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PYONGYANG
WATCH
Puzzle of the vanished
'parliament'
By Aidan
Foster-Carter
Another day, another
Pyongyang puzzle. Last Friday, North Korea
abruptly canceled the regular annual session of
the Supreme People's Assembly (SPA), its nominal
parliament, just five days before it was scheduled
to open on March 9, this Wednesday.
According to the SPA Presidium - a
standing committee that does the SPA's job when
the full parliament is not in session, ie 99% of
the time - the third session of the 11th SPA was
postponed "at the requests made by deputies to the
SPA in all domains of the socialist construction".
But it insisted that this is only a postponement,
not a cancellation: "The date of the session will
be set and announced publicly," the Presidium
statement said.
In most countries,
canceling parliament would be headline news. Not
in North Korea. This brief item (just three
sentences) was listed last on the official Korean
Central News Agency's (KCNA's) English-language
digest for March 4 - below such weighty matters as
"Greetings to Bulgarian prime minister" and "New
tile adhesive developed".
Admittedly the
lead item that day was an unusually long
memorandum from the Democratic People's Republic
of Korea (DPRK) Foreign Ministry, detailing its
multifarious gripes with the United States. These
included the charge that US President George W
Bush "declared ... the ultimate goal of ending
tyranny ... [and] blustered that the US would
spread liberty and democracy of American style to
the whole world". Similarly, being tagged as an
"outpost of tyranny" by Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice in her confirmation hearings has
evidently stung Pyongyang.
Well, democracy
of any style, not just American, means a freely
elected legislature as the ultimate
decision-making body. Like other communist regimes
past and present, North Korea pays lip-service to
this, preserving the formal, outward trappings of
democracy.
But the Supreme People's
Assembly is a shell and a parody. Supreme? Nope,
just a rubber stamp. People's? Hardly: it's a
top-down tool of the ruling party and its leader.
And now, it doesn't even assemble! Makes you
wonder what the 687 deputies - more than twice as
many as South Korea's 299, by the way, for a
population half the size - do for their money.
One thing they don't do is contest
elections. Again in the usual communist style,
each constituency has just one candidate - for
whom everyone duly votes. And I do mean everyone.
North Korea used to claim not just mere 99%, but
full 100% turnouts and Yes votes. The former is
statistically impossible (people die, or are
away); so now the turnout is only 99.9% or so, to
allow for those abroad or at sea. But of those
99.9%, fully 100% reportedly endorse the candidate
foisted on them. Spoiled ballots are not reported.
Constituencies can be institutional as
well as geographical. Kim Jong-il's, No 649, is
believed to be military - which tells you where
real power in Pyongyang lies. Before the last
"election" in August 2003, the Dear Leader sent an
open letter to voters: declaring his candidacy,
and expressing his regret to all other
constituencies that had nominated him, saying that
unfortunately the rules prevented him from
standing in all of them. (Actually, why not cut
the BS and do that? It would be a more honest
picture of who runs this show.)
When the
Supreme People's Assembly meets, it's in the grand
Mansudae Assembly Hall. Unlike real parliaments
where deputies face each other - useful for debate
- Mansudae resembles the auditorium of a theater,
gently sloping downward toward a focal point. All
legislators face the same way, toward a tall,
gleaming-white statue of North Korea's founding
leader Kim Il-sung - and the platform party, who
are the power elite. Deputies' plush individual
armchairs - far comfier than the crowded hard
green benches of the British House of Commons, say
- come each equipped with Siemens microphones: to
say "Yes" in unison, when called
upon.
Which is not often, even at the best
of times. The SPA used to meet twice a year for a
few days. In the four years after Kim Il-sung died
in 1994, when Pyongyang's formal politics pretty
much shut down, it didn't convene at all. Since it
re-emerged in 1999, the pattern has been to meet
for a single day each spring, plus once after each
"election" every five years.
What can you
do in a day? Approve the budget, basically. Each
year the finance minister gives a budget speech
(this year's and last), while the premier says how
well the economy is overcoming the odd obstacle.
Neither speech is exactly brimming with data. But
this is as good as it gets in North Korea, so we
fact-starved analysts are grateful for every
crumb.
Sometimes we get better than
crumbs. When the SPA came out of hibernation in
1999, it was to hear finance minister Yun Ki-jong
- a rare woman in Pyongyang's top echelons, who
has since been sacked - report that,
astonishingly, the budget had shrunk by half since
1994: from 41.5 billion won (just under US$20
billion at the prevailing rate of exchange at the
time) to barely 20 billion won. No explanation was
offered, of course. But these numbers were a
graphic indicator of the North Korean economy's
dire plunge into famine and negative growth.
After that both revenue and spending
gradually crept up again each year, clawing back a
little of the ground lost. But in 2003, figures -
never numerous - disappeared completely. That
year's budget, and also 2004's, were notable for
containing not a single real number, just
percentages. The latter - percentages - had always
predominated; but in the past there'd be the odd
actual magnitude here and there, which you could
use as a basis to work out the rest. No longer.
Why so? Presumably because of July 2002's
economic "adjustment measures", which raised both
wages and (more so) prices by large multiples.
Obviously, that means the North Korean won is
worth much less in real terms now than before. But
just as these drastic reforms were never
officially promulgated, perhaps it was too
difficult technically - or too embarrassing
politically - to translate pre-2002 numbers into
post-2002 terms. In effect, this would mean both
admitting, and quantifying, massive and ongoing
inflation.
Pyongyang may be shy of
economic data, but in 2003 it did offer a
sociological profile of the newly elected Supreme
People's Assembly, courtesy of the latter's
credentials committee - 33.4% of them are workers
and 9.3% farmers. Or put another way, more than
half the assembly is non-proletarian and 20% are
female, far more than in South Korea. The
proportion of soldiers was not given (workers,
peasants and soldiers being the revolutionary core
classes).
Analysts in Seoul took heart
that half the members were new, including at least
five leading lights in inter-Korean ties. They
also looked technocratic: 91.9% were graduates,
with 89.5% described as "recipients of academic
degrees or titles, such as professors and doctors,
scientists, technicians and experts". But new
doesn't mean young. Half (50.1%) were aged between
36 and 55; almost as many (47.7%) were older,
while only 2.2% were 35 or under.
But what
difference does any of that make, if now they
can't even get their act together to meet for one
single lousy day? And why not? What's up?
North Korea: Politics denied
In
the flurry of commentary after the KCNA's brief
report of the SPA postponement, the least useful
wire report that I saw was the only one datelined
Pyongyang, from CNN. In North Korea, the usual
adage - "you had to be there" - doesn't apply.
I've heard Pyongyang-based diplomats ruefully
complain that on the spot is the last place one
would find out what's really going on there.
Being there didn't stop CNN from the
blunder of equating the SPA Presidium, which
announced the postponement, with the legislature.
In fact, of course, it's the SPA itself that is
the parliament. The Presidium is technically its
standing committee.
But filing from
Pyongyang adds its own constraints. As CNN
delicately put it, the SPA "is not considered a
forum for robust debate". (Yes, and Adolf Hitler
was not considered kind to Jews.) They further
describe it as "usually signing off on policies
already set by North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's
inner circle". Usually! The SPA is a rubber stamp,
period.
But is there maybe just the
teeniest risk now that it might not be? CNN -
cautious again - didn't speculate on why the SPA
session was suddenly postponed, but everyone else
did. There are three main hypotheses.
One is that this is all part of the ongoing
row with the United States over the six-party
talks, aimed at defusing the North Korean nuclear
crisis and persuading Pyongyang to abandon its
nuclear-weapons program. North Korea refuses to
return to the table unless the US administration
of President George W Bush says "sorry" for using
nasty words like "tyranny" and promises not to
seek regime change.
This could work in two
ways. Amid a welter of conflicting signals,
Pyongyang may need to fine-tune further the
precise mix of snarls and winks it seeks to convey
to Washington. Or on the home front, such an
unprecedented postponement - although during
1995-98 the SPA never met at all - might be meant
to emphasize an abnormal situation of tension.
Maybe. But domestic policy reasons are at
least as likely, and these could be economic.
Significantly, the official announcement said the
postponement was requested "by deputies ... in all
domains of the socialist construction". The
implication seems to be that all these good
citizens are far too busy right now doing their
bit for the economy, in their proper jobs, to
break off and trek all the way to the capital just
for some dumb meeting or other.
A second theory is that given that the focus
of these annual SPA sessions is largely economic,
a further big tranche of reform is in the offing -
and this time it might actually be officially
announced, for a change. In January the Dong-A
Ilbo, Seoul's oldest daily newspaper, carried what
seemed to be a knowledgeable inside story along
these lines, although it can't be confirmed.
On this account, the second phase of
reform will virtually do away with central
planning. Enterprises, though still state-owned,
will both buy their inputs and sell their products
to and from each other directly. Dual pricing will
be abolished: from now on, markets rule. Funding
will be sourced via banks; ditto settlement of
payments. The state is in retreat.
Heady
stuff - but perhaps not quite ready to be
announced? Or even, dare one suggest,
controversial?
A third possible reason to put off parliament
could be politics. Certain people predictably
pooh-poohed that idea. South Korea's Unification
Ministry was quick to rule out the suggestion that
there could possibly be political problems in
Pyongyang.
I sometimes think that if ever
the Korean People's Army tanks were to roll across
the Demilitarized Zone again, the Dr Panglosses at
Seoul's Unification Ministry would reassure us
this was just a map-reading error. Luckily, the
Defense Ministry and armed forces know the
difference between wishful thinking and prudence;
they keep their counsel, and keep their powder
dry.
As widely reported, there are many
signs that Pyongyang's hidden politics are heating
up. Everyone agrees that North Korean leader Kim
Jong-il has purged his brother-in-law and former
right-hand man, Jang Song-taek. This could be over
policy - Jang is said to oppose economic reform -
or it could be over the succession issue. One
version is that Jang adopted a bastard son of Kim
Il-sung, who is now a rival for dauphin with Kim
Jong-il's three known sons. The eldest of these,
Kim Jong-nam - once nabbed sneaking into Japan on
a fake passport - is said to have been the target
of a murder attempt in Vienna last November. A
palace shootout is also rumored.
Add in
the pressure on nukes from Washington et al, with
Pyongyang visibly squirming and sending out
contradictory hints. Add, too, the first video
evidence of dissident groups inside North Korea -
as it finally sinks in that the real cause of
their misery is not the evil imperialists, but the
crass policy choices of self-styled Great Leaders.
The usual suspects in Seoul have rubbished this
too, but surely the only question is: What took
them so long?
In sum, it is highly
plausible that North Korea's leadership, facing
four huge challenges - the economy, the
succession, the nuclear issue, the grassroots - is
split. Some want to do a Gaddafi: give up the
nasties, pocket the loot. Others would fight to
the death. Some see reform as saving their system,
others as dooming it. High stakes, and not an easy
choice.
And if they're divided, is it safe
to convene the Supreme People's Assembly as usual?
Or might the hallowed Mansudae Hall actually
witness an outbreak of real politics, for a
change? Even in North Korea, with decades of
experience of stage-managing politics as theater,
there are risks.
How do we know? Because -
as if it weren't obvious - the Dear Leader has
told us so. In what remains a key document, the
amazing transcript of his post-summit liquid lunch
in August 2000 with a batch of fawning South
Korean press barons, Kim was asked why there
hasn't been a full congress of the ruling Korean
Workers Party since 1980, and if he planned to
revise the KWP's declared goal of communizing the
South. His reply:
"Among the top officials
of the Workers Party, there are several who have
worked with president [and founder] Kim Il-sung.
So I find it difficult to revise the platform. If
[it] is changed, a lot of officials present here
will have to quit their posts. Some may claim that
if I initiate a revision of the platform, I am
trying to purge my opponents." Nervous laughter
all around.
Almost five years later, there
has still been no KWP congress. Evidently it's too
hard: in the present circumstances, they simply
can't be sure of bringing it off smoothly. As
discord in the ranks grows, might it not also get
difficult to hold the SPA? Is it business as
usual?
I may be wrong. Perhaps the SPA
will reconvene in a month or so, smooth and bland
as ever. Better yet, maybe it will announce
further reforms - with real numbers. In that case,
we can be fairly sure Kim Jong-il is in control.
(Whether he yet grasps the simple fact that he'll
never receive serious aid while clinging to his
nukes remains to be seen.)
Of course North
Korea has politics. Every country does, by
definition. Leaders inexorably face policy choices
- and ordinary people have views and rights,
whether or not they are free to voice or exercise
them. So far the regime has been good at
suppressing and hiding all this, but the mask is
slipping. The show must go on - but for how much
longer can it continue?
And why, finally,
do some South Koreans connive with Kim to suppress
any hint of an outbreak of real politics in
Pyongyang? Looks like an ostrich posture to me.
But the weird contortions of Seoul's self-styled
"progressives" are a topic for another day.
Let's leave them in absurd denial. Fact:
In Pyongyang, politics will out. Just wait and
see.
Aidan Foster-Carter is
honorary senior research fellow in sociology and
modern Korea at Leeds University, England. He has
followed North Korean affairs for 35 years.
(Copyright 2005 Asia Times Online Ltd.
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