[Seascamp]

The expression ?Money is King, the law far and the fist is near? would most likely be associated with one of our US gangland areas but is in fact a North Korean expression these days. Kyoto, Japan, has a large North Korean population and Kim Jung Il?s agents are there causing trouble for the Japanese Government and intimidating, extorting and bullying Koreans that still have relatives in North Korea.

As time passes and relatives simply vanish from the face of the earth, more Koreans that have first hand knowledge of what really is going on are willing to open up about the conditions and environment in North Korea. Some of it is quite surprising, some of it not.
Intense corruption comes with a Communist culture but the level in North Korea seems to even top Stalin?s Russia or Contemporary Vietnam and that is going a bunch, a big bunch. Here are some interesting tidbits:
In a nutshell, the wheels came off the North Korean economic system starting around 1987 and now to survive people must have some ?outlaw? activity or business going on and must pay a bribe to get a ?blind eye? and it appears most the country functions that way. Freelance garden plots are unplanned and are causing severe erosion and polluted rivers and a resultant loss of fish as a staple.

The average worker bee wage is around 160 won per month but a chicken costs 30 won, a rabbit 90 and a month?s supply of rice 210. The collectives are failing due to lack of transport or whatever so it is usual to a collective worker to go fiddle around and do face time during their assigned shift and then go work like crazy through the night on their own ?outlaw? garden plot or other money making activity.

Kyoto is to North Korea as Miami is to Cuba and in both instances there is a thriving black market of pilfered goods and packages being sent in from relatives and of course the respective governments are doing the pilfering and black marketeering, but not officially. But for a proper bribe, a North Korean can pick up an unmolested package, but this is not true of Cuba, they just grab and go.
All this and more has become known as the North Korean ?Ox Cart? economy and eclipses the formal and dysfunctional economy but is all corruption and bribe based.

The real powerhouse and the tough rind of Communist remains is the state security apparatus. Their role is to protect and preserve the state deity, Kim Jung Il, and in terms of death camps, forced labor camps, etc., I think they would make even Stalin retch. Very bad, unspeakably so. On the other hand they seem to care less about the corruption so long as it is not a threat to Kim Jong Il and they get their cut of the action. The local police civilian police are nearly useless and thus the growth of ?friends groups? that band together for protection against the criminal thugs. If a thug beats up and robs someone with a group, that group will bribe a cop to arrest the thug and for an additional bribe the cop will allow the friends group to beat the crap out of the thug and deaths in this way are not at all uncommon. Interesting stuff to read about and I have reason to belive it is authentic.

Scamp