Life Within the Hermit Kingdom

In Soon Ok Lee’s book, the author noted that the tiniest infractions will land a North Korean in one of the country’s much feared labor camps. (Eyes of the Tailless Animals, Prison Memoirs of a North Korean Woman , Living Sacrifice Book Company, 1999).

Such as the case of a high school principal who petitioned the authorities about excessive manual labor required of her students as she felt that the work was hindering their education. The government subsequently decided that she was rebelling against government policy, and she was convicted of abusing her position by giving her students “the impression that manual labor was worth less than studying.”

Or the case of a farmer in North Pyong’an province who was given a three-year prison sentence for selling seashells to the Chinese to pay for his son’s wedding. Selling of seashells was considered an “illegal export activity.”

Within prisons, punishments can be meted out for "misdemeanors" ranging from laughing and staring at one’s reflection in the mirror.

Then there were the self-criticisms that prisoners have to churn out, which invariably began with the words “with the care of Kim Il Sung, I had a life without worry. Instead of giving my utmost loyalty to his care, I ungratefully betrayed him by breaking prison policy.”

Other revelations included how products produced by prisoners were exported for foreign currency which was in turn used to import television sets and refrigerators for senior officials otherwise known as “presents from Kim Il Sung.”

And presumably in the 80s and 90s, many Central Party committee members withdrew foreign currency for exchange and pocketed the gain for their own use. As the practice became more widespread, many were inspected and arrested, including bank workers who were merely running errands requested by their bosses. They were charged for “collaborating” with their bosses, where they “suffered, were tortured, and died for no reason.”

And after Kim II Sung returned from a trip to Europe in 1984, he permitted his people to start small businesses with rice cakes, bean curds and motels. And within three years, these businesses reportedly became the livelihoods for many living in Gusung City.

But Kim’s son Kim Jong II subsequently thought that business owners were adopting capitalism and decided to clamp down on such businesses. Many housewives were arrested and thrown into labor camps for doing precisely what the elder Kim had allowed them to do in the first place.