The North Korean regime has provided the military provision from the output of the collective farms, the imported grains or foreign aid, and the harvest from the field run by the military. However, as it has become hard for them to provide the military provision for the one million of the People’s Army after the chaotic period of the 1990s, they started to collect the military provision coercively from the urban dwellers.
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In the video recorded in the winter of 2011 by an ASIAPRESS reporter, Kim Dong-cheol, a market staff is collecting rice or corn from the sellers one by one. He intimidates anyone who refuses to hand in.
The authority collects the military provision even from ‘Doekurikun (delivery man),’ and petty merchants who purchase rice, corn, or fruits from farmers and then sell them to sellers at markets. The urban poor, ‘Doekurikun,’ laments “Do they mean that we have to be starved to death?”
The North Korean authority plainly exploits the urban dwellers in the name of ‘patriotic rice,’ or ‘military provision.’
Related article: [Video Report] Back alley of Pyongyang: Never let foreigners go. Residents of central Pyongyang live on businesses in the market
* Editor’s notes on North Korean reporters
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