Wolgan Chosun: This is a transcript of Kim
Jong Il's conversation with Huh Jong Man and Suh Man
Sul, two top leaders of the General Association of
the Koreans Resident in Japan (Chongryon), a pro-North
organization.
The conversation took place in the
evening of April 25, 1998 at Kim Jong Il's villa.
We obtained this document
from a Japanese intelligence agency concerned with North
Korea. On the surface, Kim is critical of the
United States, Japan, and South Korea and praises the socialist
system of North Korea, but deep in his heart, he is envious of
capitalism and wants to learn from it. Kim is candid about the
difficulties in North Korea and unintentionally points out some of
the weaknesses of the North Korean
system.
Some of the highlights of Kim's
conversation are:
Kim Dae Jung is unusually
mean-spirited. Kim Young Sam is a dirt-bag. Kim Ja Jung
is the evilest of all South Korean capitalists. We need
superior seeds for our crops. Bring here Japanese factories
when they are closed down. The United States is our mortal
enemy and at the same time, our teacher. We sent in the army
to save the Hwanghae Steel Mills from the thieves who ran it.
I admire the capitalist legal systems. The law exams in Japan and
South Korea are exemplary.
I would like to discuss various issues
concerning Chongryon with you comrades on this occasion.
First, I would like to briefly touch upon the current situation and
the world economy. Today on the international area, we
see sharp conflicts between socialism and imperialism,
self-determination forces and domination forces.
Photo: Kim Jong Il in a jovial mood.
The imperialists and reactionaries are in the way of the
struggle of progressive people to be free of foreign
domination. They are hell-bent on maintaining and expanding
their hegemony.
The Yankee devils act as if they have the solution for the
current financial crisis in Asia, but what they really want is
domination of Asia. And, they are succeeding. More and
more Asian nations are falling in the US camp. Comrade Huh
Jong Man said that the Japanese economy has been down for so long
that it would be difficult for it to bounce back. Well, it
appears that the Yankee devils will pocket the Japanese
economy.
Hashimoto became Japanese prime minister at the worst time
possible. I hear his approval rating has dropped to
35% Has the high-speed train tracks, damaged in the
earthquake, been fixed? They claim that they have recovered
from the earthquake, but I believe people's livelihood and personal
wealth will feel the finch for some time to come in a major
way.
What is the ratio of hydro-electric power to thermal electric
power generation in Japan? There are more than 30 nuclear
power stations in Japan and so nuclear power generation is greater
than hydro or thermal power generation. There are many rivers and
water sources in Japan and the Japanese don't know what a
drought is. Japan has many tall mountains with high volumes
of water, and it would be easy for Japan to build dams. The
Japanese government owns power companies but I hear private
companies are now allowed to generate and sell electricity at
will.
How is bbazzinko (Japanese slot machines) business? It is
controlled by the police, and it is nearly impossible to get a
permit to start a new shop. Because of the slow economy, I would
think people would spend less money at slot machines.
According to Japanese devils, slot machines take in over three
hundred billion yen annually. This is about 250 billion in US
dollars. This is a big business. About 70% of the slot
machine workers are Koreans and about 33% of the Koreans belong to
Chongryon. Thus, this is the primary business of
Chongryon.
What is the business tax rate in Japan? It is about 50%
and even the bonuses paid to employees are taxed. The
individual employees bear the brunt of this heavy tax. It is
natural then that many businesses and tax payers cheat and avoid
paying taxes. Due to the poor economy in Japan today, all
sorts of crimes are being committed. High school kids kill
their teachers with a sword, and so on. Crime waves are
rampant and the people fear for their life for the first time in
Japan.
Looking through Japanese product catalogues, I have
noticed that they allow monthly installment payments. How long have
they been using this method of payments? Even shoddy products
are being sold on a payment plan. It appears that the payment
plan is due to slow sales.
Photo: Left to right, Huh Jong Man, Jung Tae Wha, and Suh Man
Sul, on the occasion of Jung's visit to Tokyo on August 23,
2000.
Our socialist system is people-centered and we say that we serve
the people, but the truth of the matter is that our economic system
is not quite like that. In a capitalist society, customers
are catered to and their pockets are picked clean in every possible
way.
The socialist system is ice-cold and indifferent to the
customers/consumers. In our country, our store workers
take the attitude that they don't care of the customers buy
anything or not. Instead of servicing the customers and trying to
sell something, they would rather that patrons did not show up so
that they won't have to do anything.
In a capitalist nation, service is everything. When our
people visit Japan, they are courted everywhere with "Welcome,
welcome, please come in". Japanese eateries have managers who
supervise the servers, and any service boy in trouble with a patron
is severely reprimanded or punished. In our country, our
servers are never fired for poor service. On the contrary,
the patrons are expected to pay and bow to the servers for the
privilege. It should be that those who receive money should
thank the givers, but alas, here in this country, it is just
the opposite.
Capitalism has been around over one hundred years now and it
tries all sorts of things to stay alive. As I have told
Secretary Kim Ki Nam earlier, there are many things that we must do
some research on. The Japanese devils are not
creative. They are good at copying other people's creations
and then modifying them. Our Leader Kim Il Sung said
that the Japanese devils have no creation of their own. Every
product they have, they have borrowed or stolen from other
people.
The real ruler of South Korea is the United States
government. Today, South Korea is in a turmoil, politically and
economically. Seoul officials are trying to restore economic
stability but I doubt they will make it.
Kim Dae Jung is caught between a rock and a hard place. He has
problems with the National Intelligence Agency, Cheju-do, the
broadcast service sector, and so on. He is desperately
trying to find his way out. He is not going to fix the
economy. I have been reading up on the news from South Korea and
see that the South Korean devils are screaming in pain deep in a
financial bankruptcy.
Photo: Kim Ja Joong, the former chairman of the Daewoo Group
was fingered by Kim Jong Il as the most evil capitalist of South
Korea.
The South Korean devils prospered for about ten years starting
in 1988 but now they are broke and dirt poor. I hear they are
writing to their Chongryon relatives for money to tide them
over. The South Korean devils fear that their defense
industries may go kaput and are pouring money to shore them up. It
may be for this reason that their defense industries are still
robust.
Among the capitalists of South Korea, Kim Ja Joong is the most
evil. The Daewoo Group is the worst. Daewoo has monopoly on
defense contracts. Kim Ja Joong is a trickster, sly as a
fox. He has no ethics. The third-generation capitalists
are fairly honest bunch, but this Kim fellow is a leech sucking up
to whoever in power and lines up his pocket. Much of his money has
been squirreled away in foreign banks and his fortune is less
affected by South Korea's economy. Kim has government
contracts on building submarines and other defense projects and so,
he is not affected by the economic crisis.
Kim Dae Jung has been victimized by the National
Intelligence Agency (NIA). He limps thanks to NIA It was NIA
that labeled Kim Dae Jung a pro-Communist during his presidential
election campaign. Kim Dae Jung is a nasty person and he is
not going to forgive NIA so easily.
Master Oh Ik Je (former head of Chungdo-Gyo of South Korea,
defected to North Korea) knows Kim Dae Jung quite well. Oh
tells me that Kim Dae Jung has many peasant-like attributes and
humble in some ways but he can be quite nasty.
Photo: Kim Young Sam, former president of South Korea, is a
dirt-bag according to Kim Jong Il.
Kim Young Sam is a filthy dirt-bag. One thing I feel
sorry for him is that he surrounded himself with bad
advisors. When Leader Kim Il Sung passed away, Kim
Young Sam could not attend the funeral because of his
advisors. I hear Kim himself regrets having had bad
helpers.
When Leader Kim Il Sung died, I discussed with Secretary Kim
Yong Soon what to do if Kim Young Sam wanted to attend the funeral,
and made a detailed plan to receive him. But he did not come, and
we were very upset with him. If he had any wisdom, he would
have come to the funeral. If he had come, he might have taken
over North Korea and become president of a united Korea. What
an idiot!
The primary objective of the United States in Asia is to box in
China. The Yankee devils yak about US-China friendship or
alliance, but their long-term intent is to stop China from becoming
a superpower, and all of their activities in Asia are geared to
their ultimate goal. Clinton's popularity rose after the
Tienanmen Massacre. Clinton is doing well in the White
House. Jack Kennedy tried to make a name for himself but he
was rubbed out before he had the chance. This Clinton fellow
is only 52, but he got elected to the White House twice. He is
quite a guy.
We have many South Koreans working on construction projects at
Kumho. They are lazy and the work is progressing at a snail's
pace. At the rate they have been working, their great-grand
children will be working on the projects. These South Korean
devils are the proverbial hired hands whose job it is to drag their
feet as long as they can. Japanese companies in the United
States are all failing - except Sony, which supplies parts to the
US defense contractors. The United States awards defense
contracts to Japan's Sony, Germany's Benz, and Swiss
companies.
We have untapped oil fields and once we develop our oil fields,
our economy will change dramatically. Once we get the oil flowing,
we won't need to work our farms. We will sell our oil to the
Japanese devils and buy their rice. Our oil will be like a nuclear
weapon for us.
Taiwan is unaffected by the current economic freeze.
Taiwan's foreign currency reserve is the largest in the
world. Deng Shiaping told Leader Kim Il Sung that there
were four unsinkable carriers: South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia,
and Taiwan. Of these, Taiwan is still floating. All others
have sunk. Hong Kong is no exception. Some of our
people thought that we might benefit from Hong Kong, but Hong Kong
is in no shape to help anyone.
To be honest, we like the current financial meltdown in
Asia. Some of our people in charge of our economy had
harbored some illusions about emulating the capitalist economy of
Asia, but now the current crisis made them realize how wise Leader
Kim Il Sung's policy of self-reliance is. It was a rude
awakening to these people.
KEDO allotted South Korea a large fraction of the light-water
reactor construction costs. With the economic crisis in South
Korea, KEDO is saying that we should accept thermal electric power
stations instead of the nuclear reactors as promised. KEDO says it
can deliver thermal power stations right away - a nonsense.
We don't have enough coal to fire up our existing thermal power
stations and building additional thermal power stations would be
lunacy. What KEDO wants is to delay the reactor project as
long as possible to bring us down.
The Yankee devils has been going slow building the reactors and
at the current rate, we won't see the reactors completed in our
generation. The Yankee devils had agreed to build the
reactors on paper but the reactors won't be finished anytime soon
for one excuse after another. We have the right to break the
Agreed Framework if the rectors are not inished on time. The
Yankee devils are under pressure and we will deal with them
sternly.
In our life, we don't get an unbroken string of misfortunes and
we get lucky now and then. I would like to tell you comrades
about a heart-breaking story.
In late 1960, Great Leader Kim Il Sung had our people
negotiate a contract with an Austrian company for a complete steel
mill. The price tag was ten million pounds, about ten million
US dollars. Lee Ju Yun, vice premier at the time, told the
Leader that we had no money to pay for the mill. What
could the Leader do without money? No money, no Austrian steel
mill.
Photo: the Kim Chaik Steel Mill.
Vice Premier Lee proposed to the Leader that we should negotiate
with the Soviet Union for a steel mill. That is how we got the Kim
Chaik Steel Mill. The Soviets, too, dragged their feet and
the mill was not completed until 1970. We have the furnaces
working now but we don't have cold steel rolling machines
installed. If you look at the trams in Pyongyang, you will
see how rough their outer bodies are.
The Austrian devils got angry and demanded compensation when we
had to cancel our contract because we did not have the money.
When we did not respond to their demand, they sold the steel mill
to South Korea at a discounted price. The South Korean devils
got a steel mill at a bargain price and began to make weapons to
fight against us If we had tightened our belt a little
tighter and bought the Austrian steel mill, we could have avoided
all the tribulations we had to endure with the Soviet mill. Our
people in charge of trade were so incompetent in those days that
our nation could not afford even ten million dollars.
Chongryon must provide assistance in our socialist construction
and economy. Chongryon must contribute to our agricultural
development. What we need the most in our agricultural sector
are higher-yield seeds. We need to bring in new seeds
across-board. Many nations of the world harvest large crops
with better seeds.
Suh Kwan Hee (Chosun Editor: Suh was executed for failing North
Korea's farms. He was accused of being an American spy.)
failed to introduce higher-yield seeds and distributed non-existent
fertilizers to our farms. This traitor ensured that our farms
failed to produce enough food for our people.
Our people in Yang-gang Province obtained potato seeds from a
foreign nation. With the new potato seeds, they claim we can
produce 40-50 tons of potatoes per 100 acres. If this is the
case, Yang-gang will be covered deep in potatoes. There must
be high-yield seeds in use by the Japanese farmers and Chongryon
ought to send some to us. In particular, we need better seeds
for vegetables and fruits from Chongryon. Most of the seeds
used in Japan are also suitable for Korea, weather and soil
wise. I hear vegetable yields are much higher in Japan than
in our country. One thing you should bear in mind is that we
are short on fertilizers and we need vegetables seeds that do not
require a great deal of fertilizers.
We want to renovate our animal husbandry and produce more meat
for our people. We are introducing better livestock - cows, pigs,
chickens, ducks, and other animals - from other nations. We have
the know-how to raise these animals. What we are lacking now is the
feed. We have a stock of cows that grow to 700 kg within six months
from birth. We would like Chongryon to send us better animal
stocks from Japan.
To be honest, Chongryon has been sending us things that are of
little use to us. You are throwing away money. What we need
from you are advanced technology and better seeds. It seems
the leaders of Chongryon are not well acquainted with the situation
here. What Chongryon needs is a Mun Ik Jum movement. Moon Ik
Jum is the patriot who smuggled cotton seeds from China and planted
them all across Korea. All overseas Koreans, not just
Chongryon, should become Mun Ik Jum and bring foreign technology
and goods to Korea.
Today, scientific technology is advancing rapidly in China. Our
compatriots in China can easily copy these advances to our nation,
but they are not doing that. One thing Chongryon has done
well is the establishment of micro-organic fertilizer plants. This
is the kind of thing we need. We don't need your symbolic
flags any more. We have no more rooms for them. Microbe
production technology, yeasts, and facilities from Japan will help
not only our agriculture but also our industries, medical sector,
environmental protection, and many others. By the fall of
this year, Chongryn has sent us 115 microbe fertilizer
plants. These plants should produce fertilizers for 100 to
150 million acres (one jongbo = 99 acres). We cannot rely on
chemical fertilizers alone and we must use more microbe
fertilizers.
In operating microbe fertilizer plants, our most pressing
problem is the shortage of molasses. I hear that Chongryon people
have found a way to reduce molasses usage from 80% to 20%.
This should solve our molasses shortage. With microbe
fertilizers, rice crop yields would jump to about 12 tons per 100
acre. That would really help us.
We have been using weed killers extensively. Consequently, birds
and microbes have all but gone away from our farms. We need
to refresh our soil with new microbes. If we have to, we
ought to import additional microbe fertilizers from Japan and South
Korea. We must stop relying in chemical fertilizers
alone.
It would be nice if Chongryon would send us surplus goods and
used machines. These can be bought dirt cheap in Japan and
sold to us. Tile manufacturing plants and rolling facilities
would come handy. The Japanese economy is down and it should
be easy to acquire and send these here. Chongryn can really
help us here.
Of course, we can obtain these through normal trades. But how
can we save our face and ask the Japanese devils for cheap used
merchandise? Our trading people are reluctant to negotiate
such deals, and Chongryun should step in and help us out
here.
At present, economy is down in nations like Japan, and many
small to medium companies of good products are going
bankrupt. Chongryun could buy up at bargain prices the
machines and goods from bankrupt companies in Japan and ship them
here. We will pay Chongryon, of course. One thing we
must avoid is to buy only parts of a factory and try to fill the
missing parts with things made here. We want complete working
factories ready to go even if we had to pay extra. Getting
parts of factory in order to save some money ends up costing us
more money.
There have been many instances of our trade workers having
bought incomplete factories. Most of the imported factories
that are not doing well are those partial plants that our trade
workers bought trying to save a few bucks. Those plants that we
bought in toto are all working fine.
During my 1983 visit to China, Hua Kuofeng and I visited the
Bosan Thermal Power Station. It was imported from another
country. China is technologically advanced enough to build
its own power plants, but it decided to buy the plant abroad.
I asked Hua why? He said that China could have built the
station but the foreign plant was better. In contrast, our
people reason differently. Their idea is to buy only those
parts that we cannot make and the rest we build here. This
kind of attitude has led to many costly failures.
Look at the Pyongyang Thermal Power Plant, which we bought from
the Soviets. They had switched over to heavy oil thermal production
and gave us their obsolete coal burning power plant. We are paying
dearly for our mistakes. The power plant stop working often
and the people of Pyongyang are freezing. I cannot bear
watching them suffer like that. I have made my mind that once
we start producing our own oil, we will shut down the obsolete coal
power stations and replace them with heavy oil power
stations.
Even if we started producing oil now, we have no oil storage
facilities or oil refineries and so, we want to use our crude oil
to generate power.
The Soviets refused to help us with any degree of honesty
because we refused to join the Soviet block economic coop and also,
we were not subservient to them. They helped us when we were
nice to them and refused to help when we did not agree with
them. The Soviets gave nuclear power stations to Cuba and
other socialist nations except us and Albania. Our Leader Kim
Il Sung began to implement his self-reliance at the time and could
not accept the Soviet domination. Consequently, we have lost
many opportunities.
If we had known that the mighty Soviet Union would fall apart so
suddenly, we would have bought a nuclear power station from the
Soviets even if we had to crawl before them. But we did not.
After the fall of the Soviet Union, the Russians are starting to
work with us.
Japan depends on the United States for computer technology.
Awhile ago, the Japanese prime minister visited the United States
and asked for the circuit design of the latest computer, but he was
turned down. The United States doesn't mind sharing old technology
but it keeps its latest technology to itself. Japan may be
manufacturing fancy computers now but their computers are not on
the cutting edge of computer technology, and they will remain
so.
Now South Korea is trying to get Japan to share its computer
technology, even though it is not up-to-date. Japan, of course,
refuses to share its computer design with South Korea. Today,
South Korea brags about its computers on TV commercials but the
South Korean computers don't even come close to American
computers. We have to butter up to the Americans and get the
best they have.
Our People's Army regards the United States its sworn enemy but
our people engaged in trades address the Americans with much
respect. This is called the principle of 'hard inside,
soft outside'.
Chongryon should bring us factories to process our raw
materials. In the 1960s, Chongryon workers brought us
many factories in a patriotic movement. But all these factories
have shut down. The reason is that these factories were not for
processing raw materials we have here. These factories required raw
materials that had to be imported from Japan and other
countries. The Chongryon workers were good-intentioned
but they did not understand the situation here and kept on sending
factories that could not work here. It was a waste of money
and time.
Comrade Lee Jin Gyu tried to keep the factories going by
importing raw materials from Japan but it was of no use. To
be honest, our nation is so isolated from the rest of the world and
communication with outside world is not smooth. Therefore,
Chongryon workers should look for factories that match our needs
and that can be reassembled and expanded with ease.
As I mentioned earlier, Chongryun workers should buy up
factories from bankrupt companies in South Korea and resell them to
us.
I have read on a Japanese magazine that Japanese scientists have
come up with drugs that kill off flies from fields and mountains.
Please find out where these drugs are being made.
Chongryon has a soccer team. Do you have a basketball
team? You could select some promising athletes to be trained
here. Basketball players must be tall and young in age.
If you would send us three or so tall young men, it would be
nice. I hear an American basketball team wants to come here
for a friendly game. The team would come here mid-August. It would
have about 60 people including 20 athletes.
We have two basic breeds of dogs: Pungsan and Jindo. Do
they sell Punsan and Jindo dogs in Japan? Pungsan is in
Yanggang but it has come to the end of progeny and we must find a
breeding stock of Pungsan dogs. We don't want our own native dogs
to die out. We must make sure that Pungsan and Jindo dogs
prosper and propagate. Our people are quite indifferent to
the future of our dogs. That is wrong. These dogs belong to
Korea and we must preserve them.
If there are no Pungsan and Jindo dogs for sale in Japan, then
you must acquire them in South Korea and introduce them to
Japan. I hear South Korea has Pungsan dogs.
Someone told me about a fight between a Pungsan and a Jindo. He
said Pungsan was the winner.
Our people don't know how to save money for rainy days. The
Japanese are good at saving. They are also very frugal
probably because they live on islands. They are good at making a
living, too. We encourage arts and sports. In order to
maintain our revolutionary optimism, we need the whole nation
active in arts and sports. Arts and sports are open to all in our
country.
During the February festivities, the Kumgang Art Troupe came,
and recently, I heard that local music groups came here to
perform. Next time they come here, I would like to attend
their shows. The last time I watched a Chongryun show was
about two years ago.
Next, I would like to tell you about some realities here.
Comrade Huh Jong Man told me that Chongryung could not serve the
nation adequately because the Chonryong leaders were not well
informed of the situation here. He is quite right. The
Chongryon leaders live in a hostile nation and read news papers
that are hostile to us. Therefore, they don't know what is going on
here.
The hostile news reporters pick up a story and embellish it with
fancy lies to sell newspapers. About 80% of what they publish are
lies. It may be that our news organs are not working
effectively but the Japanese devils and the South Korean puppets
are spreading false rumors of military coup in our nation.
I must let you know the truth about Suh Kwan Hee, who had
sabotaged our agriculture, and the incident at the Hwanghae Steel
Mill. I must tell you that Suh was an enemy spy. Under
the cover of Juche research, Hwang Jang Yup was actively sabotaging
us in the political arena and Suh Kwang Hee was wrecking our
farms under the cover of a Party secretary.
Suh was a long-time Party member and did everything he could to
ruin our agriculture. For a long time, Suh refused to send a
farm delegation to Japan using one excuse after another because he
feared that they might receive better seeds from Chongryun.
Better seeds would have worked counter his plan to starve us
slowly.
Suh became a traitor in 1950. He would hardly do anything
at the Party meetings for discussing farm problems. Even when
he was the Party secretary for agriculture, he had precious little
to say about farming. He was a filthy traitor loyal to his
masters to the very end.
You have most likely read or heard about the so-called coup
attempt of the 6th Army Corps in the North Hamgyong Province on
Japanese news papers, magazines and radios. It was a baseless lie.
There was no such attempt. What really happened was that we found
some defects in the political indoctrination program of the Corp
and had to remove some officers after self-criticism
meetings. Contrary to the published reports, neither the
Corps commander nor the political commissar was executed.
The joint chief-of-staff, who was the Corps commander in
question, is here today. After the so-called coup attempt, he
was promoted to the joint chief-of-staff. Now the enemy
propagandists claim that the political commissar was behind the
coup and that it was he who was executed. The truth of the
matter is that the commissar was relieved because of his stomach
cancer.
I will tell you what really happened at the Hwanghae Steel
Mill. The incident at the Mill was first reported by some
Koreans resident in China. We spent three years mourning the
death of our Leader Kim Il Sung and coincidentally, were hit
with natural disasters. We found ourselves in a dire
situation and could not provide enough electric power to the
Hwanghae Steel Mill.
The Mill had to stop operation. Some bad elements of our society
in cahoots with the Mill management began to dismantle the Mill and
sell its machines as scrap metals to Chinese merchants. By
the time we got wind of what was going on, more than half of the
mill had been stripped away. For nearly a year, the thieves
took over the Mill and stole people's properties at will. They
bought out Party leaders and security officers, and consequently,
no one had informed us about their thievery.
Everybody was in the take at the Mill and we had to send in an
army to retake the Mill. The army surrounded the Mill and arrested
the thieves. The army recovered people's properties from the
thieves. Some of our trading people were involved in this massive
fleecing of the Mill.
The enemy reporters claimed that an army unit mutinied and took
over the Mill. A Taiwan new organ went so far as to claim that the
coup was led by the joint chief-of-staff. Mun Myong Ja (a
Korean-American reporter) heard about the army 'coup' and rushed
here to find out the truth. Miss Mun found that no such event
had occurred.
The enemy news organs seem to track every move made by the joint
chief-of-staff. If he is not seen in public for several days, they
wonder what he is up to. You comrades have families and know
that family life goes through many events. Our joint
chief-of-staff, too, has a family to take care
of. The basic problem is that the Japanese and
South Korean bastards have dark shady motives and assume that we
have dark shady motives, too. They see the events here
through their colored glasses. Those people from hostile
nations who visit us are shocked when they see the real truth
here.
Currently we are poor and our life is hard, but you won't see
any people on Earth that is as united as we are. You Chonryun
people hear and read the hostile news stories every day and so, it
will be good for young Chongryun workers to visit here and refresh
their faith in us. We have a Chongryung cadre training school
at the foot of Mt. Yongak and young Chongryun leaders should spend
sometime there learning our Party doctrines.
We continue to ask the World Red Cross for food assistance,
because we are in fact short of food; but the main reason is that
our seeds have degraded thanks to Suh Kwang Hee's treachery. Our
production has declined steadily because of the bad seeds. We
are replacing them with better seeds but it will take about three
years to fully recover. We need food aids to tide us over during
this transition period.
You may have received letters from your relatives living here
about the food shortage. The situation is not as bad as it may
appear. We make sure that the Army has enough to eat and the
farmers and government workers get less food. The residents
of Pyongyang receive many benefits from the government and they
live better than the people in the rest of the country. For this
reason, we cut back rations to the Pyongyang residents and at the
same time, upped rations for the rest of the people. Ignorant
of this, some people panicked and wrote you that our nation had
only week's supply of food left, and so on.
Last year, the whole army was mobilized to grow food. The
main finding of the army is that the seeds must be replaced, and we
have began to bring in better seeds. But it will take about
2-3 years at the least to replace the old seeds with the new. Until
then, our food shortage will persist.
We have been on a forced march for several years now and we are
finding a number of structural problems. Had we held a Party
Congress or the Supreme People's Council before the end of the
three-year mourning period after Leader Kim Il Sung's death, we
would be facing food shortages for ten years or more. The
lesson learned is that you need to know who is who. Today,
all of the senior leaders are old revolutionaries who had worked
with Leader Kim Il Sung. We have to ensure that they stay on
for a long time to come.
Our enemies report almost daily so many millions have starved to
death and so forth, and do all they can to defame and demonize
us. You comrades are here to witness the truth and report
what you have seen here when you are back in Japan.
That is why I took you along on my onsite guidance trip to the
armament factory in a remote village. I wanted you to see how
the factory workers lived and how they differed from the residents
of Pyongyang. I wanted you to see if there were people dying
on the roadsides from hunger.
As you have seen from your auto trip, there were no starving people
on the roadsides and the factory workers are healthier than the
people in Pyongyang. I hope that you saw the might of our
nation and the optimism of our workers. We have to study how best
to let you know of the true situations of our nation. As I
have said earlier, our situation is not as grave as our enemies
would have you believe.
To be frank with you, we want to right our economy by educating our
people better. Previously, only our foreign service people
cried for help but now all people do so. Thus, all of us tell
foreigners about this shortage or that shortage, and take them to
the worst place for them to see. In the past, foreign
visitors were taken to the best show places and people were taught
to say that they were living well. But now faced with the
economic isolation forced on us by our enemy, we need foreign aids
and present sad pictures to foreign visitors.
It is true that the shortage of electricity is indeed acute
here. We had ample electricity when Leader Kim Il Sung was
alive. You may wonder why is it that we are short of electric
power now? The reason is simple. We had natural
floods several years in a row, which was unprecedented in our
history, and our coal mines got flooded. We could not dig
enough coals to keep our thermal power plants going.
That is why we are short of electricity and our people are
suffering. Our economy is suffering for lack of electric power
because our coal mines are flooded.
Our country has an excellent political system and beautiful
rivers and mountains. The South Korean devils are dying to lay
their hands on our rivers. Ironically, our people are so used
to our rivers and mountains that they don't appreciate what they
have. Someday they will learn that water is more precious
than heavy oil.
We have students from China attending our schools. The
Chinese students are impressed by how clean Pyongyang and the
adjacent towns are compared to places in China. The
Chinese students say that China used to be clean until about ten
years ago when industrial reforms and fast expansion began to
pollute the environment and destroy scenic places. The
Chinese people are belatedly trying to reverse the trend.
We are not isolationists but we want to keep the status quo. We
don't want hordes of tourists to come here and spread AID and
pollute our land. Some Chongryon traders came here via
Beijing. They say Beijing is no place to live. I don't
think there is any country that is as unpolluted as our nation
is. Our people don't appreciate it but people from other
nations who come here appreciate what we have here. Once we get on
own feet and start harvesting enough rice for our people, we would
have nothing we would want from other nations.
In a capitalist nation, people abide by the law from cradle to
grave. All persons must obey the law and the law is enforced
universally. Our people have incorrect understanding of how
our laws should work. In a socialist country, Party organs,
government officials, and social groups are keen on political
indoctrination but little attention is paid to the laws of the
land. Revisionists utilize this weakness and weaken
socialist systems by over-emphasizing laws and ignoring political
indoctrination. Gorbachov brought down the Soviet Union using
this tactic. Today, the Chinese leaders are on the same
path.
As you comrades know so well, having lived in a capitalist
nation for so long, people in a capitalist society must obey the
law no matter where they live. Chongryon, too, must obey the
Japanese laws, otherwise the Japanese police will crack down.
Civil laws are stronger than Party rules but we have no civil laws
here. Some people in our country claim to be socialists but
they commit criminal acts. This is a glaring weakness of our
system.
In a capitalist nation, police go around wielding clubs and give
the impression that people fear the police. The truth is that it is
the prosecutors that people fear the most. Our people don't
know which is which, they don't know who has more authority.
This is one of the shortcomings of a socialist nation.
It is important that Chongryon study the Japanese laws and take
advantage of them. At the same time, Chongryon must embrace
fellow Koreans of all social strata and new generations of Koreans,
and educate them effectively. I hear that our cruiseship
Mangyong 92 has to cater to Japanese businessmen and bribe the
police with large sums of money in order to get anything
loaded. In our country, a few hundred dollars are enough to
bribe some security officers. This shows in a way how bad our
judicial system is in comparison to that of a capitalist
nation.
In our nation today, people are at the center of the society and
enjoy free creative living. But we must make our nation into a
nation governed by laws. Today, Party cadres and security officers
operate outside the law without exception. Party members are
citizens of our Republic and they too must obey the
laws.
In a capitalist nation, money talks and everything involves
money. We don't want this aspect of a capitalist system. But
one thing we admire in a capitalist system is the law, which all
citizens obey and and which maintains the social order.
Recently, some Western devils came to China on joint
ventures. After a few months in China, they left complaining
that the Chinese laws changed so often that it was impossible to do
business in China. In China, there are layers of legal
entities that pass laws: thus, the Beijing city government passes a
law, a few days later, the Chinese joint venture partners make
changes in the agreement, and on top of these, the central
government in Beijing issues a new law. The laws are then
revamped within a year. A Swiss textile company was so
exasperated with the Chinese laws, it abandoned its investments in
China and left in disgust. The Swiss partner asked our
ambassador to China - :"What's so great about socialism?"
In a capitalist nation, even the prime minister and the
president are prosecuted if they break the law. We must study
how to strengthen our legal system. Japanese police fear the
prosecutors. Who do the prosecutors fear? Do they fear the
police? You said that the police will go after any prosecutor
who breaks the law. Few prosecutors have been arrested in
Japan. The main reason is the strict selection process of a
prosecutor. Law graduates take tough exams to become lawyers,
judges or prosecutors. Thus only the best get to become prosecutors
or judges.
Any graduate of middle school can become a cop but one must pass
an exam to become a prosecutor. Therefore, cops and prosecutors are
miles apart in qualifications. In our nation, any college graduate
can become a prosecutor, if the college so wishes.
Because of this, prosecutors in our nation carry no special
authority. In a capitalist nation, prosecutors are sworn to
uphold the law and defend the nation. Tanaka Kakuei, a former
Japanese prime minister, was arrested by a
prosecutor.
Law graduates must pass a special exam in order to become
prosecutors, and only the best qualified people should become
prosecutors. Currently, prosecutors are appointed just like
other jobs and they stay chummy with their former classmates.
It is tough to wield any authority for prosecutors in this kind of
system. Today, college graduates are assigned to Party
offices and government ministries although they have little to no
work experience. We must institute a qualification exam
system.
In our foreign ministry, workers are classed 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and
so on. But other ministries have no such ranks. In organs
like the Foreign Economic Cooperation, anyone who knows Kim Guk Tae
can join his outfit. We need to change this and require
specific knowledge of foreign trades of all workers of the
Cooperation. There ought to be qualifying exams and only
those who pass them should work there. I hear the Chinese are
implementing this kind of exams.
If you look at the workers in our economy sector, you see many
greenhorns sitting at the top telling seasoned workers what to do.
The people under them are not happy about taking orders from people
who have no idea what they are doing. Once I had the son of
Kim Man Jung, who was in charge of Chongryon business in the Iwade
Prefecture, placed with the Foreign Economic Cooperation. I
thought that since he had lived in Japan for so long, he would know
something about foreign trades. But he didn't. He knew nothing
about foreign trades.
For the time being, until we train our own people, we must bring
in overseas Koreans with expertise in foreign trades and give them
responsible jobs. In China, one of Deng Shioping's great
feats was to send 2000 or so students abroad annually to study and
upon their return, they were given important jobs. In
achieving economy reforms, Deng realized that China did not have
enough trained people to pull it off, and he had to have people
trained by foreign experts.
We have people at the top who don't have even the vaguest idea
on how to get our economy moving. All they are able to think
about is how much pay they are getting. Such is our sad
situation and we must change it fast. Many of our workers have poor
or no concepts of money. They are completely in the dark on
making profits. They know about meeting production quota but
they have no idea how to sell the products and make profits.
As I mentioned earlier there are several things we must learn
from capitalist nations. First of all, we must learn to abide by
the law; secondly, we must learn to use the best products ourselves
and sell inferior products abroad - we do just the opposite, we
sell our best products and keep inferior
ones.
In Japan, export goods are inferior to the goods consumed in
Japan. This is true of cigarettes and other merchandises. I
had a Sony recorder of the best quality bought in France and
another Sony of the same type in Japan. The one bought in Japan was
much superior to the one bought in France.
American computers made in the United States work better and
last longer. But the Macintosh sold to foreign customers are
assembled in Ireland and other nations and they are of poor quality
and break down often. For a year or two, we thought the
machines had no difference and bought them from Ireland. Later we
bought some machines from the United States and found that they
were different. Even the keyboards were different.
We suck on our fingers to kill our hunger pain and sell the best
of our local products. As if this were not enough, we sell our
sands, water, and other natural resources. Some people tell
me that in the future water will become the most important
commodity. You can live without crude oil but we cannot live
without water. I would like to tell people that our water
resources are more valuable than our oil reserves.
http://www.kimsoft.com/2003/kji-tape.htm