Posted on 03/28/2008 8:08:21 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
NKorean women demonstrate against crackdown: aid group
Wed Mar 26, 4:01 AM ET
Thousands of North Korean women staged a rare street protest early this month against a government crackdown on illegal market vendors, an aid group said Wednesday, amid worsening food shortages.
The protest was reported on March 4 in Chongjin, a port city in the northeastern province of North Hamgyong, said the South Korean group Good Friends, which works in North Korea.
More than 10,000 women rallied in several markets in the city, demanding the government either resume suspended food rations or allow them to keep open their businesses, it said in its newsletter.
The demonstration came after authorities in Chongjin stepped up a crackdown on vendors.
Last autumn the North strengthened regulations on market traders, banning women under 40 from engaging in the trade. The reason was unclear but some analysts say authorities see the free markets as a threat to their control over the command economy.
Unauthorised markets are growing across the hardline communist state due to worsening food shortages and the suspension or reduction of official food rations in many areas.
Some women also expressed anger at the reported execution on February 20 of 13 women and two men in Onseong, a border town in the same province, for illegally entering neighbouring China in search of food.
Good Friends said the execution shocked people in the province because many women have to act as breadwinners due to the rations problems.
"Everybody knows the women in Onseong did it for the livelihood of their family," a 44-year-old woman in Chongjin was quoted as saying.
Officials at Seoul's unification ministry, which handles relations with the impoverished North, could not confirm the reported protest.
Good Friends reported last week that North Korea has suspended state food rations in its main grain-producing area of South Hwanghae province and reduced them even for the elite in the capital amid worsening food shortages.
The state cut rations by some 60 percent in February and by a further 20 percent this month in the capital, it said.
South Korea's Hyundai Economic Research Institute has warned that soaring international grain prices would aggravate the acute food shortage and encourage more people to flee the country.
Some residents of frontier provinces cross the border to secure food before returning. Others try to flee their homeland permanently through China.
Rights groups estimate there are tens of thousands of North Koreans hiding out in northeast China.
London-based rights group Amnesty International has condemned the reported public execution in Onseong.
"These summary executions compound other human rights violations, including arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances and severe restrictions on freedom of speech, faced by some of the most desperate people in the world," said Tim Parritt, Amnesty's deputy programme director for Asia.
Ping!
and any man foolish enough to get in the way will suffer like a dog with worms!
Fidel Castro wrote that the biggest threat to his revolution was from the ordinary Cuban who might have tools hidden at home to work for himself.
It will be the same with islam...when the women get tired of the bull-shiite...they will tell the imams, mullas, muftis, ayotollas and all the rest of the islam lunatics where they can stick their burkas.
...until the time that women rise up, killing as many of the lunatics as possible will have to do.
Those silly women can get all the nourishment they need by resolutely staring at a portrait of Dear Leader. /sarcasm
Automatic weapons at the ready or NOT, this would be absolutely suicidal to wade into such a large group of pissed off women.
All those counter-revolutionaries will be rounded up and shot. Everyone knows that North Korea is the workers’ paradise.
北 함북 청진서 1만 여성 집단항의
여성들은 시장관리소를 찾아가 "쌀을 달라", "너네만 먹고 살려는가. 우리도 먹을 수 있게 장사하게 해 달라. 아니면 배급을 주든지 둘 중의 하나는 해 줘야 할 것 아니냐"고 항의했다
[2008-03-27 14:33:02]
북한 당국이 시장에서 장사 할 수 있는 여성들의 나이를 50세 이상으로 제한한 것에 반발, 이달 초 함북 청진에서 1만여명 이상의 여성들이 장사를 할 수 있게 해달라며 집단 항의를 했다고 대북인권단체인 ´좋은벗들´이 주간 소식지를 통해 전했다.
소식지는 3월부터 북한 전역에서 시장 단속이 본격화되면서 청진시의 각 시장관리소가 3월 3일 나이 제한에 걸린 여성들을 모조리 시장에서 몰아내자며 매대(판매대)를 시장 밖으로 내놓은 게 집단항의의 기폭제가 됐다고 밝혔다.
북한 당국은 작년 하반기 들어 30세 이상, 40세 이상, 45세 이상으로 여성들의 장사 허용 나이를 점차 높이다 지난해 말 50세 이상으로 대폭 올려 젊은 여성들의 장사를 금지하고 단속을 강화했다.
이에 따라 여성들은 "뒷돈을 찔러주거나 나이 든 여성과 동업을 하거나 시어머니나 친정어머니를 장사에 대동하는 등 갖가지 방법으로 장사를 해 왔으나, 매대를 아예 없애 버리는 강경조치가 취해지자 분노가 극에 달했다"고 소식지는 전했다.
소식지는 청진시가 매대를 없애버린지 하룻만인 4일 오후 1시 "각 시장에 여성들이 속속 모여들었다"면서 청진시 관계자의 말을 인용해 "수남시장에만 수천명, 다른 시장에도 적은 곳은 수백명이 모여들어 전체적으로 1만여명이 넘었다"고 소개했다.
당시 여성들은 시장관리소를 찾아가 "쌀을 달라", "너네만 먹고 살려는가. 우리도 먹을 수 있게 장사하게 해 달라. 아니면 배급을 주든지 둘 중의 하나는 해 줘야 할 것 아니냐"고 항의했다는 것.
여성들의 집단항의 때문에 당시 상황이 매우 긴박했지만, 청진시 보안당국은 이를 진압하지 않았다고 좋은벗들은 말했다.
청진시 보안당국의 한 관계자는 "이것을 진압하면 정말 폭동이 일어난다. 아줌마들이 혹시 다치기라도 하면 노동자들이 일어나니까 큰일이다. 여자들이 잘못 다치면 남자들과 자식들에게 영향을 미친다"며 "누구 하나 차마 손댈 생각을 못했다"고 말했다고 전했다.
청진시 당위원회가 긴급히 소집한 전원회의에서도 시 노동국이 "3월 현재 노동자 6만여명이 굶고 있다"는 자료까지 내놨던 것으로 알려졌다.
소식지는 여성들이 집단항의 후 흩어져 가정으로 돌아간 뒤 이튿날인 5일 다시 "인산인해"로 집결하자 청진시가 시 노동국 명의로 시장을 열면서 나이제한 조치를 해제했다고 덧붙였다.
그러나 이 사건과 관련, 노동당은 9일까지도 아무런 지침이 없다가, 11일 나이제한에 걸린 여성들을 모두 공장이나 기업소에 배치토록 한 방침을 재확인하고 "청진시에는 중앙 지침을 반드시 관철하라는 지시"가 내려지고 있다고 소식지는 설명했다.
한편 북한의 식량 사정이 악화되면서 시장 거래 쌀값이 이달초 1㎏당 북한돈 1천400원대에서 중순 1천600원, 하순 1천800원으로 올랐고, 옥수수 가격도 지난 1월 500원대에서 이달 하순 900원대로 급등했다고 소식지는 전했다.
소식지는 또 배급을 받지 못한 노동자들의 무단결근이 증가하고, 북.중 국경을 불법 월경하는 사람들이 늘어나고 있다고 전하는 등 북한의 식량난 악화로 나타나는 다양한 현상들을 소개했다.
[홍효성 기자]
North Korea’s creaking economy is facing final collapse.
North Korean refugees/defectors are reported to have gotten into the JAPANESE EMBASSY in Laos (Vientiane) and trying to get asylum:
【ソウル＝島谷英明】韓国の聯合ニュースは28日、北朝鮮を脱出した20代の男性が27日午前、ラオスの日本大使館に駆け込んだと報道した。ラオスの脱北者を支援する人物の話として伝えた。 男性は自分が北朝鮮に渡った日本人妻の息子だと主張し、日本行きを要求。日本大使館は日本人妻の息子であることの証拠が不足しているとして、ラオスの韓国大使館に照会したという。ただ韓国大使館は「関連する情報はない」と話している。 ラオスの日本大使館は日本経済新聞記者の取材に対し「その情報について答えられる人はいない」と確認を避けた。 一方、脱北者の男性1人、女性11人の計12人が27日午前にラオスの韓国大使館に駆け込んだ。 (28日 22:13)
I think this is very instructive information and am sure it will be taken note of.
SEOUL, March 28 (Bernama) — Twelve people believed to be North Korean defectors have forced their way into the South Korean embassy in Laos, the embassy said Friday.
Eleven females and one male, who claimed to be North Koreans, entered the embassy at around 11 a.m. Thursday, it said.
“We're going to respect what they want based on humanitarianism and international customs,” the South Korean Ambassador to Vientiane Park Jae-hyun told Yonhap News Agency by phone.
He said the people are now in good condition and under the embassy's custody. However, the diplomat did not specify whether the presumed defectors expressed hope to settle in South Korea.
Meanwhile, the U.S.-based radio station Voice of America also reported on the group's action, citing four international human rights groups were helping them.
The rights groups indicated the defectors wanted to travel to South Korea, saying in a statement that they hope the Laotian government will help the defectors leave safely for South Korea.
An increasing number of North Koreans are arriving in Southeast Asian countries via China with the aim of settling in South Korea or another country to escape political oppression and famine in their homeland.
China does not recognise them as refugees but as economic migrants under an agreement with its communist ally North Korea.
— BERNAMA
Just hit the orange button with the arrow on it, after hitting the link here.
Wow!
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