Kyo-hwa-so No. 2 - Tongrim Reeducation Camp

North Korea operates hundreds of prisons and detention centers of various types, but only a couple dozen current and former sites have been properly identified through the use of satellite imagery and witness testimony. 

Map of known kwan-li-so (yellow text) and kyo-hwa-so (white text) prisons that remain open, with Tongrim marked out.

In this article, I want to review the Tongrim reeducation camp (properly known as Kyo-hwa-so No. 2, Tongrim). Although there is little public information available (as with the Sunchon kyo-hwa-so), I want to provide a baseline of information about its history and development (as observed by satellite imagery) to help facilitate future research.

The reeducation camp (which are known as a kyo-hwa-so) at Tongrim is one such facility that has been mentioned by defectors - although not in detail - and listed in human rights reports going back to at least 2011 (by the Database Center for North Korean Human Rights). While its exact location has not been verified by prison survivors, former guards or former local residents, through the use of commercial satellite imagery a clear candidate stands out.

Located at (39.877265° 124.727696°) 2.6 km northeast of the Tongrim train station is this complex of buildings and walled compounds. 

Tongrim and Kyo-hwa-so No. 2 locations.

North Korean authorities began arresting political opponents as early as 1947 (before the actual founding of the North Korean state), and the number of prisons proliferated through the 1950s and 1960s.

When Kyo-hwa-so No. 2 was established isn't known, but declassified low-resolution (2-4 ft) imagery from the KH-9 satellite shows the site going back to at least 1973, meaning the prison was established some time before then. Earlier images from the USGA's EarthExplorer program exist but their resolutions are too low to make any clear determination.

Kyo-hwa-so reeducation camps are typically used to house "redeemable" prisoners. Following a period of hard labor and ideological “training”, prisoners may be released. The larger kwan-li-so political prison camps house more serious offenders and prisoners are held for a longer period of time or even for the rest of their lives.

All known kyo-hwa-so and kwan-li-so prison camps use forced labor. From mining coal to making uniforms and even fake eyelashes, proceeds from prison labor provides millions of dollars in revenue to the state each year. 

Having said that, the exact forms of forced labor used at Tongrim aren't known. However, the prison sits at the base of a stone quarry, so it's logical to assume that the prisoners are used to extract stone (among other activities). 

The earliest high-resolution commercial imagery of Tongrim comes from 2005. 

Kyo-who-so No. 2, Tongrim. Image of prison and quarry from May 2005.

The prison complex can be separated into three main sections: administrative, prisoner barracks, and the quarry.

Unlike the larger kwan-li-so political prison camps, the area around Kyo-hwa-so No. 2 isn't surrounded by a perimeter fence. The prison and quarry extend about 1 km along a small mountain valley, with three sides flanked by rocky terrain. But only the prisoner barracks have any sort of fence or wall around them.

Detailed view of the main prison area from 2005.

The main administrative and support area has a number of different buildings. What the purpose of each building is can't currently be known with certainty, but it will likely have a main administrative building, a dining hall, a building for ideological and political training, as well as a guard barracks and a vehicle storage and repair facility. 

The administrative area also has a ~270 sq. m. building that is surrounded by a wall. This building is similar to one described at the former Kwan-li-so No. 22 in Hoeryong as being an interrogation center. I will discuss this in more detail near the end of the article.

The prisoner section consists of a walled compound that occupies 1.56 hectares and has nine buildings inside it. The main gate is protected by a guard building and a security tower. There are also prisoner barracks and workshops within the walled perimeter.

The guard building is approximately 180 square meters in size. The prisoner barracks is a large, single-story L-shaped building with approximately 950 sq. m. of floor space.

Based on witness testimony from other prisons, the prisoner barracks will have a number of rooms that hold prisoners and other rooms such as a latrine and guard room. It may also have a dining room, interrogation room, a medical room, and other offices or closets; although, those could also be housed in other buildings within the compound.

In terms of the prisoner population, in 2005 it is unlikely that Tongrim held more than 2,500 individuals.

Tongrim quarry, 2005.

Attached to the prison complex is a rock quarry. The primary quarry is roughly 400 meters long. A rail spur coming from the main Pyongui Line (2.7 km south of the quarry) enables loading and transport of the quarried materials. 

In 2005, the rail line, an explosives storage area with two storage buildings, and a cluster of six nearby support buildings and two greenhouses existed. 

Additional support structures and material transport infrastructure existed within the quarry site itself.

Tongrim prison in 2010.

By 2010, the workshop area by the prison's administration, noted in the 2005 image, had conclusively been converted into a barracks, and a perimeter wall was erected around the site. The new building within the perimeter wall has approximately 600 sq. m. of floor space and the wall enclosed an area of nearly 3,800 sq. m. This addition may have provided space for up to 500 new prisoners or to create an area to segregate a new class of prisoners among the existing population (segregated by sex, severity of the crimes, or perhaps by songbun class).

An entrance gate and guard tower were added, as well as a smaller tower in the northernmost corner of the new compound.

At the main prisoner compound, a new 26-meter-long building was constructed.

Between 2005 and 2010, little changed at the quarry.

Tongrim prison in 2012.

The main change at the prison between 2010 and 2012 is that the perimeter wall of the newer compound was extended northward to enclose two 30-meter-long greenhouses and a connected support building which the prisoners operate. Whether the food is grown for the prisoners, for the guards, or to sell can't be determined.

Based on the imagery available, the foundations for the greenhouses were laid in April 2010 and so they were likely completed in that year.

Tongrim prison in 2014.

By 2014, a new ~120 sq. m. building had been constructed within the main prison compound. 

In the administrative area, an unidentified building had its roof replaced (now covered in blue tiles). The removal of the old roof is actually visible in the 2012 image, but it's not annotated.

Tongrim quarry, 2014.

At the quarry, by May 2014 the number of support buildings fell from six in 2005 to just three. An area of active quarrying is also clearly visible at the southern end of the quarry. This location has been the main site of activity since 2005.

Tongrim prison in 2019.

In the main prison compound, between 2014 and 2017, the 26-meter-long building that was constructed ca. 2010 had been razed. And between 2017 and 2019, the ~120 sq. m. building that was built ca. 2014 was also razed.

Additionally, the greenhouses in the small walled compound were also removed between 2018 and 2019.

The 2014 to 2019 timeframe represents the first period of major demolition at Tongrim. 

Tongrim prison in 2021.

By 2021, the extended perimeter wall at the smaller compound had been removed, reducing the walled area back to its original size.

In the main prisoner compound, the grounds have become overgrown with vegetation, possibly a crop.

This would not be unusual as North Korea attempts to cultivate every potential area it can from prisons to military bases. And, yet another building has been razed (occurring between Nov. 2019 and February 2020).

The workshop buildings, however, have started to show signs of disrepair, with fairly extensive roof damage visible in 2021. (More limited roof damage can be seen as far back as 2019.) Buildings at other prisons and industrial areas routinely show damaged roofs, but it can often serve as an indicator of the level of activity at and importance of a particular structure or facility. 

Regardless of the damage at the workshops, the rest of the prison complex appears to be well maintained. 

Tongrim quarry in 2021.

At the quarry, activity levels have declined, and more buildings have been demolished since 2014.

The storage buildings that held the explosives used at the quarry have been removed. And a total of three support structures within the quarry were also razed. 

The area of active quarrying also appears to have moved to a small area near the loading facility, with no new changes since ca. 2019 to the southern site mentioned previously.

Tongrim prison in 2024.

The biggest change in 2023-24 was the total demolition of the workshop buildings within the main prison compound. Whether this is a permanent situation or if they will rebuild a new one, only time will tell. But it follows a multi-year trend of demolitions.

Tongrim quarry in 2024.

The demolition trend extends to the quarry site as well, with the railway building being razed in 2023-24. At this part of the quarry, only two of the eleven or so nearby support buildings that existed in 2005 still stand today, and the explosives storage site also remains closed.

Importantly, the prison's rail connection to the main Pyongui Line (2.7 km south of the quarry) was removed ca. 2020-21, and the last section of rails were removed from the quarry in either 2023 or early 2024.

A comparison of images from 2010 and 2024 (below) paints a fairly clear picture that quarry operations are being wound down if they haven't yet been stopped entirely.

A wide view of the quarry area in 2010.

In 2010, operations at the quarry were ongoing and numerous support buildings existed. The brightness of the quarry and rock faces is indicative of activity levels; the brighter the more recent.

A wide view of the quarry area in 2024.

As mentioned, by March 2024 most of the buildings have been removed, the rail line is gone, and much of the quarry itself has become covered in dirt and vegetation, indicating little to no recent activity.

I want to take the opportunity to also talk about some other features and changes to the prison that deal more directly with people's lives.

As mentioned near the beginning, Kyo-hwa-so No. 2 has a separate walled building in the administrative area. The building is ~26 meters long and is surrounded by a wall that is positioned quite close to the building itself. It has its own entry gate to the south and there is a guard tower on the northeast corner of the wall.

Walled building in 2024.

The building is similar in its size and location within the prison complex as another building that was located in Kwan-li-so No. 22 in Hoeryong. Before the prison was closed in 2012, a former guard attested that the building was used to interrogate prisoners and even torture them.

Based on the available visual and contextual evidence, I believe that this building may be where prisoners are interrogated at Tongrim. 

According to the UN's Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in North Korea, "torture is an established feature of the interrogation process", with many prisoners dying during the process or suffering from permanent injury. 

Also of note, despite the demolition of other buildings around the prison, security has been tightened around the main prisoner barracks.

In December 2022, the barracks was surrounded by a tall wall as the primary physical barrier.

Main prison compound in 2022.

But between 2023 and 2024, a fence was erected around the barracks, making freedom of movement even more limited, and effectively reducing the overall size of the compound in which prisoners could walk around in by more than half (to 0.6 ha, down from 1.56 ha).

Main prison compound in 2024 with new fence outlined.

The last activity at Tongrim I want to discuss is the visibility of a large number of prisoners on the March 8, 2024 image. Catching individuals on satellite is uncommon and one of the most cited examples, at Chongjin in 2018, showed but a handful of individuals. 

But in the below image, over 100 individuals are visible and more can be seen walking along the main road nearer the quarry. And this is just the most recent example, as prisoners can be seen in several previous images on Google Earth.

It can perhaps be easy when viewing sites through satellite to forget that the places we look at are connected to human beings living real lives. Whether it's a school, factory, prison, or any other place, the pixels we're seeing are comprised of the lives, struggles, work, and happiness of other people.

Unfortunately, the one's we're seeing below are made up from a regime that commits among the worst human rights abuses in history and does so through the torment of countless individuals, many of whom committed no crime that would be recognized anywhere else in the world.

Prisoners can be seen on satellite in multiple locations, 2024.

North Korea has hundreds of penal facilities of numerous types and sizes with Kyo-hwa-so No. 2 making up one small part of a system that imprisons over 150,000 at any given moment. And through this review, we can see that North Korea's detention system continues to be dynamic, with new buildings constructed, old buildings removed, and people marched from place to place engaged in forced labor throughout all seasons.

Kyo-hwa-so No. 2 also provides some insight into changes within the overall system.

Although none of the prisoner barracks or security installations of Kyo-hwa-so No. 2 have been removed, the removal of multiple workshops and other support buildings throughout the complex suggests that the prison is undergoing a reorganization and may be preparing to be downsized, as occurred at Kyo-hwa-so No. 88 in Wonsan, and its human "resources" reengaged in other types of labor. 

Indeed, DailyNK reported in 2017 that Tongrim was actually converted into an orphanage. However, that use is hard to reconcile with the visible security features at the site such as the new fence erected around the barracks, and the fact that dedicated orphanages already exist. If there was such a change at Tongrim, then it is an orphanage in name only. In practice, it would serve more as a juvenile detention facility where the children are treated little better than adult prisoners (and also used for forced labor).

These changes highlight the need for continued observation of Tongrim but in the end, witness testimony will be required to answer some of these questions. Ultimately, it is up to the North Korean government to begin to uphold its obligations under domestic and international law, to cease the operation of its vast constellation of prisons, to allow independent international observers to visit all prisons to document any human rights abuses, and to place those responsible for crimes against humanity at the hands of justice.

Other prison reviews by AccessDPRK:

1. Review of the Sunchon Kyo-hwa-so (2024)

2. Is Wonsan Prison No. 88 Closing? (2021)

3. Chongjin Prison Camp Update (2019)

4. Prison Camp No. 22 Today (2018)

I would like to thank my current Patreon supporters who help make all of this possible: Donald Pearce, David M., Dylan D, Joe Bishop-Henchman, Joel Parish, John Pike, Jonathan J., Kbechs87, Raymond Ha, Russ Johnson, Squadfan, and Yong H. 

--Jacob Bogle, Aug. 21, 2024 (edited Aug. 22)

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Prison Camp 22 Today

Camp 22 (Kwanliso 22) was a major prison camp within North Korea's extensive prison system. Located in the far north of the country in North Hamgyong Province, it covered some 87 square miles and had the capacity to hold over 20,000 prisoners. In 2012, reporting from the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea and others suggested that the camp had been closed down and its thousands of prisoners either murdered (including by starvation) or transferred to other prison camps.

While the outline of the security fence system remains, the fences and guard towers have all been demolished. As well, during the 2012-2013 time frame, regular domestic buildings were constructed including town administrative buildings, Juche study halls, and monuments. These are items that are largely missing from prison camps but exist in practically every town and village in the country. This strongly suggests that the site has been turned over to civilian use, possibly as a non-penal exile site (as the main roads in and out of the former camp still retain access control points).


The largest changes to the former camp facilities, besides the removal of fencing and guard posts, seems to be the demolition of two buildings within the camp's administrative center, which includes the torture facility.

Camp administrative center in 2010 with buildings of interest.

Camp administrative center with unidentified building and the torture center demolished as of 2018.

Changes to the villages within the camp attest to its current non-penal nature and shows that something did in fact change in the area's administration after 2012 when all of these changes began to appear.

Raksaeng-ri, a village within the camp as seen in 2011.

Raksaeng-ri after camp closure. Common civilian buildings have been constructed.

The village of Kulsan-ri in 2011.

Kulsan with a new school and other buildings as of 2018.

Agricultural and mining activities appear to have continued with little interruption since the closure as crops can be seen in various stages of growth and harvest over the years, and trains still visit the mining depot. However, the entrance points to the area are still controlled by check points. All of this leads me to believe that the camp is now being used for either one of two things.

The first is that is could now be a regular agricultural and mining area, however, the government still hasn't fully sanitized the former camp of bodies and other evidence that this was a terrible place and so needs greater control over who gets in and out.
The second is that this is a non-penal location used to send exiles and other non-criminal undesirables. The nearby county of Onsong (which also used to have a prison camp) and the northern reaches of the country in general have long been regions to which the government sent exiles. Pyongyang is regularly purged of "lesser" citizens and there are reports of "abnormal" people (like dwarfs) being rounded up and sent to places out of sight of the capital and visitors. 

There is a third option but it is unlikely, and that is that the camp is still a prison but is being administered in a radically new way.

The main entrance check point as seen in 2016.

It is an unequivocal positive that there is one less prison in North Korea, however the regime seems to show no real interest in doing away with political prison camps or mass internment in general. Prisons like Chongjin, Kaechon, and Chongori have all been expanded in the last decade and repression continues unabated.


--Jacob Bogle 11/1/18
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NoKo's Underground Nuclear Nightmare

UPDATE: On October 31, 2017, Japanese media are reporting that a large tunnel collapse occurred at the site, killing around 200 people. This has yet to be confirmed.


On September 3, 2017, North Korea conducted its sixth and largest (by far) nuclear test. North Korea's only nuclear test site is Punggye-ri in North Hamgyong Province. At this point I want to say that this post is speculative in nature and that there is little concrete evidence to support what I am suggesting. However, there is anecdotal evidence and a logic to it. Enough so that I feel this is worth discussing.

The main tunnel at Punggyi-ri also happens to be less than 2 miles away from the boundaries of the Hwasong concentration camp (Kwan-li-so 16).

The apparent location (based on USGS information) of this most recent nuclear test lies a mere 0.3 miles (0.5 km) away from the camp fence, and North Korea's first test in 2006 appeared to have taken place inside the camp itself (underground, of course).

I believe the proximity of Punggye-ri and Camp 16 (with its 20,000 prisoners)  may be important.

There are multiple reports by defectors (including testimony by Ahn Myong-chol, a former guard at Camp 22), that North Korea has a history of using prisoners in medical experiments, including testing chemical weapons, as well as prison labor for the construction of sensitive military facilities, including underground sites.

Based on the relative locations[n1] of each of the nuclear tests, the underground tunnel system is massive, with the majority of test sites more than 3 miles away from the main tunnel entrance. The Sept. 3, 2017 test is almost 5 miles away! This means lots and lots of tunneling work.

A few small mounds of debris can be seen at the entrances of the various tunnel entrances; however, the amount of debris is nowhere near enough as would be required for excavating a tunnel a mile long, let alone multiple tunnels. A very basic tunnel 1 mile long, six feet tall, and six feet wide would create 190,080 cubic feet of material. However, an image released by North Korean TV suggests their tunnels aren't simply a straight line (which could easily become disastrous during testing).

English notation provided by F. Pabian and S. Hecker/Bulletin of Atomic Scientists

This suggests that the North Koreans are using material from new tunnels to back fill the old tunnels after each nuclear test, as the growth of the outside debris mounds do not entirely reflect the growth that would be needed if they were dumping all of the excavated materials outside. The fact radioisotopes can be detected outside of the country after some tests, shows that their testing site is far from sealed, thus it would be necessary to mitigate the slow continual release of radiation by filling up used tunnels with the material taken to construct new ones. Unfortunately, the discovery of visible changes to the surface of the mountain raises the likelihood that further releases of radiation will happen.


Back to Hwasong, it's not beyond the realm of possibility that the regime is taking advantage of this nearby and captive workforce to do the difficult and dangerous task of constructing these testing tunnels. There is a fair amount of evidence that prisoners are used to construct the thousands of tunnels and underground facilities that have turned much of North Korea's ground into Swiss cheese. And, there are even occasional but brief comments that can be found in media sources that touch on the idea of these prisoners being used to do the hard work at Punggye-ri.

Average citizens are subjected to terrible conditions in the country's coal mines, and even in uranium mines and enrichment facilities safety is practically nonexistent, with workers developing multiple radiation-related illnesses. Political prisoners on the other hand aren't even considered citizens. Their very title of "human" appears to vanish along with every right and privilege that otherwise exists in North Korea.

Using these men to dig, repair, and fill the tunnels has several benefits to the regime. Here are four benefits that immediately come to mind:

1) The government doesn't have to worry about paying wages or properly feeding them, saving large sums of money.
2) There are no families to deal with whenever a loved one comes home with a shattered leg or dying from radiation exposure (or coming home in a body bag).
3) Due to the way such prisoners are managed, using them provides a large level of greater secrecy and security. Even loyal soldiers may inadvertently spill sensitive information to friends or family. Who are slave laborers living behind electrified fences going to tell?
4) Using expendable lives saves the lives of more valuable people.

We do know that the tunneling process itself is fairly basic. North Korea doesn't have the ability to employ the large modern mining or tunneling equipment other industrial countries have. Using dynamite, hand tools, brute force, and small carts to carry away rocks is about all they have. Satellite imagery confirms this is true at Punggye-ri, too, as the simple equipment can clearly be identified.

Beyond the horrors associated with working hour after hour and week after week near incredibly toxic mixes of radiation and heavy metals, there are also dangers faced by nearby populations.

The northern part of Korea has always been neglected. This was the case during the historic dynastic period and was the case during North Korea's famine - when supplies were cut off and redirected to the more "important" capital region. Punggye-ri is located in the northernmost province. Of North Hamgyong's 2.5 million inhabitants, nearly 2 million lie directly east and north of the nuclear site, which means any radiation release will spread to those areas on wind currents.

Absent full-on containment failure, where plumes of material is tossed into the atmosphere, partial failures can still release Cesium-137, Iodine-131, and Strontium-90, all of which can spread by the wind and contaminate the ground (and thus the grass, which in turn will contaminate any animals eating that grass and eventually the people eating the animals). Seepage of Krypton-85 and Xenon-133 through cracks in the mountain can also contaminate the area. Krypton-85 has a half-life of 10.7 years, meaning if any was released by the first nuclear test back in 2006, half of it is still hanging around. To add context and bring this closer to home, the National Cancer Institute published a study in 1997 that showed 2,800 cases of thyroid cancer in the US each year can be attributed to our own nuclear tests during the "underground era" (1962-92).

Continuing research by 38 North suggests that major fractures may have developed in the mountain, and that further large-yield nuclear tests could severely destabilize the site and release enormous amounts of radioactive debris.

We may never know for certain if prison labor was used to build these miles of tunnels and what, if any, effects have happened as a result of radiation contamination, but the fact there's enough anecdotal evidence and internal logic to support the basis of this post is very disturbing. The world already knows about the routine torture, rape, murder, forced abortions, and starvation that goes on in North Korea's prison camps. The world knows about the lasting harm to people living in the US and on small Pacific islands near nuclear testing sites. I don't see what's so difficult about expecting that the two scenarios would merge in North Korea when all of the pieces are laying in front of us.

--Jacob Bogle, 9/16/17
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Note
1. All of the locations are based on coordinates given by the United States Geological Survey. These coordinates are only approximate and may be off by over a mile.

On the Death of Jang Sung-taek

(This is rather long. Feel free to download this PDF version so you can read it at your leisure.)

Jang Sung-taek was born in 1946 and married the daughter of Kim Il-sung, Kim Kyong-hiu, in 1972. In 1982 he became the vice-director of the Worker's Party of Korea's Organization and Guidance Department. The OGD is one of the most powerful bodies within the Democratic People's Republic of Korea's (DPRK) government and is responsible for the organization and vision of the Party, ideology, propaganda, and North Korea's infamous cult of personality. In 1992 he became the director of the OGD and was made a full member of the WPK's Central Committee.  

Sometime in the early 2000s he was purged from his positions, possibly due to clashes over the issue of leadership succession. The true make-up of the DPRK's internal governing structure and the inter-relations of all the various military, government, and domestic organizations continues to be rather opaque. However, the primary set-up and supreme law of the country is called the "Ten Principles for the Establishment of a Monolithic Ideological System", aka the "Ten Principles". Proposed by Kim Yong-ju, Kim Il-sung's brother, in 1967, these principles, which consist of 65 additional clauses, lay out the cult of personality and demand complete loyalty to the Kim family and contributes to the understanding that the country must, and will, always be led by dynastic succession. Furthermore, in North Korea it is understood that the life, the very spirit of the nation, resides within Kim Il-sung, his son Kim Jong-il, and now Kim Jong-un and that unless a direct descendant of Kim Il-sung runs the country, the entire system will collapse and the stars in heaven will heave themselves to the ground. (artistic license taken)

During a political purge, a person is either killed outright, sent to one of the many concentration camps to die, or sent to a prison (or camp) to be "rehabilitated". While undergoing rehabilitation prisoners are subjected to intense physical labor, little food, and long hours of self-criticism sessions which are ubiquitous in North Korean society. The aim of these sessions is to expunge oneself of impure thoughts and to re-instill "correct" thought and ideology as promulgated by the Kim's.

By 2006, Jang had reappeared and accompanied Kim Jong-il on an official trip to China. In 2007, he was promoted to the post of first vice-director of the WPK and later appointed vice-chairman of the National Defense Commission which is the highest military body. After the death of Kim Jong-il in 2011, Jang continued to serve at various posts and, at least on the surface, was a supporter of Kim Jong-un's succession. Jang was responsible for a wide array of projects within the country and helped see that the Yalu River Bridge came to fruition. The bridge spans the Yalu River which serves as the border between China and the DPRK. It is both symbolic in nature and will become a major economic artery. Unfortunately, the good times were not to last for Mr. Jang.

On December 3, 2013, South Korean sources reported that Jang had been removed from his posts. Then, in a move reminiscent of Stalin's purges, Jang was "erased" from various documentaries and news reports shown nationwide throughout December. The act of removing a person from images, statues, films, official documents, etc. is called damnatio memoriae and it seeks to erase the memory, and thus deny the very existence, of someone who has run afoul of a government or leader. On December 8th, Jang was expelled from the WPK and arrested. All of this was broadcast on state TV. His fall from grace was probably the most public of any dismissal of a member of the Kim family.

Naturally, speculation is rampant with people saying he was ousted because he was corrupt, because the military-first faction of the country had him removed (he was a supporter economic reform over Songun), or that he secretly desired to rule the country. When it comes to finding the truth in North Korea it is all but an impossible task. Regardless of the reason, Jang was executed. Under the direction of the Party, a military tribunal was held by the Ministry of State Security and he was found guilty of, and confessed to, multiple crimes.

The military tribunal

On December 12th, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), the state-run and primary news agency of the country, issued a 2,700 word statement that detailed his alleged crimes. In typical communist flourish, they called Jang worse than a dog, a thrice-time traitor, and accused him of a multitude of crimes. I say his alleged crimes because the world will likely never know the full story. Even the testimony he gave was likely written by the government and provided to him. To find a recent example of DPRK-fabricated testimonies one has no further to look than the case of Merrill Newman. 

I'd like to take a look at some of his alleged crimes and try to explain what they mean, provide some context, explain why they're important, and hopefully tie it all together. 

1. The first real charge against him was that he led a faction of counter-revolutionaries that attempted to overthrow the government by using "all sorts of intrigues" and attempted to grab the reins of power for himself. 

-- Hwang Jang-yop, the highest level defector from North Korea, speculated before his (Hwang's) death that Jang could be a possible successor to Kim Jong-il. The issue of succession came to the forefront after Kim Jong-il had a stroke in 2008. Prior to this, Kim Jong-un was basically unheard of, even within North Korea. And so, unlike his father's decades-long grooming, the process for Jong-un's succession was hurried and uncertain. The statement also claims that Jang enlisted the aid of "discontented elements" and those who had, in the past, been "problematic" - which I discuss somewhat below.

-- Given the additional charges relating to Jang's power grab, it looks as though Jang tried to pursued others to reject the idea of a 3rd generation of dynasty and support him instead. And since Jang had already held positions of high power for many years, he was a better candidate for leadership from a practical standpoint than Kim Jong-un who had largely been left to live life as a spoiled son and not a potential national leader; an unknown quantity. (Even planning for or discussing the eventual death of a leader, unless initiated by the leader himself, could cause one to disappear.)

-- According to Jang's testimony, he had also planned to use his allies in the military to achieve his coup. This is not out of the realm of possibility. From a simple logistical standpoint it's obvious that he would need to enlist the military to complete the task. The personal bodyguard corps (Unit 963) of the Kim family has anywhere from 95,000 to 120,000 dedicated and intensely trained officers. Also, the military runs a decent chunk of the economy and is the primary exporting body. Beyond that, the military serves as a major source of labor due to its size (around 9 million including reserves) and since the official policy of the nation is to support the military the military's reach is pervasive and it is indispensable as an institution. There's also precedent for the military to be involved in a coup attempt. In 1996, in the middle of the famine, the Korean People's Army 6th Corps planned a coup, however, they were discovered before they could carry it out and 340 leaders were either killed or otherwise punished. The main obstacle to a military coup is the disjointed nature of the Korean military. Unlike modern powers, the various branches of the military (army, navy, air force, etc.) rarely engage in joint exercises and there is severe doubt as to their interoperability. On top of that, the level of mistrust between the leadership and its generals (and among the generals themselves) means that only a few top-level military personnel know how the full military machine works, making it less likely for a coordinated coup to even be plausible.   

2. In several sections he is charged with economic crimes and using his authority to extend his own reach, increase his wealth, and trying to usurp the national government. One of the more propaganda-driven charges says, "He let the decadent capitalist lifestyle find its way to our society by distributing all sorts of pornographic pictures among his confidants since 2009. He led a dissolute, depraved life, squandering money wherever he went." Additionally, "he schemed to drive the economy of the country and people's living into an uncontrollable catastrophe," and that he embezzled millions of euros for his own benefit. They also charged him in connection with the devastating currency revaluation of 2009 which erased the life savings of nearly everyone and led to the execution of Park Nam-gi, the then director of the Planning & Finance Department. 

--Jang had substantial control over a large segment of the economy. Obviously, if he wanted to rule the country he would need to control the economy, but it's just as likely that he was a reform-minded individual and tried to use his resources to improve the state of affairs. Any attempts to deviate from the top-down, totalitarian driven, fully planned economy is seen as betraying the desires of Kim Il-sung, who is still the president of North Korea despite being dead for nearly two decades. And, any time something goes wrong in the economy blame is placed squarely on capitalistic ideals, reactionaries, and factionalists who have let impurities of ideology (ideology, not basic mathematics or economics) bring hardship down upon the heads of the people. 

-- The idea that he schemed to drive the economy into an uncontrollable catastrophe could prove difficult for the government to really explain to the people. Anyone over the age of 15 would remember the famine, and even today thousands routinely die of starvation. Kim Jong-il's dogmatic insistence on the military-first policy (Songun) has meant that the military receives food, clothing, heating, and medicine first. It has also meant that the only thing Kim succeeded at during his 17 year reign was the development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missile technology. He failed at solving the food crisis, the energy crisis, and failed at improving the lives of 24 million North Koreans. And people know this, even if they can't talk about it except under the most secretive conditions.

-- However, there have been several reports of other members of the elite who have run afoul of the leader due to their extravagant lifestyle. I recall one case where a man was purged because his villa was in plain sight of the village and it looked larger than one of Kim Il-sung's. There is little doubt that the ruling elite have no qualms about largess living. That being said, I find it difficult to believe that there aren't at least some who have a desire to improve the country and the standard of living of the average citizen, even if it's only because they want to live an even more extravagant lifestyle.   

-- Lastly, on the charge of spending millions (4.6 million in one year to be exact), I can only imagine how absurd this charge must appear to those within the inner circle of leadership. In a truly communist state, especially a poor one, the idea that anyone could be keeping profits and spending millions on themselves at the expense of the masses would be worse than blasphemy and utterly horrifying. But, at least in the case of the Kim family, spending millions is expected. To rise among the ranks officials are encouraged to give vast sums of cash to the Dear Leader and for Kim Jong-il's birthday, Office 39 presented him with upwards of $20 million each year. Kim Jong-il spent millions on alcohol, food, palaces, "loyalty" gifts to officials, rare animals and much more. He even had $4 billion stowed away in foreign banks by some estimates.

3. The next charges against him that I will talk about gets into the details of his betrayal of trust. It says, "It is an elementary obligation of a human being to repay trust with sense of obligation and benevolence with loyalty." He is accused of having "an ax to grind" and, until Kim Jong-il died, of quietly plotting to grab power. Once he died, it goes on to say that Jang actively bribed people and built up a "little kingdom" all in the name of his desired coup. 

-- The Ten Principles compel every citizen to respect the Kims and to offer up complete and never wavering loyalty to the regime. Almost every one of the ten principles and sixty-five sub-clauses at least partially mention obedience to the state and to the Kim family. Principle III says, "Make absolute the authority of the Great Leader Comrade KIM Il Sung. Affirming the absolute nature of the Great Leader Comrade Kim Il Sung’s authority is the supreme demand of our revolutionary task and the revolutionary volition of our party and people." Later editions have been amended to include Kim Jong-il and Kim Jong-un in the appropriate places. This alone means that any dissent from the supreme leader is a crime against the martyrs of the Liberation (Korean War), against the "great heart" of Kim Il-sung, and against the very soul of the nation. A further related crime was that "he committed such anti-party acts as systematically denying the party line and policies."

-- Despite the Principles, the older generation of North Koreans remember when the north was actually better off than the south. During the Japanese occupation (1910-45), Japan invested heavily in factories, railroads, and industry in the north, leaving the south to serve as the bread basket of the peninsula. And so after WWII, when Korea was split between Soviet and American spheres of influence, the north retained its position as an industrial powerhouse for the region. Even after the Korean War, North Korea benefited from Soviet & Chinese patronage during which North Korea played each country off the other and extracted billions in aid and trade. It wasn't until the late 1970s when the south finally began to overcome the north in terms of economic and technological development. When the USSR finally dissolved, the loss of patronage compounded systemic economic problems and, along with the inherent flaws of its planned economy, created a downward spiral which led to a famine that killed upwards of 1 million. 

-- North Korea hasn't fully recovered from either the famine or the loss of friendly trade and patronage. On top of that, international sanctions have slowly chipped away at the vast wealth of the ruling elite; although the average citizen suffers disproportionately from them. As I said earlier, I find it difficult to believe that there aren't some who would like to see real reform in the county, especially by the elite who have access to a vastly greater range of information and can see the truth about the modern state of the world and their dying country. I could also easily imagine that Jang really did have an ax to grind. He had loyally served the state for decades, knew how the system worked and saw its flaws, and then was passed over without a second thought in favor of an untested kid in his twenties. This would have been similar to the events surrounding Kim Jong-il's ascent to power, when several of his father's friends and relations, who strongly disapproved of dynastic succession, were killed or removed from their posts leaving no doubt as to who really held power. 

4. Finally, I want to discuss his crimes surrounding my favorite topic, the cult of personality. The relevant and dastardly charges are as follows (direct quotes):

• He behaved so arrogantly and insolently as unwillingly standing up from his seat and half-heartedly clapping.
• He was so imprudent as to prevent the Taedonggang Tile Factory from erecting a mosaic depicting Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il and a monument to field guidance given by them. Moreover, Jang turned down the unanimous request of the service personnel of a unit of the Korean People's Internal Security Forces to have the autograph letter sent by Kim Jong Un to the unit carved on a natural granite and erected with good care in front of the building of its command. He was so reckless as to instruct the unit to erect it in a shaded corner.
• Due to his persistent moves to create illusion and idolization of him his flatterers and followers in his department and organs under it praised him as "No. 1 comrade."

• He made the reckless remark that "the rewriting of the construction law would solve the problem.

 

                            A newly erected statue of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il

If you've ever seen a video of a Kim walking into a room or being praised you'll see how enthusiastic, and robotic, the crowd is. Clapping and shouting "Ten Thousand Years!" is protocol in a crowd setting and anyone not showing enough respect becomes suspected of disloyalty. To most of the world, the idea that "half-heartedly clapping" would be seen as something serious is laughable, in North Korea it is taken very seriously. Kim Il-sung worked hard at developing the idea that he was the father of the nation and, in a very real sense, the respect he receives even today is one that only a godlike paternal figure could be due. Likewise, each generation of Kim is seen as the sun, the loving father, the protector, the provider, the breath of life.

Korea, and much of that part of the world, is a deeply Confucian region. Respect and patriarchy are an integral part of their society. North Korea simply took long-held Confucian beliefs (along with co-opting other religions) and twisted them in such a way as to exert total control. You clap because if you don't, you are disrespecting the person who directly feeds you. You live and breathe by the will of the party and the mind, body, and soul of the party is the supreme leader. The cult has actually been the cause of friction between the DPRK, China, and Russia - despite similar cults to Mao and Stalin. However, North Korea's cult far surpasses any other.

Kim Il-sung began laying the foundations of the cult before WWII was even over and once he was installed as the leader of North Korea (by the Soviets) he started to enshrine the cult into the fabric of society. At first, it was a matter of genuine respect owed to a very real nationalist hero and so it didn't seem too odd. As time went on with new generations born, and a mass purge in 1953, the cult grew into something compulsory. When Kim Il-sung died, the nation erected thousands of monuments to his honor as they continue to do today. There are well over 40,000 statues and murals throughout the country and each year upwards of 40% of the nation's entire budget is spent on maintaining the personality cult. The mausoleum of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il is rumored to have cost $1 billion all-in-all. 

The expanse of the cult begins in school, where children are taught that they are fed and clothed by the "grace of the Chairman". Schools also contain rooms dedicated to the life and teachings of both former Kim's. At home, a wall is dedicated solely to three pictures, one of each Kim. And those pictures must (by law) be cleaned daily with a special cloth and if they're not you can be punished. Once you reach adulthood you must wear a lapel pin bearing the likeness of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il. Beyond that, marriages are often performed in the presence of images or monuments and everyone is required to bow before the nearest monument during festivals and holidays (which, by the way, include the birthdays of the leaders). Public buildings must also carry the image of the Kim's, the image's size is determined by the size of the building.

Any title expressing the highest respect, love, affection, or political station, such as "No. 1 Comrade", is exclusively used to refer to the supreme leader. Thus, anyone using such a title for anyone else is gravely disrespecting the leader and it's tantamount to blasphemy. Regarding the constitution, the national constitution of the DPRK is little more than a pretty piece of paper in most respects, except that it enshrines the supreme leadership of the Kim's and enables the various political organs to fulfill their mandate - the edification of the Kim family and to ensure total loyalty and subservience to the leader and Party.

The constitution and other official documents and agencies are seen as the will of the supreme leader, and even more specifically, the will of Eternal President, Kim Il-sung. To suggest a change to it without guidance from the leadership or to suggest any change which may diminish the power and sovereignty of the leader and party is similar to an attack against the leader himself, the ultimate form of treason. 

Conclusion

In the end, I think it is equally plausible that he was killed because he was a reformer, killed because he really was a traitor, or killed for a mixture of reasons. If he was reform-minded, there is also the question of the degree to which individuals within leadership can question the aims of the party and the supreme leader. And so it's difficult to ascertain the depth of Jang's betrayal. Did he simply suggest a different course, or did he actively try to depose Kim Jong-un before his rule was cemented and grab total power for himself? He very well could have committed real crimes like embezzlement, but even then, was his crime that he tried to amass a fortune, or was it that he stole from the boss? 

At this point it doesn't matter what his crimes were. He and his allies were punished, the regime will go on for another day, and the people will continue to live in abject poverty with the ever-present danger of being killed for simply wanting a better life. As the tribunal said:

"The revolutionary army will never pardon all those who disobey the order of the Supreme Commander and there will be no place for them to be buried even after their death."

The truth of it all is that he questioned the state. In the DPRK, the will of the government is the will of the people, not the other way around. All three Kim's are individually and jointly the total embodiment of the party, state, army, and people. There can be no change to that without, by necessity, altering the very fabric of North Korean society. 

And to leave no room for doubt as to who currently and forever will run the nation:

"No matter how much water flows under the bridge and no matter how frequently a generation is replaced by new one, the lineage of Paektu* will remain unchanged and irreplaceable.

 Our party, state, army and people do not know anyone except Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il and Kim Jong Un."

Jacob Bogle, 12/14/2013

Facebook.com/JacobBogle 

(*Note: Mt. Paektu is a volcano on the border of China and North Korea. It is the legendary home of the Korean race. It is also used a metaphor for Kim Il-sung and the Revolution.)

Additional Reading:

1. KWP Central Committee Organization and Guidance Department (3 pages, PDF, from NK Leadership Watch)

2. Full transcript of the KCNA statement announcing his death (7 pages, PDF)

3. North Korea's Dynastic Succession (5 pages, PDF, from UK gov)