed at North Korea's nuclear disarmament 
will begin on July 26 in Beijing, the Chinese and South Korean foreign 
ministries announced Tuesday. US officials have already said that North 
Korean diplomats, at a meeting in Beijing earlier this month, agreed to 
rejoin the talks during the week of July 25. The word Tuesday from Beijing 
and Seoul confirmed the starting date.

Notably, no limit was apparently set for the length of talks, underscoring a 
strong push by the United States and the other nations involved in the 
negotiations -- China, Russia, Japan and South Korea in addition to North 
Korea -- to reach a breakthrough even if it means extending the talks beyond 
the 4-day limit generally adhered to during the three previous unsuccessful 
rounds.

Diplomats and analysts have said a recent South Korean proposal offering 
massive energy assistance to the North in the event of an agreement helped 
woo the North Koreans back to the table after a 13-month boycott. The 
diplomatic breakthrough came five months after North Korea declared it had 
nuclear weapons and would never return to the talks because of what it 
called the Bush administration's "hostile policy."

Officials remain cautiously optimistic about a possible breakthrough in 
Beijing later this month, but have noted that a great divide remains between 
the North Korean and US positions. A North Korean newspaper, quoted by the 
country's official KCNA news agency on Monday, said that to make progress at 
these talks Washington and Pyongyang must "build the relationship of trust 
and [have] a will for mutual respect and co-existence."
*************************************************

2.   DPRK ON CONTACT BETWEEN DPRK AND US
     Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), 10 July 2005

A spokesman for the DPRK Foreign Ministry gave the following answer to a 
question put by KCNA Sunday as regards the contact made between the heads of 
the DPRK and the US delegations to the six-party talks. As already reported, 
the contact between the heads of the DPRK and the US delegations to the 
six-party talks was made in Beijing and an agreement on the resumption of 
the talks was reached there on July 9.

The resumption of the six-party talks that have remained deadlocked for over 
one year is entirely thanks to the sincere efforts made by the DPRK for the 
denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. As the DPRK repeatedly clarified, 
it is the ultimate goal of the DPRK to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula and 
it is its consistent stand to attain the goal through dialogue and 
negotiations.

Proceeding from this stand, the DPRK actively initiated the six-party talks 
and set forth realistic and constructive proposals at the last three rounds 
of talks. It has neither opposed nor given up the six-party talks. The talks 
have been deadlocked till now because the US refused to recognize its 
dialogue partner and destroyed their groundwork.

In the meantime, the DPRK has clarified more than once through a series of 
contacts made between the DPRK and the U.S in New York that the talks can be 
resumed if the US rebuilds their groundwork by recognizing the sovereignty 
of the DPRK and making clear its will for non-aggression.

A special mention should be made of the fact that delegates of the DPRK 
Foreign Ministry and the US Department of State met in New York from June 30 
to July 1 and exhaustively negotiated the issue of providing the DPRK with a 
justification for returning to the six-party talks and reached a consensus 
of views on the matter in the main.

Accordingly, the US side at the contact made between the heads of both 
delegations in Beijing Saturday clarified that it would recognize the DPRK 
as a sovereign state, not to invade it and hold bilateral talks within the 
framework of the six-party talks and the DPRK side interpreted it as a 
retraction of its remark designating the former as an "outpost of tyranny" 
and decided to return to the six-party talks. As seen above, the resumption 
of the talks has been possible only thanks to the principled and independent 
stand and tireless and sincere efforts of the DPRK side for the 
denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

The outcome of the DPRK-US contact clearly proves that it is possible to 
settle any problem when the parties concerned directly come out to solve it. 
The neighbouring countries supporting the denuclearization of the Korean 
Peninsula and those related to it have also made efforts for the resumption 
of the talks. But Japan has done nothing for it.

The resumption of the talks itself is important but the most essential thing 
is for the talks to have an in-depth discussion on ways of denuclearizing 
the Korean Peninsula to make substantial progress in the talks. The DPRK 
will do its utmost for it.
*************************************************

3.   TOP UN ENVOY TO DPRK LOSES POST
     by Edith M. Lederer, Associated Press (AP), 19 July 2005

A Canadian businessman lost his job as the top UN envoy to North Korea amid 
questions about his connection to a suspect in the UN oil-for-food scandal, 
the world body said Monday. The decision not to renew Maurice Strong's 
contract follows criticism that he gave his stepdaughter a job at the United 
Nations and concerns over his ties to a South Korean businessman accused of 
accepting kickbacks from Saddam Hussein's government.

Deputy UN spokeswoman Marie Okabe said in response to a question that 
Strong's contract expired last week "and it has not been renewed." She said 
later "if he is cleared of any involvement in the oil-for-food program, the 
secretary-general will consider availing himself of Mr. Strong's expertise 
on an informal basis." Strong, 76, denied that he had been terminated, 
saying he told Secretary-General Kofi Annan when his contract was renewed 
for six months in January that he did not want another extension because 
"I'm at an age and stage where I can't go on forever. As arranged long 
before any of these other questions had arisen, my understanding was that I 
would complete my assignment and would continue to be available to provide 
any further advice, but could not continue in the more operational role that 
I had had," he said in a telephone interview from his base in Canada.

Strong, who had been the UN point man on six-nation talks aimed at 
persuading North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons programs, took 
temporary leave from his part-time post on April 20 during a probe of his 
ties to businessman Tongsun Park. The next day his stepdaughter, Christina 
Mayo, resigned after a UN review discovered that she had worked at the 
United Nations for her stepfather for two years. UN staff regulations in 
most cases prohibit the hiring of immediate family members.
Park, a native of North Korea and citizen of South Korea, was charged by the 
US Attorney's Office in April with allegedly accepting millions of dollars 
from Saddam's government to lobby illegally for Iraq in the United States on 
behalf of the oil-for-food program.

Strong said Park had advised him on Korean issues, but he again denied any 
involvement with the $64 billion humanitarian program in Iraq. He has 
pledged to cooperate with an oil-for-food probe led by former US Federal 
Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker who is expected to issue three more reports by 
the end of September.

Prosecutors say Park met with an unidentified UN official in an apparent 
effort to influence the design of the oil-for-food program and invested $1 
million in a company run by the official's son. Strong acknowledged that 
Park invested money in an oil company, Cordex Petroleum, in which he and his 
family had a significant interest.

Strong had been involved in UN environment and development issues since 1970 
and in January 1997 was appointed a senior adviser to Annan on reforming the 
United Nations. He said he started monitoring North Korea in 1998 and about 
2 1/2 years ago Annan asked him to become more active because of the nuclear 
weapons issue and "the very acute humanitarian problems" caused by food 
shortages.

"So I took that on, and it's gone on a good deal longer than expected," 
Strong said. "What's been done, not necessarily by me, helped provide the 
foundations for the economic and energy components that will be essential to 
a peaceful settlement. That work will continue through UN normal channels," 
he said.

"I'm going to be continuing to work on Korea and make my advice available as 
it may be useful to the UN," Strong said.
North Korea said last week it would end its 13-month boycott of disarmament 
negotiations after being assured by a US envoy that Washington respects 
Pyongyang's sovereignty. The six-nation nuclear talks, set to reconvene next 
week in Beijing, also include China, Japan, Russia and South Korea.

"That's good news," Strong said of the upcoming talks. "It'll be better news 
when the talks become real negotiations ... It still has a long way to go, 
but it looks like the process is moving again."
*************************************************

4.   TOP MILITARY FROM KOREAS AGREE TO INCREASE CONTACTS
     by Kurt Achin, Voice of America, 20 July 2005

North and South Korean military authorities have agreed at their first 
face-to-face meeting in a year to set up hotlines to prevent naval clashes. 
The agreement was reached just days before the two Koreas are scheduled to 
take part in multinational talks aimed at ending the North's nuclear weapons 
programs.

Senior military leaders from North and South Korea met for the first time in 
13 months at the border truce area of Panmunjeom. Military dialogue between 
the two countries was suspended last June after South Korea accused northern 
naval vessels of violating the Northern Limit Line - the maritime border 
between the two countries.

The navies of North and South Korea have exchanged fire at least twice since 
1999, killing dozens of sailors. To prevent future clashes, military leaders 
from the two countries say they will set up liaison offices equipped with 
hotlines, to keep the two navies in constant contact.

Kim Dae-woo, of the Korea Institute for Defense Analysis, says the meeting 
is a good first step. But he says the two Koreas lack clarity over their sea 
border - raising the risk that stray fishing boats could provoke more 
military conflict.

"Northern Limit Line problems are still there," he said. "We simply defend, 
and North Korea simply tries to violate. So that situation has not changed."

Mr. Kim says in upcoming meetings, the North and South delegations should 
aim to spell out a more precise agreement on their naval boundary. The two 
countries are expected to hold more military talks at the North's Mount 
Baekdu next month. North and South Korea also committed to implement an 
earlier agreement to reduce propaganda along the demilitarized zone 
separating the two countries.

North and South Korea remain technically at war, as fighting between the two 
countries was stopped by a 1953 armistice, not a formal peace treaty. They 
are scheduled to join China, Russia, the United States, and Japan next week 
in negotiations aimed at ending the North's nuclear weapons programs.
*************************************************

5.   US ACTIVISTS IN BIG PUSH ON DPRK HUMAN RIGHTS
     by Paul Eckert, Reuters, 18 July 2005

The movement to press North Korea on human rights can support -- not 
hinder -- negotiations to convince the communist state to give up nuclear 
arms, activists said on Monday. On Tuesday, about a thousand people 
including US and South Korean lawmakers, Jewish holocaust experts and North 
Korean refugees will hold a conference focusing on the human rights record 
of the government of leader Kim Jong-il.

Negotiators from the United States, China, Japan, Russia and South Korea are 
slated to sit down around July 25 with North Korea for six-party nuclear 
talks in Beijing. Conference organizer Jae Ku, head of the North Korea 
Project at the US government-funded Freedom House, said the timing was 
perfect to focus on the "nature of the Kim Jong-il regime and the egregious 
abuse of human rights."

He rejected suggestions by some critics of the human rights activists that 
pressure on the issue would upset delicate diplomacy to convince Kim to 
abandon his nuclear ambitions in exchange for economic and energy aid.

"We certainly hope that we serve as moral pressure on the Kim Jong-il regime 
to not only come to the talks but to really come with a view toward seeking 
meaningful change," Ku said.

Other activists said it was important that people inside North Korea got 
word that human rights was on the international agenda alongside the nuclear 
issue.

"We know there are people in the regime, including elites, who are 
disillusioned as well as the general population, so this is a time when 
human rights ought to be the main focus," said Suzanne Scholte, head of the 
Defence Forum Foundation, a conservative think tank.

Scholte is also a leading figure in the bipartisan North Korea Freedom 
Coalition, which lobbies to help refuges from North Korea and keep human 
rights high on the policy agendas of governments around the world.

"As was demonstrated by the unanimous passage of the North Korea Human 
Rights Act, the atrocities that are going on is something that touches 
everyone and it's certainly not an issue that has any political stripe at 
all," she said.

The 2004 US law provides for US support to help North Korean exiles hiding 
in China move to third countries as well for funding for broadcasts and 
publications aimed people inside North Korea, who have access only to 
government media.
*************************************************

FOCUS: Inside DPRK

*************************************************

6.   POVERTY BEGETS BLACK MARKET
     by Barbara Demick, Los Angeles Times, 19 July 2005

For most of her life, Kim Hui Suk had spouted the sayings of North Korea's 
founder Kim Il Sung and never for a moment harboured a doubt: Capitalists 
were the enemy. Individualism was evil. But then disaster rained down on her 
hometown, Chongjin, on North Korea's remote east coast. Factories ran out of 
fuel. Food rations stopped. Watching her family slowly succumb to the famine 
(her mother-in-law, husband and son eventually would die of starvation) Kim 
realized she had to change.
Once a stickler for following the rules, she bribed a bureaucrat so she 
could sell her apartment. Then, with no business skills other than the 
ability to calculate on an abacus, she used the proceeds of the sale to set 
herself up in a black-market business, hawking biscuits and moonshine she 
brewed from corn. Kim could have been sent away for life for such crimes. 
But obeying the rules would have meant a death sentence.

"The simple and kind-hearted people who did what they were told, they were 
the first to die of starvation," said Kim, a soft-spoken grandmother who now 
lives in South Korea and has adopted a new name to protect family members 
still in the North.

The famine that killed 2 million North Koreans in the mid-1990s and the 
death of the nation's founder, Kim Il Sung, in 1994 sparked vast changes 
across the secretive communist country. Corruption is rampant Markets are 
springing up in the shadows of abandoned factories, foreign influences are 
breaching the borders, inflation is soaring and corruption is rampant. A 
small nouveau riche class has emerged, even as a far larger group has been 
forced to trade away everything for food.

This is the picture of life in North Korea as painted by more than 30 people 
from Chongjin, the nation's third-largest city. Some are defectors living in 
South Korea. Others were interviewed in China, which they had entered 
illegally to work or to beg. Accounts of aid workers and videos taken 
illegally in Chongjin by disgruntled residents also were used to prepare 
this report.

Although the North Korean regime has a reputation as the ultimate Big 
Brother, people from Chongjin say the public pays less and less heed to what 
the government says. There is little that might be called political dissent, 
but residents describe a pervasive sense of disillusionment that remains 
largely unspoken.

"People are not stupid. Everybody thinks our own government is to blame for 
our terrible situation," said a 39-year-old coal miner from Chongjin who was 
interviewed late last year during a visit to China. "We all know we think 
that, and we all know everybody else thinks that. We don't need to talk 
about it."

Just a decade ago, when people in Chongjin needed new trousers, they had to 
go to government-owned stores that sold items mostly in drab browns or a 
dull shade of indigo. Food and other necessities were rationed. Sometimes 
the government permitted the sale of homegrown vegetables, but even a 
hairbrush was supposed to be purchased from a state-run shop.

Today, people can shop at markets all over Chongjin, the result of a burst 
of entrepreneurship grudgingly allowed by the authorities. Almost anything 
can be bought, ice cream bars from China, pirated DVDs, cars, Bibles, 
computers, real estate and sex, for those who can afford the high prices. 
The retail mecca is Sunam market, a wood-frame structure with a corrugated 
tin roof that is squeezed between two derelict factories.

The aisles brim with fresh cucumbers, tomatoes, peaches, scallions, 
watermelons and cabbage, as shown by rare video footage taken last year by 
the Osaka, Japan-based human-rights group Rescue the North Korean People. 
Everything else comes from China: belts, shoes, umbrellas, notebooks, 
plates, aluminum pots, knives, shovels, toy cars, detergents, shampoos, 
lotions, hand creams and makeup.

Although markets have been expanding for more than a decade, it was in 2002 
and '03 that the government enacted economic reforms that lifted some of the 
prohibitions against them. Many vendors wear their licenses pinned to the 
right side of their chests while the obligatory Kim Il Sung buttons remain 
over the hearts.

Much of Chongjin's commerce is still not officially sanctioned, so it has an 
impromptu quality. Money changes hands over wooden carts that can be rolled 
away in a hurry. Those who can't afford carts sell on tarpaulins laid out in 
the dirt. Some people cut hair or repair bicycles, although furtively 
because these jobs are supposed to be controlled by the government's 
Convenience Bureau.

"They will bring a chair and mirror to the market to cut hair," Kim said. 
"The police can come at any moment, arrest them and confiscate their 
scissors."

World Food Program officials in North Korea say the vast majority of the 
population is less well off since the economic changes, especially factory 
workers, civil servants, retirees and anybody on a fixed income. The price 
of rice has increased nearly eightfold since 2002 to 525 won per pound; an 
average worker earns 2,500 won a month, about $1 in US currency at the 
unofficial exchange rate. But there are those who have gotten rich. Poor 
Chongjin residents disparage them as donbulrae, or money insects.

"There are people who started trading early and figured out the ropes," said 
a 64-year-old retired math teacher who sells rabbits at the market. "But 
those of us who were loyal and believed in the state, we are the ones who 
are suffering."

About 100,000 North Koreans have escaped to China in the last 10 years. Many 
have ended up returning to North Korea, either because they were deported or 
because they missed their families. They often back bring money, goods to 
trade and strange new ideas. Socialist paradise North Korea instructs its 
citizens that the country is a socialist paradise, but the government knows 
outside influences can puncture its carefully crafted illusions.

"Bourgeois anti-communist ideology is paralyzing the people's sound 
mind-set," said a Workers' Party document dated April 2005. "If we allow 
ourselves to be affected by these novel ideas, our absolute idolization for 
the marshal (Kim Il Sung) will disappear."

Among those who make it to China, many describe a moment of epiphany when 
they find out just how bad off North Koreans are. Kim Ji Eun, a doctor from 
Chongjin, remembers wading across the partially frozen Tumen River in March 
1999, staggering to a Chinese farmhouse and seeing a dish of white rice and 
meat set out in a courtyard.

"I couldn't figure it out at first. I thought maybe it was for 
refrigeration," recalled Kim, who now lives in South Korea. "Then I realized 
that dogs in China live better than even party members in North Korea."
*************************************************

7.   QUEST FOR SURVIVAL IN DPRK
     by Barbara Demick, Los Angeles Times, 19 July 2005

His day begins at 4:30 a.m. The 64-year-old retired math teacher doesn't own 
a clock or even a watch, but the internal alarm that has kept him alive 
while so many of his fellow North Koreans have starved to death tells him he 
had better get out to pick grass if his family is to survive. Soon the 
streets of his city, Chongjin, will be swarming with others doing the same. 
Some cook the grass to eat. The retired teacher feeds it to the rabbits his 
family sells at the market.

At 10 a.m., he eats a modest meal of corn porridge. A late breakfast is best 
as it allows him and his wife to skip lunch. Then he goes with a handcart to 
collect firewood. He has to walk two hours from Chongjin, mostly uphill, to 
find a patch that has not been stripped bare of vegetation.

"There is no time for rest. If you stand still, you will not survive," he 
said.

Later, if it is one of the rare evenings when there is electricity, he might 
indulge in reading Tolstoy. Such is the quest for survival in North Korea, 
an impoverished country that is the most closed in the world.

Although North Korea's pursuit of nuclear weapons has captured the world's 
attention, outsiders know relatively little about its people or the miseries 
they have endured since a famine in the mid-1990s wiped out an estimated 2 
million people. In the rare instances in which foreigners are admitted to 
the totalitarian country, it is on strictly escorted tours of the capital, 
Pyongyang, and a few other carefully selected sites.

To penetrate the secrecy, the Los Angeles Times spoke in China and South 
Korea with more than 30 people from Chongjin, North Korea's third-largest 
city. Their stories present a portrait of the city and of daily life in a 
nation struggling with deprivation and change. Most of the factories in 
Chongjin, a former industrial port, are rusting into ruin. Those still 
operating can barely pay salaries; the average worker's wage amounts to $1 
per month at current exchange rates.

Even with international aid, many people go to bed wondering whether they 
will eat the next day. Residents, along with officials of the UN World Food 
Program, say food shortages have grown worse again in the last year.

"Maybe people are not dying today out in the streets like they were before," 
said a coal miner who lives in Chongjin, "but they are still dying, just 
quietly in their homes."

The prolonged hardship has left North Koreans increasingly disillusioned 
with leader Kim Jong Il and the ideology of national self-reliance that once 
held the nation together. Like the retired math teacher, many of the people 
interviewed are Chongjin residents who have slipped into China temporarily 
to work or beg.

They might have prejudices. Current residents might minimize their 
difficulties out of lingering loyalty to their country. Some refuse to be 
quoted by name, fearing that they or their family members in North Korea 
might be punished. Defectors are often bitter, sometimes recalling only the 
darkest aspects of their lives in North Korea, and might exaggerate 
hardships to win sympathy.

The retired math teacher, a well-spoken man who seems like he should be on a 
college campus, receives a monthly pension of 700 won, about 30 cents at the 
unofficial exchange rate. It is not even enough to buy 2 pounds of rice. 
Although his wife, son and daughter-in-law work as hard as he does, the 
teacher's family survives on various "substitute" foods, mainly ground 
corn -- not corn meal, but a powder made from the entire plant, including 
husks, cobs, stems and leaves.
"We fry it like pancakes, we make it into cakes. We drop it in water like 
noodles," said the teacher. "We try to cook it this way or that, but it 
still gives you indigestion."

At first glance, visitors say, Chongjin almost looks like a pleasant place 
to live. The coastline in this remote north-eastern stretch of the country 
is as rugged as Maine's, the ocean waters a vivid aquamarine. But newcomers 
soon sense something strange: In a city nearly as populous as Boston, there 
are almost no personal cars, only military and government vehicles.

Nowadays, Chongjin is not the worst-off place in North Korea. Its proximity 
to the Chinese border, 50 miles away, offers access to consumer products. 
Its markets are thought to be the largest in the country outside of 
Pyongyang. But as an industrial city in an area with little arable land, it 
was particularly vulnerable to famine.

Disaster struck in the early 1990s. Chongjin's outmoded and inefficient 
factories had limped along on spare parts and cheap oil from the Soviet 
Union. When the communist bloc collapsed, suddenly there was no fuel for the 
power plants. Factories stopped. Farms couldn't produce, because they 
depended on chemical fertilizers and electric irrigation systems. Heavy 
rains and floods in the summer of 1995 worsened a famine already under way.

Chongjin used to be a busy port, with Japanese and Soviet ships loading 
products from the factories. Now it is filled with flimsy squid-fishing 
boats; most of the larger vessels in port are bringing in humanitarian aid. 
The foreign sailors are not permitted to disembark.

"Chongjin was like a forest of scrap metal, with huge plants that seem to go 
on for miles and miles that have been turned into rust buckets," said Tun 
Myat, who in 1997 became one of the first senior UN officials permitted to 
visit the city. "I've been all over the world, and I've never seen anything 
quite like this."

In a working-class neighbourhood in southern Chongjin, a 39-year-old coal 
miner lives in a squat, drab house. The homes in Ranam are organized in 
blocks, usually with five units on either side of an alley and an outhouse 
at one end shared by the 10 families. His only piece of furniture is a 
wooden table with folding legs. He has one cooking pot. One knife. A couple 
of bowls. A cutting board that he made himself. A large urn to store water 
he brings from the well. He has four pairs of chopsticks and four spoons, 
exactly enough for himself, his wife, 12-year-old daughter and 3-year-old 
son. When there is electricity, he screws a bare light bulb into a wall 
socket. His children have no toys or books.

On the opposite wall hang the obligatory framed portraits of Kim Jong Il and 
his late father, Kim Il Sung, who seized power in the northern half of the 
Korean peninsula after World War II. The government forbids people to put 
family photos or other decorations on the same wall. Party enforcers used to 
drop by almost daily to make sure residents kept portraits free of dust, but 
that stopped two years ago.

"They don't worry so much about ideology now," he said. "All anybody cares 
about is finding enough food to get through the day."
*************************************************

End CanKor # 213

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