North Korea - All the dictator's men | DW Documentary

this is a country where the war never ended [Music] every morning at exactly 6:00 a.m. loudspeakers across North Korea sound a morning wake-up call featuring the same melody every day a melody familiar from a revolutionary opera it tells the story of a young nurse at the front who has dedicated her life to the party and is searching for the beloved general who summons her to show him the way this is a country at war against the border that divides it [Music] [Music] I was always at the top of my class the teachers all rated me lightly even at school there was a hierarchy among the pupils at the top you always had the class representatives and the political representatives and I always held both positions I've seen big good together back home that's how I learned to give orders and how to lead people at the border between the two koreas / a cold war time standstill with no peace agreement ever signed the war has been suspended since hostilities ceased in 1953 in the course of the next six decades the North secretly developed a weapon that the world's major powers believed only they had the secret to the nuclear bomb how is a country considered one of the poorest on the planet and which is also shunned by most other nations able to afford such weaponry [Music] only those who were part of the system are privy to the secret it took years to track them down those who we were able to ask had a tragic tale to tell of men and women who were tasked with earning money for their country whatever the price the money of the dictators men soul just fifty kilometers away from the border to North Korea in the space of just 20 years the South Korean capital became the fourth richest city on the planet after Tokyo New York and Los Angeles this is where the ordeal ends for many of the refugees from North Korea this young high-ranking official from the North traveled thousands of kilometers on a trek across China all the way to Seoul he's been living here with a new identity for two years today he calls himself Michael Kim he's 28 years old and works part-time as a museum attendant this is an exhibition organised by the Seoul authorities it shows a model apartment in North Korea to illustrate what life looks like for the residents of Pyongyang having actually lived there myself I've been asked to explain in further detail what's her name rhymes oh boy I began my career in the State Security Agency the CIA of North Korea I worked in the financial department where I came to attention due to my expertise I was transferred to office 39 that was unusual I was only 25 when I joined I was the youngest member of staff their office 39 manages and directs all the economic activities of thousands of firms and factories the office was set up to earn money for the regime outside the country half of North Korea's gross domestic product comes from office 39 saravana times question I'm now with me [Music] Michael fled from one day to the next without warning his family he knew too much to be able to keep on believing in the regime he decided to meet us three weeks ago he insisted on showing his face while being interviewed in the hope of becoming too well known to be secretly assassinated reports from men who have been involved in office 39 the Guardians of North Korea's many financial secrets are extremely rare there have been precious few defectors fleeing the country means putting yourself in danger as well as family members left behind limb ill on the other hand was right at the bottom of the hierarchy upon who was sent halfway around the world to work on a construction site in the desert of Kuwait for me it wasn't about whether I wanted to do it time was running out I wanted to leave quickly so that we could get something to eat our leader Kim il-sung died in July 1994 and starting a year later in May 1995 the state was no longer able to provide the normal food rations people started to panic this was the first time they had reduced the rations I had a two year old daughter over there in order to leave you had to be married and have children if you don't have any children they won't let you out I thought family of four or five can live for at least six months on my salary of over $120 a month if I send it to Pyongyang after two months we asked why we weren't getting paid they said they had not been instructed by the party to pay our salary the party in North Korea was Kim jong-il our commander in chief that answer silenced us hundreds of workers had to keep their mouths shut we kept on working at night to using our flashlights we'd fight off sleep and just carry on I kept working like that for five months and all that time I didn't get paid I thought she did [Music] sending workers abroad was an idea first introduced in 1974 a gigantic network of clandestine companies and financial constructs gradually evolved all of them with one sole goal earning money for office 39 this man was likewise born in the North in Pyongyang in the early 2000s he was sent to Singapore he earned tens of millions of dollars for North Korea as a representative of Pyongyang's Northeast Asia Bank in 2003 he was suspected of having passed on information about the regime's finances he fled to South Korea today the former banker works for his new country's intelligence agencies he supports them in their struggle against the regime he once swore eternal allegiance to our main goal is to make foreign cash and this foreign cash business is secret complete the secret office namitha nine teams remain created there the system is set up like this all North Korean institutions where this foreign cash is generated they are obliged to report it to Kim to the top and then should bring that should pay that in cash Kim family mountain zone and before Kim jong-il so together or this and then spend it according to his priorities so through economies one is Kim family economy and the other one is the national economy run by the cabinet and run by their so called in a central planning so tuned family I called it you know royal court economy royal court economy they possess all the best profitable businesses best hotels there's department stores you know those services restaurants they are making money foreign key and then it also goes to give Antonio mountains of home so separate economy the money that you make will never go to the central economy no central bank finance ministry and trade bank they can never what poke their nose into our businesses you know they can never they can not ask anything Jim gathered or and then reallocator so let's say a billion US dollar a year she get that cash in cash and then she used that now nuclear and missile program is you know consumes a lot of money so is from Jim Jones pocket there are different workers you know at most one hundred and fifty thousand fifty thousand in Russia and little more in China and others in scattered around the world so one hundred and fifty thousand and they make a lot of money usually so 70 percentage or 80 percentage of the salary are cut and sent through the state and the party so if they make all of them make $100 then the amount is how much Shiva money on a peg put in your own parish man 15 million 15 million a month they don't make only one hundred US bucks a year iö month then they make more maybe several hundred is that least so a lot of money is going to control the volume of their cash income Kim Jong Un's fund increased dramatically in the past in the past 20 years in the past 20 years so he can buy more and she can do continue this in a nuclear and missile program you couldn't even get my turtle generally especially in places where we have a special agreement in places like Eastern Europe Southeast Asia Africa we have workers everywhere in Poland the Ukraine Uzbekistan Mongolia Viki Stan Longhorn while traditional yurt dwellings dot the modern cityscape the noise from the pneumatic hammers is omnipresent every day the concrete expanses continue to spread a little more in the Mongolian capital ulaanbataar for a period of over 70 years the country had a communist regime the city's grand monuments honoring the Eastern Bloc or a legacy of that era but after the collapse of the Soviet Union Mongolia switched to the Western capitalist camp people left rural regions in droves for the city's ulaan bataar is in urgent need of new housing but lacks sufficient manpower to build it the government has therefore been hiring workers from China Vietnam and North Korea for reinforcements the work is assigned the same way in each construction site the Mongolian workers are used for exterior jobs while the better qualified North Koreans for example take care of the interior the workers from Pyongyang are under observation day and night we want to approach them discreetly and first just send our interpreter hello hello the North Koreans working today sure do they sleep here yes and they never go out just to go shopping that's all and they even sleep here yes inside North Korea goes to extreme lengths to prevent its workers from coming into contact with the outside world and discovering a reality that is other than the one depicted in the daily propaganda they're only allowed to go out in groups so that they can keep an eye on each other but in the narrow market aisles of olin Betar we spot a North Korean worker who appears to be on his own can we talk while we look at the shoes yes when did you come here to Mongolia three years ago that's a long time yes and when are you going back home soon in a month and have you earned much money no I have not earned a lot of mongolian money and why not aren't you paid I didn't get much not much no I've been working but I never got any money they must be bad people there's a lot of bad people around really yep do you have family in North Korea how many children's I have one child my wife was pregnant when I left I've never seen my child so three years old three years boy a girl I got a letter saying it was a boy I'm desperate to go and see my son the workers usually have three year contracts and are not allowed to go home during that time only very few use their stay abroad to defect due to their families still living in North Korea they are all too aware that they would never see them again is Mongolia covering up the presence of these workers within its borders neither the government nor the companies employing them were prepared to talk to us but allegedly there are 1,200 North Koreans in the country they are there legally at the invitation of the Mongolian government the companies transfer the salaries directly to the North Korean embassy in ulaanbataar from where the money is then confiscated by the regime in Pyongyang a fraction of the Sun a few dozen euros a month at most is paid to the workers who use it to support their families in North Korea [Music] the construction workers are not the only moneymakers for the regime it also dispatches loggers to the forests of Siberia peasants to farms Pyongyang even exports doctors the regime's most lucrative source of income acupuncturists and chiropractors are sent abroad to open practices there what they earn however goes to the regime back home in Allah and Betar there are three of them we'd like to interview North Korean workers can we speak with you your nose Korean are you guys nuts coriander yes can we ask you a question we want to know why you guys are in Mongolia what do you do here for how long you've been here the doctors are not allowed to talk without permission from the embassy [Music] North Korea reportedly generates 450 million euros a year from remittances earned by its citizens secretly working abroad no records are kept of these secret funds and accounts documentation could potentially be used as evidence receipts bank transfers and internal notes are systematically destroyed on the orders of the Kim family this enables the regime to deny their existence in front of the international community but above all to the starving population back home they are not to get wind of the millions the Kim family earns at their expense I was a worker too I didn't get anything for six or eight months I worked myself to the bone so I reckoned why not help myself this man spent many years in Siberia prior to his defection he worked his way up to management level feeling remorse he wanted to break his years of silence in the hope that his testimony could help other former foreign workers who are still prisoners of the system the people positioned above the workers siphon off huge sums of money from those salaries for themselves let's say our bosses land a contract for 10 million they'll tell us that it's 7 million and we tell our foremen that it's even lower maybe 5 million so even then we're still able to transfer our mandatory share to the regime another trick is to negotiate 50 men for a job then we arrange to use only 20 and we send the rest elsewhere that means we can put aside a pile of money for ourselves in a good month how much did you earn around 20,000 dollars in one month yes do you know how much office 39 earns per year and how much of that goes into developing missiles nobody knows that that's the most strictly guarded secret of all nobody in office 39 can say neither the amount for the office workers nor the costs for their workers or any other figure if they were to talk about it at all plans to acquire nuclear weapons were first conceived by the regime back in 1953 during the Korean War after the u.s. threatened to deploy its nuclear arsenal against the country since coming to power in 2011 Kim jong-un has launched 85 missiles and conducted four nuclear tests twice as many as his father and grandfather combined the test missiles were fired over the Sea of Japan or in the direction of the Pacific with the capability to send nuclear warheads as far as California pyongyang now insists that washington would never dare to attack North Korea again on November 29th 2017 North Korea surprised the world with the test launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile kim jeong-hoon told his people that the country was now a nuclear power and boasted that it could deliver a strike anywhere in the u.s. at the same time a group of eight men of different nationalities convened at the New York headquarters of the United Nations where a race against time began they comprised experts on rocket technology finance aviation and shipping experts some were from the civilian sector others from intelligence agencies their work is top-secret their goal to dry up the secret money sources of the Kim family for their own safety no photos exist of this expert committee only Huw Griffiths the group's head since 2014 was willing to talk on camera these rockets that use ballistic missile-related technology their debris has been recovered by the South Korean navy who've had ships close enough when the wreckage has splashed down and they've recovered it and then they've invited the panel to inspect this this debris and once we've inspected the debris we note down the serial numbers we take photographs and then in many cases we're able to trace back the logistics and procurement chain so that's the rocker and then we have what's left of that this is one of the arm the Boosters you're seeing here there is a cluster of them round about you want to obscure this well our investigation show that a percentage of the components used in their rockets and missiles have been sourced abroad these goods will be exported in the first instance to other countries in Asia to business centers such as Singapore Hong Kong so that to a large multinational company based in say Europe who's selling the goods everything appears to be in order there's no North Korean trace on the only official paperwork in addition to research work the committee wields its own weapon the economy they devised sanctions that became progressively more severe in order to isolate North Korea we waited five months for official permission to fly to North Korea the North Korean diplomats didn't want us to film in winter fearing that the power outages might leave a bad impression finally in late March 2018 with temperatures rising again it happened we were granted permission to travel by train to North Korea via China and the border town of dong dong we find a country where time appears to have Stood Still a country that has been largely cut off from the outside world since 1953 every inch of arable land is farmed [Music] everything serves to feed the nation [Music] for seven hours the fields roll by to this day still farmed using only hand tools and manual labor most of North Korea's nuclear power plants are located in this region our route takes us close to three uranium mines a number of underground facilities and also the young beyond Nuclear Research Center which went operational in 1965 with the help of the Soviet Union it is the heart of the country's nuclear program our escorts await us in the capital Pyongyang we're now entering a world reserved for the privileged section of the population these streets and boulevards serve three million residents ten percent of the population the most loyal supporters of the regime a special permit is required to enter the city our two guides accompany us from dawn until late at night they've been tasked with showing us that Pyongyang despite all the sanctions imposed by the United Nations is no longer some economically crippled city with a poverty-stricken population all thanks to the new national heroes the scientists this architect spent eight years studying in France after leaving the a colonoscopy for architecture in Paris he returned to North Korea in 2010 today he's one of the best architects in the capital designing skyscrapers for the new elite this building was constructed in less than a year in just under eight months and that in an economically challenging time for Koreans but they still managed to complete it we want to show that we can live and continue to develop and can afford everything we need and promoting scientific advancement plays an extremely important role in our own development all the residents here have occupations in science and technology including teaching staff and everything else Lee Jungshin you're yourself [Music] hello hello can I keep my shoes on yes hello how old is he eight months look at the pictures they speak volumes there's our esteemed leader personally giving people decorations for Koreans these are the most glorious occasions I was really happy when we moved in here I could only cry and think about his love the marshal devotes a lot of time to the scientists and they reward him with their industriousness my husband has been a scientist for 30 years her husband teaches fluid mechanics at the Technical University of Kim Jake the apartment they were assigned has 200 square meters of floor space the regime also provides the furniture not everyone in Pyongyang lives in modern high-rises like this one but this family is far from an exception every year since Kim jong-un came to power he has built and inaugurated a new residential district that has involved 50 new residential blocks sprouting up within the space of a few months they're intended for the scientists and their families who have rendered extraordinary services for the regime one of these high-rises is home to an architect's office serving Kim jong-un excellent work [Music] but reasons to push up there there's always more work to be done there are always more project we never have enough architects this is in itself a huge building site everyone is tied up in at least two or three projects and is working non-stop but it's still not really enough we do all-nighters given the international situation and all the sanctions doesn't that hamper construction I don't see how that would have an impact I saw a lot of construction sites in Europe where work was immediately suspended after a crisis but here we carry on working despite the growing number of projects in the pipeline we aren't afraid of anything we keep on making progress regardless [Music] how is North Korea able to finance this construction boom has it been able to shrug off the sanctions out on the streets the standardized socialist dress code has been lent a little more color in the last three years the mood seems almost relaxed and yet the regime still governs its people with an iron fist even the slightest critical gesture or word of disapproval will soon find someone in one of the country's many camps for political prisoners since Kim jong-un has been in power however there have been signs of a reorientation the orders now are to ensure that the economy evolves at the same pace as the nuclear program [Music] cut all this to size let's be careful down there you have to cut it straight look this is not straight we built this entire set of ourselves and thanks to these Korean built machines we've been able to automate a number of jobs and also reduce our power consumption as a result we've almost doubled our production capacity everything here is a joint product of the experts from the Academy of Science and the researchers at Kim il-sung University where does the material for the shoes come from we're unable to import materials due to the strategy of our enemies so we produce everything ourselves that involves checking which components we have available so that we can make our own shoes the key factors for this economic revival innovation and adaptation the goal is to persevere and prove to the world that the country doesn't need anyone else we have solar panels we have them installed on practically all factory roofs they generate up to 400 kilowatts of electricity our factories need a capacity of only 300 kilowatts that means the electricity generated from the solar panels is easily enough to keep our factory running despite the sanctions and the isolation the shoe factory is one of a number of model factories that Kim jong-un has had built for each sector of Industry they all include a digital control center with a direct connection to Pyongyang's universities and research centers more model factories are to be set up across the country the regime dictates which roles everyone is assigned the country's economy and society are centrally planned right down to the fate of each individual young North Koreans know as soon as they're in elementary school how their lives will pan out depending on their abilities their family background and the needs of the party the state selects their career many end up in the military the country has a standing army of 1 million soldiers in North Korea men are subject to a minimum compulsory military service totaling 10 years those who managed to be admitted to Kim il-sung University the country's most prestigious college are usually exempt this is where the next generation of engineers economists bankers and businessmen are educated the future personnel of office 39 this facility was founded by our commander in chief with the noble idea of training men and women for leadership positions in the career of tomorrow our dear leader Kim Jong Il's sent us a letter in December 2009 saying keep your feet on the ground and look at the world combined a noble spirit with a wealth of knowledge and become the supporting structure for my late father's revolution make sure that the whole world looks up to the career of Kim il-sung's North Korea's economic upswing an economic miracle a final fake conflict to keep the people in the dark about the new wave of sanctions threatening to bring the country to its knees the official figures cannot be verified unable to talk to citizens directly we can't say what they think and feel all we can take away are our general observations traveling across the country the impression you get is that a brighter future awaits following the famine of the 1990s which claimed the lives of between 600,000 and 1 million people the streets have no cars but some dashes of new color life is hard but seemingly not as hard as it used to be Kim jong-un spent part of his childhood under a false identity in Switzerland did he bring the dream of modernization and opening up with him from Europe the young dictator possesses a nuclear bomb that protects him at home and abroad and also consolidates his power but where as his father and grandfather built statues and palaces he builds railways bowling alleys swimming pools museums of natural history and leisure parks facilities no longer just serving the elite culture advances in Science and Industry opium for a people who are for now still in awe of new developments the aim to reinforce the dictatorship now in its third generation in a sign of the times on this evening the colors of North Korea shine in splendor for the first time after dark is North Korea getting outside help Russia and above all China vote in favor of UN sanctions while at the same time can continuing to trade with North Korea an overthrow of Kim jong-un's regime is not something they want to see the country secret coffers and assets keep growing even in places where you'd least expect it such as Berlin in the heart of Europe in 2016 the German authorities began trying to close down this youth hostel located on the grounds of the North Korean embassy since 2008 the rent totaling more than 38,000 euros a month has gone directly to the Kim family Germany has terminated the lease but the owners of the hostel have steadfastly refused to vacate the premises do you know whether office 39 makes money in France or Germany in France or Germany sure there are no workers in those countries because of the stringent laws but one thing they do have is money and wealth North Korea buys and sells real estate for rental or speculative profit if they would do direct business in those countries and openly show that our company is a North Korean company we'd immediately be subject to a tax on it we rent out apartments nobody knows who the owner is really we just collect the rents do you know the names of these firms if I were to tell you that they'd end up on the sanctions list right away yes North Korea is an awful dictatorship but the people who serve the regime faithfully like me or my friends or even the bosses aren't just doing our job [Music] perhaps what they do is in itself bad but there's still a code of honor between us do they earn money in the u.s. not that I know of but we do do everything we can to relieve them of money we have technology hacking that includes blackmailing software North Korea hacks into the u.s. infrastructure industry your digital companies we can't analyze or make much use of the data as such we just hack our way in and then demand money in return for guaranteeing that we will keep the data to ourselves it's basically North Korea taking digital data as hostage you know stopping this in a cold the real trade with China coal and iron ore and other stuff you know this is the real sanction so it took only several months but they would cannot stop everything how can they stop all North Queens you know how many shadow companies and operatives are there how far does their network truly extend and what kind of danger do they pose in our final reports the Security Council we've we've documented North Korean weapons and prohibited military training programs in dozens of African and Middle Eastern member states in Mozambique the contracts one of the contracts we saw was worth more than six million dollars in Tanzania the contract was worth a similar amount in euros a little more I think maybe twelve million so it's all about the money part of the problem with ballistic missiles is that the technology wasn't supplied to all the countries that wanted this technology so the the North Koreans stepped in and this is very alarming that in terms of proliferation there was this new killer new killer facility in in Syria that was set up with North Korean assistance and this is this is the kind of activity that I know concerns a lot of people and the North Koreans also have a huge stockpile of chemical weapons as well it's been 20 years since little fled the Kuwaiti desert where he'd been working on construction sites in the meantime he's become a father again here in Seoul he has two sons they know they also have a big sister somewhere on the other side of the border you don't worry think about it the more I wonder what it is that made me who I am if it were a normal regime I would never have run away this mismanage system forced me to make that terrible decision [Music] once a month in Seoul refugees from the north meet up in a Christian Center in order to remember their families and their people back home almost like orphans of the man who was once their leader they turned to their God to rediscover a purpose in their lives while in the north those taking orders from the dictators continued to work in the shadows at home and abroad to guarantee the survival of the regime [Music]

Channel: DW Documentary

Views: 6,767,648

Rating: 4.7073398 out of 5

Keywords: Documentary, North Korea, nuclear weapons, dictator, Kim Jong Un, sanctions, north korea documentary, kim jong-un, kim jong un doku, nordkorea, nuclear weapons documentary, nuclear, nuclear bomb, atomic, korea, dictatorship, jong, DW, dw documentary, kim, documentary 2019, nukes, nuke, bombs, Pyongyang, travelnorthkorea

Id: JmqV2vIXpUY

Length: 42min 26sec (2546 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 30 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/toosinbeymen]

An excellent documentary. Well researched and informative.

About how the regime in NK brings in a lot of hard currency from foreign countries.

Nice work, DW.