North Korea made its first official mention of the sinking of the Sewol

passenger ferry on April 18th, two days after the disaster took

place in waters off Jindo in South Korea. After a week, the Chosun Red Cross Society sent a message of

condolences to its South Korean counterpart.

However, since then the North Korean state media, including the well-known propaganda site targeting South Korea, Uriminzokkiri, and KCNA, has been utilizing third-party

media reports to relentlessly criticize the South Korean government’s handling of the

incident. This forms part of a classic North Korean strategy, which seeks to

foment “South-South conflict;” in other words, internecine clashes within South

Korean society.

Meanwhile, the opinions of ordinary North Korean citizens are rarely sought, leaving official state narratives to dominate the media cycle. To rectify this imbalance, at the beginning of May Daily NK set out to interview a number of North Korean citizens visiting

the Sino-North Korean border region about the Sewol sinking.

All expressed sorrow

at the deaths of so many students, and all were fiercely critical of the behavior

of the vessel’s captain, who infamously fled the sinking ship before the passengers and

most of the crew, dressed from the waist down in only his underpants.

However, they also pointed out that while the North Korean

media may be issuing daily criticisms of the South Korean rescue effort

and overall handling of the disaster, their own authorities’ would not

even meet these minimum standards. Worse still, they pointed out that North Korea’s social system

has been so distorted by years of absolutist dictatorship that persons

engulfed in a disaster are expected to place saving likenesses of Kim Il Sung

and/or Kim Jong Il before their own safety or that of children.

“I saw news of the Sewol incident,” Daily NK’s first

informant, Pyongyang-based carpenter Kim Jae Ho said. “It’s such a shame that

so many students died like that. If they had gotten out quickly they would

still be alive, but the captain told them to stay where they were and only he

got off.”

“If those students had been his children, would he have

thought only of himself and escaped that way?” North Pyongan Province former

factory worker Yoo Byung Joon asked. “The captain and crew should have taken

the lead and saved the kids; that only the students [died] is lamentable.”

Yoo’s comments were not absolutely accurate; students formed the majority

of the casualties, but a number of adults also died, some in heroic circumstances.

Continuing, Yoo noted, “If a Chosun vessel sinks, the

captain should first save images of the Suryeong and General, and then he can return

to the waters to save children. If the captain escaped first like the one in

South Chosun, it would not be tolerated.”

“Our country [North Korea] is criticizing the way the South Chosun

government handled it, but in Chosun they don’t do anything at all,” Sinuiju

citizen Park Min Joon agreed critically. “The provincial or local Party just declares

to the families that the dead are socialist martyrs. That’s it.”

* This article was made possible by support from the Korea Press Foundation. Names have been changed to protect the innocent.