A campaign for ‘devotion’ at a South

Pyongan Province fish farm whose harvest serves as gifts for Kim Jong Un and

Party cadres in North Korea is ratcheting up disgruntlement among workers,

Daily NK has learned.

“Recently, the Taedong River No. 8 (fish

farm) has been carrying out teachings about the importance of maintaining a

healthy school of fish, saying it is a way to express loyalty to the Marshal

(Kim Jong Un),” a source in South Pyongan Province told Daily NK on Wednesday.

She added, “They don’t care at all about

the health and daily lives of their workers and instead just emphasize people

need to devote all they have to the fish that will be sent out as gifts. This

kind of attitude from Party cadres is making people angrier by the day.”

Daily NK verified this information through another source in the same province.

Taedong No. 8 is a third-tier enterprise

with approximately 30 workers; it features modernized fish farm pools and water

pumps and is known for harvesting expensive fish such as carp and gray mullet

through a strict system of water quality and temperature management. The

tastiest and most nutritious selections from the fish stock are channeled directly to Pyongyang, while

those failing to meet the aforementioned standards end up on the table of

provincial Party cadres or, sometimes, orphanages.

If managers overseeing water temperature

and supplies for the facilities fail to do their work “in a timely fashion,”

they open themselves up to a barrage of castigation via criticism and

self-criticism sessions administered by the Party, she said, noting, “Grade 8

(for Kim Jong Un) fish receive better treatment than the workers themselves, so

if people mismanage them, they will inevitably face the consequences.”

The Taedong No. 8 unit sits near Suncheon

City in South Pyongan Province, which is upstream of the river. Workers of the

fish farm use rubber boats in groups of twos to go out on the Taedong River and

catch fish for Kim Jong Un and high-ranking officials of the Central Party,

according to the source.

The drive to catch more fish day in and out

has forced workers to sail out even when conditions are treacherous, and on

some days it has led to accidents, as the boats flip over on windy or rainy

days, reported the source.

“The workers have no wet suits or safety

gear at all, and they’re just out there risking themselves to catch fish,” the

sources said. “Cadres at the fish farm though give a lick about the

safety of their workers; they only care that they take the utmost care of the fish

and store them well before transferring them to the fish farm to make sure the

scales don’t get damaged.”

Obsessing over the tiniest details has

become in many ways a necessity for survival, she explained, as even

looking the wrong way can land people in trouble for disrespecting the leadership.

She lamented that most people in the North have come to accept their

reality–one wherein “fish are treated better than human beings.”