DPRK: RASON THROUGH THE EYES OF AN AID WORKER

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 SHENYANG 000076 SIPDIS DEPARTMENT FOR EAP/K, EAP/CM, DRL/IRF, PRM E.O. 12958: DECL: TEN YEARS AFTER KOREAN UNIFICATION TAGS: PINR PGOV PREL PHUM KIRF KN KS CH SUBJECT: DPRK: RASON THROUGH THE EYES OF AN AID WORKER REF: A. (A) SHENYANG 67 ¶B. (B) SHENYANG 68 ¶C. (C) 07 SHENYANG 133 ¶D. (D) SHENYANG 7 Classified By: CONSUL GENERAL STEPHEN B. WICKMAN. REASONS: 1.4(d). ¶1. (C) SUMMARY: Rason, in northeastern North Korea, is home to a variety of foreign-assistance ventures, involving everything from agriculture and animal husbandry to power generation, transportation and pharmaceuticals, according to a Westerner involved in several projects there, but tensions have emerged among government bureaus over the area's degree of openness. The late 2007 arrest of a Canadian humanitarian worker led to a palpable tightening of strictures on Rason's foreign aid community, including on religious life, that continues. PRC nationals abound in Rason, but some local North Koreans grumble about their northern neighbors. Our contact reported that Russian personnel involved in the implementation of an April 2008 Russia-DPRK agreement to improve the railway/port around/in Rajin have already arrived on site. END SUMMARY. ¶2. (C) During a recent trip to the PRC-DPRK borderlands of Jilin Province, Poloff met May 16 with a Western humanitarian worker involved in several aid ventures in Rajin-Sonbong (Rason),on the DPRK's far northeastern coast. Temporarily back in China's Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture preparing for another return trip to the DPRK, the humanitarian worker offered a read-out on Rason's foreign aid community; recent atmospherics in the area; and the significant Chinese presence there, inter alia. RASON AID VENTURES, HEALTH TROUBLES, INTERNAL TENSIONS -------------- -------------- ¶3. (C) Rason is currently home to a wide variety of foreign-assistance ventures, though a precise tally of projects and personnel remains elusive. Our contact, for instance, is personally familiar with at least 25-30 discrete aid endeavors, though she explained that these constitute only a subset of the greater aid community in Rason. Existing projects with which our contact is familiar involve everything from food production (e.g., small bread/noodle factories) and small-scale agriculture (e.g., greenhousing) to animal husbandry--aid groups are trying increasing amounts of chicken farming of late, she noted--power generation (e.g., harnessing water/wind), transportation infrastructure and pharmaceutical manufacturing. ¶4. (C) Expanding on national deficiencies in the DPRK, our contact explained that her group's North Korean minders regularly ask her and her colleagues for medicines to treat their sick children. Tuberculosis remains particularly prevalent in Rason, she claimed. North Korean officials there recently asked a Rajin-based group--the operator of a pharmaceutical venture, where a friend of hers works--for two container-trucks full of IVs, apparently in part for treating tuberculosis patients. (NOTE: Our contact claimed that according to the friend involved in the Rajin pharmaceutical venture, China earlier in the year clamped down on what she described as a "black-market channel" for shipping expired/poor quality medicine into North Korea. She offered this without any details. END NOTE.) ¶5. (C) Turning to Rason officialdom, our contact claimed tensions abide between local officials in charge of foreign investment and officials responsible for overseeing the area's aid community. Citing direct conversations with Rason investment officials--the primary interlocutors of our contact's NGO, which operates one of the few humanitarian aid projects in Rason licensed as commercial ventures--our contact explained that frictions stem from the investment bureau's comparatively greater openness/permissiveness toward foreigners, from whom it is eager for investment. Recalling more offhand comments made SHENYANG 00000076 002 OF 003 by Rason investment officials, our contact also suggested ongoing frictions existed between what she described as the more progressively-minded Rason and the more conservative Pyongyang over the number of foreign aid workers in Rason and the area's overall degree of openness. RASON TIGHTENS: KIM ARRESTED, NGOS "HASSLED" -------------- ¶6. (C) The November 2007 arrest--and subsequent two-month detention--of KIM Je Yell, a Korean-Canadian humanitarian worker involved in Rajin since the 1990s, led to a palpable tightening of strictures on Rason's aid community. (NOTE: Kim was released in early 2008, but the precise reasons for his arrest remain unclear. The ostensible trigger, according to our contact, was North Korean authorities' alleged discovery of writings unflattering to the DPRK government in the form of notes Kim had taken at a conference he had attended overseas. Another contributing factor likely included the religious worship sessions he led for foreigners in Rason. Kim's organization's practice, in the months before his arrest, of ferrying in appreciable numbers of foreigners into Rason without clear purposes, in some cases seemingly for tourism, also likely attracted further scrutiny. Our contact added that Rason officials--with whom she said Kim enjoyed good relations-- privately "made clear" to her own colleagues that the order to arrest Kim had come directly from Pyongyang. END NOTE.) ¶7. (C) Since Kim's arrest, for instance, she said North Korean customs officials have enhanced already rigorous inspections of Rason-destined aid workers when they cross into the DPRK from China (via Quanhe Land Port, near Hunchun). Once in Rason, officials generally "hassled (aid groups) more" in small ways not done before, said our contact without elaborating. More challenging operationally has been the ensuing greater difficulty--and longer wait times--in securing the official DPRK invitation letters that allow Rason's aid groups to renew visas or add additional team members in the area. Our contact alleged Rason's visa-related clampdown tightened further in late April or early May, when Rason officials explicitly proscribed Kim's associates from bringing any new individuals into the DPRK. Some aid groups, however, have fared better. Our source's group, for instance, is still able to secure renewal-invitations for existing workers already "in the system" (i.e., known to the North Koreans, working in Rason),though the process is appreciably longer than in the period before Kim's detention. ¶8. (C) North Koreans officials also attempted to tighten strictures, or at least the enforcement thereof, on religious life for foreigners in Rason. Following Kim's arrest, Rason officials requested aid workers to return to China on weekends, knowing that Christian workers typically worshipped together on Sundays. They knew that such services had been happening in Rason in the past but "put up with it" provided no North Korean nationals were involved, explained our contact, a participant in such Sunday fellowship sessions. Our contact knows of "several" aid groups who are currently complying with the North Korean request, but also of others who are not and do not appear to be suffering major consequences. NORTH KOREAN VIEWS OF THE CHINESE PRESENCE IN RASON -------------- -------------- ¶9. (C) PRC nationals--business personnel in particular-- abound in Rason, but our contact suggested a certain ambivalence among some local North Koreans about their neighbors across the Tumen River. During her trips from Yanbian into North Korea, our contact typically sees large numbers of PRC trucks on the road from Quanhe Land Port to Rason. PRC businessmen in Rason are numerous, operating everything from market stalls to Chinese restaurants. Most establishments she frequents and all taxis she uses accept both North Korean won and Chinese renminbi as payment. Much of Rason's produce and other food staples are imported from China. (NOTE: Food prices in Rason surged in recent months, eroding workers' salaries; see refs A-B. END SHENYANG 00000076 003 OF 003 NOTE.) ¶10. (C) Purely anecdotal observations and conversations with her organization's North Korean laborers and Rason investment officials, however, ultimately led our contact to assess that North Koreans in Rason "don't like" the Chinese. They "tolerate" the Chinese because they "need" their northern neighbors for investment and trade, including food. Poor experiences with certain Chinese businesspeople and investors appears to fuel this ill will further among North Korean officials. In a candid moment, for example, a Rason investment official told our contact's colleagues that "some" Chinese businessmen are "not trustworthy" as business partners, confiding that he tends to "trust" other foreigners more. (NOTE: Chinese businessmen in northeast China commonly complain to us about unscrupulous North Korean partners, but we have also heard the less-common, converse observation elsewhere; see ref C. END NOTE.) More mundane dynamics might also be at work. Several North Koreans, for instance, grumbled to our contact about the "inappropriate" dress of some Chinese women--typically the assistants who travel along with their Chinese businessmen-bosses, as opposed to the resident Chinese businesswomen who tend to dress more modestly in relatively conservative Rason society. (An unofficial dress code proscribes aid workers from wearing jeans, for instance.) In restaurants, many Chinese businessmen tend to come across as "loud and arrogant," acting as if they are "not guests" in the country, she added, caveating the anecdotal nature of these impressions. RUSSIANS ALREADY IN RASON FOR RAILWAY/PORT PROJECT -------------- -------------- ¶11. (C) Russian nationals involved in implementing a recent DPRK-Russia railway/port-improvement project are already in Rason, related our contact, who has an aid-worker friend living at the Rajin hotel that houses the Russians. Another of our contact's North Korean interlocutors, a Rason investment official who claimed to be involved in the negotiations on this project, told our contact's colleagues that Pyongyang was pleased by the inking of the April 2008 cooperative agreement. (NOTE: Under the project a joint venture will reconstruct the dormant 50-plus-kilometer railroad linking Rajin and Khasan, a border settlement directly across the Russian border by rail bridge. Russian plans are also underway to modernize parts of Rajin port. See ref D for background. END NOTE.) SWICKMAN