Category: East Asia

Military officials in North Korea are taking bribes from the parents of new recruits, promising to assign their children to units in Pyongyang, where they can spend their service in relative comfort, sources in the country told RFA. Still technically at war with wealthier South Korea, North Korea makes every male serve about seven years in the armed forces, according to South Korean intelligence. The life of a soldier in the North Korean military is typically one of toil and sweat. The government routinely mobilizes soldiers to exploit their free labor, requiring them to work on farms, factories and construction sites, all while maintaining a modicum of battle readiness. But certain military assignments can park a soldier behind a desk in Pyongyang, the country’s capital and home of the privileged and elite. Parents are eager to ensure their sons can spend seven years living in what they would consider luxury, rather than doing hard labor in the rural areas. “Parents who receive bribe requests give money to the officials to ensure the safety of their children, but the amount they are asking is too large for most to afford,” a resident of the northeastern province of North Hamgyong told RFA’s Korean Service on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “A resident in the Sunam district of Chongjin city asked an official of the military mobilization office, a longtime acquaintance, to send his son, to a comfortable and safe unit, but the official requested at least U.S. $300,” he said. The average monthly salary for North Koreans working in government-assigned jobs is around $4, the Seoul-based Korea Joongang Daily reported in 2018. Paying the exorbitant bribe can even be a point of pride. “A resident of Chongam district paid a bribe of $500 … to send his son to a military police unit in Pyongyang. The resident proudly boasts that the son has completed his training as a new recruit at the unit in Pyongyang, which is off limits to ordinary folks, and he started his military life in Pyongyang,” the source said. “North Korea has a declining birth rate, so most families these days have only one child, two at most. So people try to protect their kids from danger by any means necessary. The officials in the military mobilization office can use the psychology of these parents to their advantage,” he said. But some residents complain that officials are using the new recruits as bait to get bribes, the source said. The sons of parents who cannot pay the bribe are sent off to more difficult military postings, as happened to one family in the northwestern province of North Pyongan. “A resident of Tongrim town asked the military mobilization office to have his son sent to a safe and comfortable unit, but the family was unable to pay the $300 bribe, so the son was shipped off to the front line area unit of the 1st Corps,” a resident of the province’s Tongrim county told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “Our neighborhood is a village with cooperative farms, so most of the new recruits are the children of poor farmers. This is why most of the new recruits have no power or money, and they get sent to the front line units in the rugged mountains of Kangwon province, so there is great concern for parents sending their children to the military,” he said. The parents who cannot afford the bribe can do nothing but watch as their sons are sent to do hard labor in Kangwon, in the east, along the border with South Korea, the second source said. “The authorities are aware that bribery is going on, but I don’t know whether there is a way to stop it, or whether they are condoning it. I have never seen any official from the military mobilization office get punished for accepting bribes,” he said. “In this country, children of powerful and wealthy families can serve in comfortable assignments in the military, but it gets taken for granted that everyone with no money or power will have a difficult military life.” Translated by Leejin Jun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.    

UPDATED at 12:15 A.M. ET on 2022-04-15 A Tibetan activist traveling to promote language rights in Tibetan areas of western China has been denied shelter, RFA has learned, after authorities ordered hotel operators in the region to turn him away. Tashi Wangchuk, a former political prisoner aged around 35, had been traveling in China’s Qinghai province since April 6, a Tibetan living in the area told RFA’s Tibetan Service in an exclusive interview. “On his way from Yulshul to Siling, he had stopped by various Tibetan schools in Golog, Rebgong and Malho to advocate for the use of Tibetan language in Tibetan schools,” RFA’s source said, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “But he was denied accommodation and dismissed from hotels in Rebgong [In Chinese, Tongren] and Malho [Huangnan]. We don’t have any information about his present whereabouts, and it’s dangerous to talk about this,” he added. A resident of Qinghai’s Yulshul (Yushu) municipality, Wangchuk was released on Jan. 28, 2021, after completing a prison term for “inciting separatism” and is now subject to near-constant monitoring by authorities. While traveling, Wangchuk had posted photos and videos of his visits to Tibetan schools in Darlag (Dali) county in the Golog (Guoluo) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture and in Rebgong, where Chinese authorities have clamped down on the use of the Tibetan language in teaching, RFA’s source said. “However, only 30 minutes after checking into a hotel in Rebgong on April 7, the hotel told him to leave after they were instructed by county police not to let him stay, and his attempts to find a hotel on April 8 and 9 also failed after police told the hotels not to give him accommodation.” When Wangchuk went to a police station in the Malho prefecture to complain, he was denied entry to the station and told no one there could talk to him, the source said. “And later he even went to Rebgong county’s Commission for Discipline Inspection to file an appeal, but it was closed.” “After April 10, all the details that he posted on his Weibo social media account were deleted by the Chinese authorities, so it’s difficult to learn anything now about his well-being,” he added. Also speaking to RFA, Pema Gyal — a researcher at London-based Tibet Watch — said that former political prisoners in Tibet are kept on Chinese government black lists and often have trouble finding jobs or accommodation in hotels. “We are, of course, very concerned about Tashi Wangchuk at the moment,” Gyal said. While China claims to uphold the rights of all minorities to access a bilingual education, Tibetan-language schools have been forced to shut down, and school-age children in Tibet regularly receive instruction only in Mandarin Chinese. Similar policies have been deployed against ethnic Mongolians in China’s Inner Mongolia and Muslim Uyghurs in northwestern China’s region of Xinjiang. Formerly an independent nation, Tibet was invaded and incorporated into China by force more than 70 years ago. Language rights have become a particular focus for Tibetan efforts to assert national identity in recent years, with informally organized language courses in the monasteries and towns deemed “illegal associations” and teachers subject to detention and arrest, sources say. Correction: An earlier version of this story said that Tashi Wangchuk is missing, but RFA was only able to confirm that his whereabouts were not immediately known and that there is concern about his personal security. Translated by Tenzin Dickyi for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Written in English by Richard Finney.

North Korea has declared a five-day military-wide special security period as the people prepare to celebrate the life of the country’s late founder, sources in the country told RFA. Kim Il Sung (1912-1994), the grandfather of current leader Kim Jong Un, was born on April 15, a major holiday now known as the “Day of the Sun.” His son and successor, Kim Jong Il (1942-2011), was born on Feb. 16, the “Day of the Shining Star.” The two holidays solidify the cult of personality surrounding the Kim family, which has now ruled North Korea for three generations. Friday marks what would have been Kim Il Sung’s 110th birthday, and authorities have commanded the military to be on high alert. “The special security period starts at 17:00 on April 14 and ends at 17:00 on the 19th. Units were ordered to create a special security plan for approval by their commanders by 17:00 on April 13,” a military source from the northwestern province of North Pyongan told RFA’s Korean Service Wednesday on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “The General Staff Department has instructed that emergency mobilization units be in a full-combat readiness posture and on standby,” he said. Additionally, the department told soldiers stationed at the country’s borders, the coast guard, and the air force to be ready at a moment’s notice. “They need to be able to respond immediately without missing even minor threats that could occur during the special security period,” the source said. Soldiers in the northeastern province of North Hamgyong, meanwhile, also must guard against even the slightest problem during the five-day period, a military source there told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “They must also strengthen security in areas that glorify Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, like their statues, public portraits, public displays of their artwork, propaganda boards and related historic sites,” said the source. Officials and soldiers are resentful at having to do extra work on a holiday, when they are used to getting time off. “They are saying they wish there were no holidays at all, because they have been mobilized for difficult guard duty and will not be able to properly rest,” he said. Forced loyalty Retired and disabled soldiers, meanwhile, were upset about having to take an oath of allegiance to Kim Jong Un ahead of the holiday as a requirement to receive their annual special holiday food allotment celebration of the day, a resident of the Sino-Korean border city of Sinuiju told RFA Tuesday. “Yesterday in Sinuiju, because of the Day of the Sun, 15 days’ worth of grain and basic foodstuffs, such as 500 grams [1.1lbs] of sugar and a bottle of soybean oil, were provided to war veterans and honorable soldiers,” she said, on condition of anonymity for safety reasons. Honorable soldiers are soldiers disabled from injuries they sustained while on duty. RFA reported last week that the state was unable to properly care for honorable soldiers as promised due to worsening economic conditions. The Sinuiju resident estimated that the city is home to between 100 and 300 disabled and able-bodied vets. She explained that the gift of 15-days’ food assistance was not provided by the state, but by local authorities. Since central government did not provide funding to the local government for this event, so the veterans realize the “gift from Kim Jong Un” was nothing of the sort, she said. “Even though they said it has been supplied as a special consideration from Kim Jong Un, it is actually a part of the emergency goods imported by the provincial trade bureau, using local funds” she said. “They had to attend a special hour-long event at the cultural center, where authorities would present them with their ‘gift from Kim Jong Un’ on the condition that they pledged their allegiance to him. The disabled veterans complained,” she said. About 200 veterans, including some who had seen action during the 1950-1953 Korean War, attended a similar ceremony in South Pyongan province, north of Pyongyang, a resident there who declined to be named told RFA. “The special holiday supplies … included rice, 500 grams [1.1 lbs] of sugar, and a bottle of soybean oil imported from China via freight train,” she said. “The county party official emphasized that the food was provided on the occasion of the Day of the Sun as ‘the noble will of the Highest Dignity to cherish and love the veterans and honorary soldiers who were loyal to the party and the leader,’ and forced them to repay them with loyalty,” the South Pyongan resident said, using an honorific term for Kim Jong Un. The veterans were angry at being made to swear an oath to Kim Jong Un when his so-called gift was imported from China and was not actually from himself or the central government which he leads, she said. Translated by Leejin Jun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.