North Korea Information Sources

[Crvena-Zastava]

I am starting to independently research every aspect of the DPR Korea; however my focus will be on these three points:

- Economy
- Military
- Government System

Though about 70% of my research will be devoted to the above factors, I will also spend a lot of time on other important aspects of North Korea (Most notable Foreign Relations & the huge amount of aid given to them). I plan to have a large amount of facts put together in a neutral manner; for the sake of the studies I will forget my political beliefs and just focus on the facts. As a result I will be using various sources, such as Western sources (CIA World Factbook, CNN, BBC, South Korean News etc), Neutral Sources (Google Earth), North Korean Sources (I will have to find some of their newspapers or something along those lines).

However, I am fully aware that there is an insane amount of Western Media sources and not nearly as much Neutral or left-winged ones, so I was wondering if any of you guys have any neutral/left winged websites, books, magazines etc which you can tell me about (Link me to the websites or write down the name, author and date of publication of the book).

I know we do have a lot of Juche (Perhaps even Songun) supporters on this Forum and judging from their posts I doubt they have any reliable/proven sources of info, but I would really appreciate anything you can give me. At the moment I am working on some basic facts of DPR Korea (GDP, import/export, population etc) and for now I am regretfully having to rely on Wikipedia and the CIA Factbook for the information, so hopefully you guys can understand my need for different sources.

Thanks in advance, if any of you are interested I will send you all the info when I finish (PM me for details)

[NGNM85]

Amnesty International has a dearth of material on the subject; http://www.amnesty.org/en/region/north-korea

[Tavarisch_Mike]

Very intresting, you seems to be very didicated to this task wich is good. A you say there a lot of western "information" but more less of DPRK-info, i would recomend to try to contact some party in the west that oppenly support them, they might have some stuff, or try to contact one of the existing frienship-associations that use to organize trips to DPRK. For a more objective, but harder to find, source some aid worker than has actually been there would probably be good to ask, if she/he has worked in a other third world country they might give a better perspective. Wish you good luck.

[Crvena-Zastava]

Amnesty International has a dearth of material on the subject; http://www.amnesty.org/en/region/north-korea

Ahh thank you, I will need a lot of that information when working on the Human Rights section of my studies.

Many thanks!!!


Very intresting, you seems to be very didicated to this task wich is good. A you say there a lot of western "information" but more less of DPRK-info, i would recomend to try to contact some party in the west that oppenly support them, they might have some stuff, or try to contact one of the existing frienship-associations that use to organize trips to DPRK. For a more objective, but harder to find, source some aid worker than has actually been there would probably be good to ask, if she/he has worked in a other third world country they might give a better perspective. Wish you good luck.

I am dedicated because I am tired of the ridicolous amount of unreliable information given; on one side we have Fox News telling us that North Korea is a hell hole and that everyone is starving, and on the other side [i.e Revleft] we have radical Jucheist/DPRK supporters who insist that the North is actually fine, and yet never give any reliable information which could be cited as a source.

I just want to try to make something with as much of the truth in it as possible; everything out there now is either ignorantly left winged or ridiculously right winged. Though I am a Leftist, I think that some of us are too ready to claim that every source of information from western media is unreliable and false. We need to stop this extreme arrogance within our leftist community; I remember on a thread in this forum one of the users said that he wants "pro-leftist" sources only, and not anything else. I think this type of Stalinesque arrogance is one of the factors that makes Communism/Socialism in general so unappealing to the community.

Sorry if I got a bit off track there, I just had to let off some steam.

Also, in case anyone is curious then there is a documentary on YouTube of two reporters who spent a week in North Korea; very disturbing footage, I never knew a capital to be so empty (Note: It is an hour long):


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJ6E3cShcVU

[MarxSchmarx]

The American academic Bruce Cumings has written extensively on life in north korea and north korean foreign policy. He has attempted to be quite fair in his assessments.

Here's a list of some of his writings:
http://www.thenation.com/authors/bruce-cumings

[KC]

It is very difficult to find information on the DPRK as it is such a closed society (at least with regards to English-language works, I obviously don't speak Korean, Japanese or Chinese so I couldn't comment on works in those languages).

My library has a copy of Kim Il-Sung's collected works, as well as quite a few publications put out by the North Korean's equivalent to the USSR's Institution of Marxism-Leninism.

As for historical works, I have absolutely no idea. Almost all of what you are going to find is going to be based on witness testimonies from refugees and whatnot, which isn't a reliable source of information in any case really. I'd suggest reading them, at least, but taking them with a huge grain of salt.

I really did look for quite some time for some good books on this subject but came up empty handed. If anyone has any recommendations that would be awesome.

[MarxSchmarx]

It is very difficult to find information on the DPRK as it is such a closed society (at least with regards to English-language works, I obviously don't speak Korean, Japanese or Chinese so I couldn't comment on works in those languages).


The Korean and Japanese literature available in the west is about as bad as the English language literature - in fact it contains even more hyperbolic claims as a matter of course. Part of this is because a lot of the material in South Korea for example is put out by defectors from North Korea and South Koreans who were kidnapped and taken to North Korea and somehow made it back. Also, for example, the American GI defector Charles Jenkins wasn't able to get his memoirs of his abuse in north korea published in English, but it has been a best-seller in Japan for instance.

The Chinese literature tends to be a little more mixed, from my understanding. Of course there is little in the means of uncensored scholarship coming out of the PRC, but apparently there is quite a healthy cottage industry of Chinese sociologists studying the North Koreans living in China. Still the bulk of the material written in Chinese from my understanding tends to have an anti-North Korean sentiment in material published in Hong Kong or Taiwan.

[The Author]

The Collected Works of Kim Il Sung and the Selected Works of Kim Jong Il used to be available on the Internet, but I don't know if they still exist anymore. Hearing their point of view for a change would shed light on some things.

One of my favorite sites, photographs from a Russian tourist who actually visited North Korea in May of 2004. No, he did not get the packaged tour or the "Potemkin Village" treatment, they're legit photos. And no, he's not a communist, there goes the "sectarian treatment" bit. This is the website link:

http://www.enlight.ru/camera/dprk/index_e.html

http://www.enlight.ru/camera/dprk/phen_tpk_e.html

No throngs of starving people like many like to claim. Life is not totally great, but compared to other Third World countries, life in North Korea is pretty decent.

[Chimurenga.]

LOL. Fuck Amnesty International. Stephen Gowans (linked below) wrote a great article exposing them lying about the DPRK and aiding Imperialism.

Websites:
http://www.kcna.co.jp/index-e.htm
http://kcckp.net - Down at the moment
http://www.korea-dpr.com/
http://gowans.wordpress.com/category/north-korea/
http://www3.sympatico.ca/sr.gowans/
http://www.nlg.org/korea/2003delegation_report.html
http://www.workers.org/korea/
http://www.pslweb.org/site/PageServer?pagename=northkorea
http://marxistleninist.wordpress.com/category/socialist-countries/democratic-peoples-republic-of-korea/
In North Korea: First Eye-Witness Report (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/strong-anna-louise/1949/in-north-korea/index.htm)

Books:
Tim Beal - North Korea: The Struggle Against American Power


Bruce Cummings - The Korean War: A History



- Korea's Place in the Sun: A Modern History
- North Korea: Another Country
- The Korean War



John Feffer - North Korea/South Korea: U.S. Policy & the Korean Peninsula


That should be good.

Edit: http://www.workers.org/marcy/cd/sam94/1994html/s940630.htm - "Why Is Korea Still Divided" by Sam Marcy may help as well.
Edit 2: http://marxist-leninist-films.blogspot.com/2009/04/north-korea-day-in-life.html - This film is good too.
Edit 3: http://www.iacenter.org/Koreafiles/korea_accomp.htm - "What Korea Has Accomplished" from the International Action Center

[anticap]

You mentioned Google Earth; I once found an extremely cool overlay for it that showed an overwhelming amount of detailed information about buildings and infrastructure in northern Korea. It must have taken ages to painstakingly pore over the images to determine what certain structures might be. I can't remember where I found it but if you can't locate it yourself, then let me know and I'll see what I can do (if you want it).

Also, FWIW, I've got a copy of the Encyclopedia Britannica software, and would be glad to produce PDFs of the relevant articles and demographic data* if you can point me to a good free file upload site.

*Interesting fact not found in the Factbook: Daily Available Calories per capita (2005) 2,419.0

[Crvena-Zastava]

You mentioned Google Earth; I once found an extremely cool overlay for it that showed an overwhelming amount of detailed information about buildings and infrastructure in northern Korea. It must have taken ages to painstakingly pore over the images to determine what certain structures might be. I can't remember where I found it but if you can't locate it yourself, then let me know and I'll see what I can do (if you want it).

Yeah I downloaded that a while ago, it is pretty interesting.

Thanks for all the information, guys.

[KC]

The Korean and Japanese literature available in the west is about as bad as the English language literature - in fact it contains even more hyperbolic claims as a matter of course. Part of this is because a lot of the material in South Korea for example is put out by defectors from North Korea and South Koreans who were kidnapped and taken to North Korea and somehow made it back. Also, for example, the American GI defector Charles Jenkins wasn't able to get his memoirs of his abuse in north korea published in English, but it has been a best-seller in Japan for instance.

The Chinese literature tends to be a little more mixed, from my understanding. Of course there is little in the means of uncensored scholarship coming out of the PRC, but apparently there is quite a healthy cottage industry of Chinese sociologists studying the North Koreans living in China. Still the bulk of the material written in Chinese from my understanding tends to have an anti-North Korean sentiment in material published in Hong Kong or Taiwan.

Do you know if Hwang Jang-Yop ever came out with any books regarding his experience as leader of the Korean Workers' Party? I think that, if it exists, would probably be the most authoritative account on present day life in the country, as well as the history for the past few decades.


LOL. Fuck Amnesty International. Stephen Gowans (linked below) wrote a great article exposing them lying about the DPRK and aiding Imperialism.

I don't see it in your post. Could you link to it or provide the title, please?

[Chimurenga.]

I don't see it in your post. Could you link to it or provide the title, please?

http://gowans.wordpress.com/2010/07/20/amnesty-international-botches-blame-for-north-korea%e2%80%99s-crumbling-healthcare/