ID :
93737
Tue, 12/08/2009 - 11:46
Auther :
Shortlink :
https://www.oananews.org//node/93737
The shortlink copeid
N. Korea's repressive panel system prompts corruption: paper
SEOUL, Dec. 8 (Yonhap) -- North Korea's repressive and arbitrary panel system has helped the regime keep control of its citizens amid economic and social change sparked by the famine of the 1990s, but it has resulted in more bribery and "predatory" corruption, a state research institute said in a paper released Tuesday.
"As the state proved unable to provide food through socialist distribution
networks, the economy underwent a process of marketization from below.
Small-scale social units, households, factories and cooperatives, local
government and party offices, even military units, began engaging in
entrepreneurial behavior, much of it technically illegal, in order to survive,"
according to the paper by the Seoul-based Korea Development Institute.
"This unplanned and unwanted marketization eroded state control of the economy...
The penal system has played a central role in the government's repressive
response to economic and social change," it added.
The paper was co-authored by Stephan Haggard, an international relations and
Pacific Studies professor at the University of California, San Diego, and Marcus
Noland, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute of International Economics. It
was based on two surveys of North Korean refugees in China and South Korea over
the past several years.
Of the 102 refugees in South Korea who experienced imprisonment in the North,
only 13 said they received trials, with most others sent to collection centers or
training camps without due process, according to the paper. While they were
detained or imprisoned, a majority of the respondents say that they witnessed
executions, forced starvation, death from torture and the killing of newborns.
The paper noted that the judicial system helps the reclusive communist country
keep a strong grip on its citizens through "intimidation" but has ended up
encouraging bribery and extortion as people seek to avoid punishment.
"The more arbitrary and painful the experience with the penal system, the easier
it is for officials to extort money for avoiding it. These characteristics not
only promote regime maintenance through intimidation, but may facilitate
predatory corruption as well," it said.
kokobj@yna.co.kr
(END)
"As the state proved unable to provide food through socialist distribution
networks, the economy underwent a process of marketization from below.
Small-scale social units, households, factories and cooperatives, local
government and party offices, even military units, began engaging in
entrepreneurial behavior, much of it technically illegal, in order to survive,"
according to the paper by the Seoul-based Korea Development Institute.
"This unplanned and unwanted marketization eroded state control of the economy...
The penal system has played a central role in the government's repressive
response to economic and social change," it added.
The paper was co-authored by Stephan Haggard, an international relations and
Pacific Studies professor at the University of California, San Diego, and Marcus
Noland, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute of International Economics. It
was based on two surveys of North Korean refugees in China and South Korea over
the past several years.
Of the 102 refugees in South Korea who experienced imprisonment in the North,
only 13 said they received trials, with most others sent to collection centers or
training camps without due process, according to the paper. While they were
detained or imprisoned, a majority of the respondents say that they witnessed
executions, forced starvation, death from torture and the killing of newborns.
The paper noted that the judicial system helps the reclusive communist country
keep a strong grip on its citizens through "intimidation" but has ended up
encouraging bribery and extortion as people seek to avoid punishment.
"The more arbitrary and painful the experience with the penal system, the easier
it is for officials to extort money for avoiding it. These characteristics not
only promote regime maintenance through intimidation, but may facilitate
predatory corruption as well," it said.
kokobj@yna.co.kr
(END)
