WASHINGTON
(AP) — In the supposed workers’ paradise
of North Korea, inequality is assigned at birth, a study by a U.S.-based human
rights group says.
Education,
job, access to scarce food and health care, and even whom you marry all hinge
on how loyal your ancestors are viewed to have been to the Kim dynasty that
took power six decades ago.
The
study released Wednesday by the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea says
all adults in the socialist state are categorized as one of three classes:
loyal, wavering or hostile.
The
nongovernment human rights group says it amounts to a caste system.
Despite
the emergence of informal markets since the late 1990s challenging state
control, the study says the class system persists and is behind the
discrimination and abuses faced by the lowest echelons of the North’s closed
society.
“Throughout
its 64-year existence, the Kim regime has claimed that North Korea is an
egalitarian workers’ paradise,” said the committee’s executive director, Greg
Scarlatoiu. “Yet, inequality is assigned at birth, perpetuated throughout a
person’s lifetime and cruelly enforced by those in power to benefit themselves
and their supporters.”
The
North Korean government denies such a discriminatory class system exists.
The
study, titled “Marked for Life,” is based on interviews with 75 North Korean
defectors, including as recently as 2011. It also cites a 1993 manual issued by
North Korea’s Ministry of Public Security to guide its officials on how to
investigate a citizen’s socio-political classification, or “songbun,” which
translates in Korean as “ingredients.”
Lee
Sung-min, a North Korean defector living in Seoul, said in an interview with
The Associated Press that because his late grandfather was accused of
collaborating with the Japanese during the 35 years Japan ruled South Korea as
a colony, his family was stigmatized by North Korean authorities and he was
blocked from joining the Workers’ Party or entering the school he wanted to attend.
“No one
is free from songbun in North Korea,” Lee said.
The
study says the ministry maintains a file on everyone from the age of 17 that is
updated every two years.
Numerous
defectors’ interviews show that those who are young when they leave North Korea
see songbun as decreasingly important, while older defectors say songbun still
matters, the report said.
The
songbun system has its origins in social class restructuring enforced by the
North’s communist founders, led by Kim Il Sung, that began even before the
state’s formal creation in 1948, to elevate peasants and laborers at the
expense of landlords, businessmen and religious leaders.
Those
considered most loyal had fought alongside Kim against Japanese colonialists
and then against U.S.-backed forces in the 1950-53 Korean War. Those deemed
hostile collaborated with the enemy or had family members who fled to South
Korea.
Moving
up a songbun category is rare and requires a lifetime of devotion to the Kim
family regime and ruling Workers’ Party of Korea. But songbun can be downgraded
for political or criminal offenses or failing to cooperate with authorities.
When an
individual is sentenced to the North’s gulag of political prison camps —
estimated to hold 150,000-200,000 people — family members are considered guilty
by association and generally accompany them, the study says.
Today
the loyal class, which makes up about a quarter of the 24 million population,
still dominates the powerful military and the Workers’ Party. They alone are
entitled to live in the relatively prosperous capital Pyongyang and monopolize
the prestige universities and best jobs, the study says.
Marrying
someone with poor songbun likely would exclude that individual from party
membership, causing severe consequences for employment opportunities and
quality of life, it says.
Many in
the hostile class inhabit the most impoverished northeastern provinces, often
in isolated mountain villages where they perform hard labor at mines and farms.
They have been most vulnerable to failures since the 1990s in North Korea’s
public food distribution system and resulting malnutrition.
Roberta
Cohen, co-chairman of the rights group, says money, bribery and corruption
recently have begun to erode the songbun system because of the emergence of
informal markets and the scope for paying officials for favors. But she said
songbun’s main elements remain in place, “guaranteed by a complete absence of
political freedom.”
The
study says a slang has developed around the songbun system, wherein the loyal
class are referred to as “tomatoes” that are red on both the inside and
outside, so are good socialists. Those of the wavering class are “apples” that
are only red on the outside, and the hostile class is known as “grapes” —
considered politically unredeemable.
There’s
no sign that new ruler Kim Jong Un, the third in the dynasty, will change the
policy. The study concludes that would be a direct threat to the North Korean
elite and could undermine his consolidation of power.
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