Posted on 12/10/2006 6:12:13 PM PST by blam
Discontent heard among North Koreans
By Richard Spencer, in Beijing
Last Updated: 1:36am GMT 11/12/2006
Many North Koreans are now aware of the poverty of their country and are voicing discontent after years of near-starvation, according to the fullest study yet conducted of refugees from the Stalinist dictatorship.
While the popular image of North Koreans is of a nation living in blissful ignorance of the outside world and unquestioning loyalty to the leadership of Kim Jong-il, refugees interviewed while in hiding in China reported that there were increasing signs of dissent.
Eighty per cent of those questioned said North Koreans no longer believed official propaganda that living standards were better than in capitalist South Korea. In reality, income per head is 20 to 30 times higher in the South.
Nine in 10 of the refugees agreed that inside the country "North Koreans are voicing their concerns about chronic food shortages".
"Resentment toward the North Korean leadership for the continued hardship in the country is high," they said.
Televisions remain tuned to one government channel and other sources of information are tightly censored, but news about life in neighbouring China, where living standards have fast outstripped their own, was seeping through by word of mouth.
The findings match other reports that radios are illegally altered to pick up South Korean broadcasts, and mobile phones smuggled over the border from China enable some people to speak to relatives outside.
The 1,300 people questioned by the bipartisan US Committee on Human Rights in North Korea revealed harrowing details of the hunger, imprisonment, and torture they had suffered and witnessed. Ten per cent of respondents reported having been in prison or labour camps.
Of those, nine out of 10 had witnessed someone dying of starvation, three quarters someone dying under torture, and seven per cent a case of infanticide.
"We are a great country. We have the bomb."
We also have leader who roaney
There are also rumors that they taste good.
Happy to have survived yet another day.
....voicing discontent after years of near-starvation...
Starvation threatens millions as aid to North Korea dries up
From Andrew Salmon in Seoul
WHILE the inhabitants of Asia’s last Stalinist state forage in the mountains for edible roots, the main supplier of food aid to North Korea is facing a shortfall in donations that could forestall efforts to prevent a rerun of the catastrophic famines of the 1990s.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1728433,00.html
Diane Sawyer tells us N. Korean children are the "Happiest Children in World."
Oh for G^&%$ sake!
Wednesday, February 18, 1998 Published at 11:11 GMT
World: Asia-Pacific
Millions dead from starvation says North Korean defector
Up to 2.8 million people may have died of starvation because of North Korea's three-year famine and worsening economic crisis.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/57740.stm
That is how he can get a lot of tributes from other countries while maintaining a close society to keep his regime alive.
His regime wants to live on collected taxes from other countries.
Hey Tiger yeah that one thing he want nuke bomb that works LOL!
Well, if we can get that bomb to explode in the face of the Dear Leader, then he'd go to hell. He knows that place very well because he presently rules over it. May Satan treat him eternally like an ordinary North Korean.
i feel for em honestly.
they are like the muslims in a ways.
they grow up cradle to grave on pure propaganda. they dont know any better. (kinda like liberals :P )
sad really
its gonna be a bloody road to bring those ppl to the light of freedom.
I can't wait for the day that another communist crap-hole bites the dust.
Has anyone ever pondered the question of how have so many, seemingly oddly named, Chinese dishes have come to be on menus? Why would anyone ever make a soup out of a bird's nest? Why would anyone ever make a dish called "bear's paw?" These are dishes scrabbled out of hard times by people who are being starved by a brutal government. The same thing is obviously happening in North Korea.
I'm half Irish and I know of a lot of very good potato recipes but those all emanated from what's known as the potato famine, trying to stretch available supplies by adding a few of this, a few of that, a pinch of this, a pinch of that.
North Korea is a trainwreck going very slowly.
Hard to believe a military takeover hasn't happened there.
If the NOrth falls the south is going to have a real basket case in regards to reunification. Much harder then East and West Germany.
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