North Korea is not renowned for the transparency of its justice system. Which makes this a rare event: Pyongyang is reported to have made public the punishment of a senior military official for corruption.
A senior officer punished
According to UPI, Pak Hui-chol, deputy director of the Organisation department of the Korean People's Army General Political Bureau, is said to have been punished for abuse of power, corruption, illicit enrichment and the alleged sale of posts within the army and the administration.
It is unusual for the regime to publicise this kind of case. Such publicity is generally intended to send a disciplinary signal to the apparatus, rather than to render accounts to the public.
Corruption in a closed system
In an economy under sanctions and marked by shortages, access to posts and resources becomes a powerful lever of power. The sale of positions — military or administrative — is a classic of closed systems, where loyalty and money are often traded for rank.
In a country that extols revolutionary self-sacrifice, word has it that certain stripes were mostly settled in cash.
What can be said
Information coming out of North Korea is, by its very nature, difficult to verify independently. The exact nature of the punishment handed to Pak Hui-chol remains unclear, and the whole should be read with that caveat in mind.
Magouilles & Compagnie verdict
A case made public in one of the most opaque countries on earth is inevitably a message. Without being able to verify every detail, we will note that even in a locked-down system, corruption always finds its way — and, occasionally, its staging.
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