According to a source in South Korea who spoke with The Daily NK today, the authorities have dispatched people to places where people tend to gather, around markets or on busy city streets, to give public lectures and extract contributions on the premise that ‘We must advance preparations for the strong and prosperous state for ourselves.’
The source explained, “The North Korean authorities have always compelled contributions from people when they are in financial difficulties; for the construction of Heechon Power Station and 100,000 homes in Pyongyang, for example. Most recently, after holding lectures targeting groups in cities and counties, they have been exploiting people by pushing for contributions.”
Previous examples include this January’s ‘Supporting the Military with Rice’ campaign, whereby those provincial Party secretaries with responsibility for provisions extracted fixed quantities of rice from traders and enterprise cadres and workers within their remit.
In the lectures which are accompanying the campaign, cases from other cities and areas are apparently being compared in an attempt to incite competitive contributing.
The Seoul-based source explained, “In the lecture, they are encouraging people by pointing out that ‘our military struck a blow to the enemy’s island with shells in North Hwanghae Province, so the touched people made strong and prosperous state construction donations.’ In Chongjin, they did not ask how people earned the money, just instructed people to volunteer donations saying 10,000 won is good, 1 million won is also good.”
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