North Korean Escapees Report Solid Support for Dictator Kim By Jeyup S. Kwaak
http://www.wsj.com/articles/north-korean-escapees-report-solid-support-for-dictator-kim-1440568866?mod=trending_now_5
Public backs Kim Jong Un despite frustrations about economy, defectors say
SEOUL—North Koreans who fled the country in recent years said public support for dictator Kim Jong Un appears solid despite citizens’ frustrations about the poor state of the economy, according to a new report.
The report, based on annual surveys, suggests grass-roots capitalism continues to spread in North Korea to substitute for the failed state distribution system and is likely to continue its uncomfortable coexistence with the nation’s repressive regime.
The Seoul National University Institute for Peace and Unification Studies annually surveys more than 100 North Koreans who defected in the previous calendar year. The results provide firsthand insight into developments in the isolated state, though its researchers say they shouldn’t be read as generalized facts due to the small pool of respondents.
The release of the report comes as a military standoff between the Koreas ended Tuesday following a crisis that included artillery strikes and mine blasts.
Mr. Kim, who took power in late 2011 and is in his early 30s, has defied outside concerns about inexperience, ruling with authority and purging several senior officials without signs of instability. But his projects for economic development, including agricultural and economic reforms, have yielded few positive results. Since he came to power, he has tightened border control to curb the defector flow, activists say.
ENLARGE The latest survey, of 146 North Koreans who escaped in 2014, shows a significant growth from the previous year in the number of people saying they conducted private business activities and paid bribes to enable them. A little more than half said they received no money from the state, down from last year’s survey but up from the one released in 2013.
Experts say between half and three-quarters of North Koreans’ income comes from quasi-illegal market activities, such as trade of basic goods smuggled in from China, but sporadic crackdowns by national or regional security officials lead to irregular business and bribery. Defectors say officials often collect fees when they set up a booth at a market.
Most in the survey blamed the regime for economic hardship, including more than 70% who held Mr. Kim as the most responsible.
But combined with respondents who fled from 2010 to 2013, nearly 63% of the 656 people that answered said they believe a majority of North Koreans support Mr. Kim. The researchers didn’t provide a year-by-year breakdown.
While the results don’t prove a majority actually supports Mr. Kim, such perceptions help Pyongyang leadership to tighten its grip on power, defectors say. North Korea observers say Pyongyang uses tensions with the southern rival and the U.S. for a similar reason.
Pyongyang has long claimed that South Korea, masterminded by the U.S., will invade the North, and therefore contends its nuclear arms are designed to deter any aggression. North Korea tells its people it was invaded in 1950 by South Korea, triggering the Korean War. Historians outside the country agree the war started when North Korea invaded South Korea.
In a sign that Pyongyang’s anti-American and anti-South Korean propaganda may be working, the latest survey of escapees showed about half supported North Korea’s pursuit of nuclear weapons. Nearly 55% said they believe a South-led invasion of the North could take place.
Some escapees, including one that participated in the survey, say many people assume the regime heightens tension with the U.S. and South Korea for internal control, having lived through repeated cycles of buildup and diffusion of tensions. They say they believe a vast state spy network prevents organized protests.
“Every time the regime does this [initiating conflict and bringing the country to an emergency state], we say they’re doing it again. We just hope the situation ends quickly and we can go back to our normal lives,” one North Korean defector who fled the country last year said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. The person, who declined to give any identity details due to fears of repercussions to family left in the North, said he believes one in three North Koreans is a government spy.
More than 28,000 North Koreans have escaped and settled down in the South, according to South Korea’s Unification Ministry, its main agency for inter-Korean affairs. Since Mr. Kim came to power in late 2011, defector numbers have fallen, which activists attribute to harsher crackdowns on the China-North Korea border. Just 614 North Koreans made it to the South in the first half of this year, compared with 2,706 in the 2011 calendar year, according to the most recent ministry data.
Write to Jeyup S. Kwaak at jeyup.kwaak@wsj.com
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