The North Korean regime has taken a significant step in ensuring that power will be handed down to Kim Jong-il’s 28-year-old son, Kim Jong-sun.
This is no reason to rejoice. For 57 years the northern half of the Korean Peninsular has been under the grip of one of the worlds most terrifying and totalitarian dictatorships and shows no signs of letting up.
Life inside the DPRK (Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea) is truly horrific. Our only genuine understanding of the regimes nature is sourced from citizens that have defected by fleeing across the Yalu River into China, and then onto South Korea. Thousands have done so and the number is estimated to be growing year on year.
To gain a better understanding of the terror, fear and persecution that North Korean citizens are forced to live under, it is vital to point out just of few hellish aspects of life there. Food shortages are commonplace, electricity is so scarce that the capital city Pyongyang experiences blackouts dozens of times a day and transport is extremely limited. Public executions occur daily and citizens are forced to observe under armed guard. Nobody is allowed to leave his or her town without a permit. All media is state-run propaganda and all education is centred on the lies the regime spews about is leaderships heroism and false achievements. There is no freedom and no democracy.
To even mutter the slightest word of dissatisfaction towards the regime is considered a serious political crime. Those caught doing so, or suspected to have done so, are sentenced to a lengthy stretch in one of the country's many Gulags. For the majority of those sentenced, very few are released, or survive long enough to ever see the end of their sentence. They are routinely beaten and starved. They are often forced to toil the fields of the camp for 19 hours a day, given just 5 hours to rest, eat and sleep. Political ‘re-education’ is forced upon the inmates, should they fail to adhere to the standards of the prison guards, they are given extra years onto their sentence, with absolutely no remorse, nor sympathy.
We still know very little about the regime. We know that freedom of speech is non-existent, there is no democratic framework whatsoever, no space to criticise the regime and certainly no room for workers to organise and bargain collectively. Citizens are forced to worship the Kim dynasty in each and every aspect of their existence. Work, play, rest and school are all dedicated to the idealisation of the leadership. Should they fail to do so, they are sentenced to years of hard labour in the concentration camps. It is even illegal to sit on a magazine displaying the face of Kim Jong-Il or Kim Il-Sung, sometimes punishable by years of hard labour.
Since the collapse of the USSR, North Korea has suffered chronic economic problems. Famine struck in 1995 after severe flooding, peaking in late 1997, and killing up to 2 million people. Although famine on that scale has been narrowly avoided since, thousands of North Korea's citizens continue to live a life of severe malnutrition and deeply entrenched poverty. Due to the overtly secretive nature of the ‘hermit kingdom’, it is extremely difficult to know exactly how bad the food shortages are. Those who have defected claim widespread starvation to be normal in the northern most regions of the country and it could well be the case in other rural or semi-rural areas.
The desperate plight of North Korea's 24 million population is not about to end, despite a change in leadership. We don’t yet know exactly when the handing down of power will be, but we know Kim Jong-un is being groomed for leadership. Numerous reports of Kim Jong-il’s poor health have been circulating for years now. He suffered a stroke in 2008 and is believed to be suffering bowel cancer. Whenever the change of power may be, there is little reason to believe that the regime will loosen its grip on its severely oppressed and hungry population. It is very difficult to assess any changes that may occur, but the reign of terror looks almost certain to continue.
All this comes from a country that repeatedly describes itself as a ‘socialist paradise’. Let us be absolutely clear: North Korea is in no way, shape or form a socialist society. It is a dictatorship with an entrenched and deeply authoritarian bureaucracy, and only the upper circles of the military and selected party cadres enjoy relative freedom. North Korea is a country where as any as 1 in 4 of its citizens act as secret police. Their job is to route out ‘bad blood’ and report anyone acting ‘against the heroic leadership and benevolence of the dear leader’, as petty as those crimes may be.
People do not trust one another. Sometimes a husband and wife dare not speak a single bad word to each other about the regime. Most people are simply too frightened to do so, for they know the consequences. How can such an appalling and degrading way of living be classified as socialist?
Without democracy and participation, there is no socialism. Without democratic control, self-management and critical debate, there is no socialism. We must never retreat in speaking out against Stalinist regimes and must always defend the democratic principles that make up some of the very fundamentals of true socialism.