Power abuses by North Korean provincial high-ranking
officials have increasingly caused distress for many local residents, who have a harder time making a living as a result, Daily NK has learned.
“Party cadres’ abuse of power grows more severe by the day, exacerbating their bureaucratic ways of
governance,” a source from North Hamkyung Province told Daily NK on Thursday.
“Last month, a Party secretary in Musan County fired a private tutor for swearing at his daughter.”
The tutor, an accordion teacher who
taught elementary school -age members of the Children’s Union, was dismissed from her position for asking the girl, “Why can’t you play right?” and referring to her as a “half-wit,” a disparaging remark with which the Party official took particular issue. Although the tutor was clearly at fault in the situation, the source explained that being dismissed from her position was only a small part of the problem; the Party cadre will wield his power to ensure she has no chance at getting hired as a private tutor by anyone other elite in the vicinity, meaning her main source of income is in jeopardy after one slip of the tongue.
She said that this was merely one of a legion of similar examples. “A county Party secretary who assumed a new post in the North
Hamkyung Province ordered a local mill near his home be relocated because of
all the noise the facility emitted,” the source said of another case, explaining that this has dealt a serious blow to residents in the area.
Prior to its displacement, the mill was constantly teeming with
people, some looking to render products for individual consumption and others to prepare them for sale at the markets. Now, however, the source asserted that these power dynamics only serve to create further disillusionment about Party
cadres among ordinary residents, who are increasingly willing to show their
derision once these officials have retired.
“A few days ago, a former Party Secretary
requested to use a whole bath alone when he went to Eundokwon (public bathhouse
and beauty salon),” the source said. “People nearby who witnessed saw it happening crowded
around him and saying, “What? Do you think you are still a Party secretary? It was good
when you were an official, right? Now you’ve got to sit in one big tub with the rest of us.”
She added that many of those who have
fallen victim to such abuses of power wait for the day they can verbally
retaliate, pointing out that “when there’s an uphill, there’s always a
downhill.”
