N. Korea 'executes official' over botched currency reform
North Korea executed a former senior official as punishment for the country’s botched currency reform, reports said today.
In November, North Korea redenominated its currency as part of efforts to lower inflation and reassert control over the country’s growing market economy.
However, the measure reportedly worsened the country’s food situation by forcing the closure of markets and sparked anger among many North Koreans left with piles of worthless banknotes.
Pak Nam Gi, the ruling Workers’ Party finance and planning department chief who spearheaded the currency reform, was executed by a firing squad in Pyongyang last week, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported.
Pak was accused of ruining the nation’s economy in a blunder that also damaged public opinion and had a negative impact on leader Kim Jong Il’s plan to hand power to his youngest son, Yonhap said.
Citing its sources, Yonhap said many North Koreans believe the government used Pak as a scapegoat for the failed currency reform.
Despite tough restrictions, some North Koreans are able to communicate with the outside world using Chinese cell phone networks, according to defectors.
North Korea has reopened hundreds of markets since the botched reform, but the prices of the few goods available have continued to rise, according to Lee Seung-yong, an official of Good Friends, a Buddhist-affiliated group that sends food and other aid to the North.
South Korea’s unification ministry and National Intelligence Service said they could not confirm Pak’s reported execution.
Pak was last mentioned by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency in January when he accompanied Kim on an inspection trip. Kim sacked Pak following arguments within the country’s leadership over who should take responsibility for the currency fiasco, South Korean media reported last month.
It is not unprecedented for the communist government to execute officials for policy failures. In the 1990s, North Korea reportedly publicly executed a top agricultural official following widespread starvation.
