Author: Ken E. Gause

Publisher:

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 181

ISBN-13: 9780985648015

This report lifts the curtain on North Korea's three main security agencies, the State Security Department, the Ministry of Public Security, and the Military Security Command. Established with Soviet assistance in the mid to late 1940s and modeled on the Soviet secret police apparatus, North Korea's internal security agencies rely on constant surveillance, a network of informants in every neighborhood, and the threat of punishment in North Korea's notorious prison camps to ensure the Kim regime's total control. The security agencies play a primary role in restricting the flow of information and ensuring strict ideological conformity through harsh surveillance and coercion. North Koreans must participate in self-criticism sessions or face punishment, even time in a political prison camp. State security agents conduct routine checks to ensure that radio sets remain perpetually tuned to the state frequency, and '109 squads' roam border towns at night, arresting smugglers and confiscating South Korean TV shows and dramas that have entered the country via portable media storage devices. Nevertheless, the report also notes that the advent of post-famine small-scale private economic activity, cell phones, DVDs, USBs, smuggled radios and increased access to foreign broadcasting and bribes are beginning to erode some of the information blockade and political controls. Those North Koreans who assume great risks to gain access to information from the outside world and to impart information show courage, whether their actions are an act of dissent or just the result of wanting to learn more about the world. What might ultimately bring change to North Korea is the increased inflow and outflow of information. The security agencies, however, continue to enforce North Korea's information blackout, by increasing border surveillance and cracking down on marketplaces, unauthorized phone calls, and foreign broadcasting. Having ensured the survival of the Kim family's dynastic regime for six decades, North Korea's complex and ruthless internal security apparatus will no doubt continue to be a key element of Kim Jong-un's political control. Greater awareness of how it operates is essential to understanding how the Kim regime remains in power.