North Korea is reorganizing collective farm labor groups to prevent workers from forming alliances based on family ties, which the state fears undermine its agricultural goals, sources in the country told RFA.
In a society where most families pride themselves on maintaining genealogical records that go back centuries, duty to family is of the utmost importance in North Korea. Collective farm group leaders worry that having too many workers with the same surname in a single working group could empower them to serve the interests of their own families before the broader society, sources told RFA.
“The local party committee of the cooperative farms in the city of Anju are rearranging work groups so that no more than three people with the same surname are working together,” a resident of the city in South Pyongan province, about 40 miles north of the capital Pyongyang, told RFA’s Korean Service.
“In order to increase grain production this year … we must cultivate wheat and barley instead of corn,” said the source, who requested anonymity for security reasons.
Cooperative farmers prefer to cultivate corn because it has a more stable market price and is more filling than wheat and barley, but the authorities want a crop that can be harvested quickly, requires less fertilizer and can improve acidified soil.
The rearrangement is intended to remove any discord that could challenge this change, the source said.
"There are more than 10 workers with the surname Ri who are in my group at the cooperative farm in Sonhung village in Anju. All of them were born and raised in Sonhung and are related to each other by at least the 12th degree," she said.
In Korea, 12th degree relations of the same generation would be fifth cousins, sharing a great-great-great-great-grandparent. Though relatives so distant would hardly be considered kin in other societies, they count as family in a culture that emphasizes bloodlines.
The source said the working group was centered around helping their relatives rather than listening to instructions from their leader.
“The authorities saw the Ris as a potential force that could confront the farm leader,” she said. “So, they split them up into other teams.”
Thirteen people named Han were separated in Komhung village, in the province’s Sukchon county, a source there told RFA.
“They had been living as farmers in the area for many generations and were related by at least the eighth degree [third cousins or closer], but the authorities are suddenly placing them on different teams, three of them on each,” said the second source, who requested anonymity to speak freely.
“The farmers are criticizing the way that authorities are dispersing relatives who have been living close together for many generations,” she said.
The fact that many farmers work with members of their same clan is a direct result of North Korean governmental policies that forbid farmers from moving to cities to prevent a manpower shortage in rural areas, the source said.
More than half of the people living on the Korean peninsula have one of the five most common surnames: Kim, Lee (usually Romanized as Ri by North Koreans), Park, Choi and Jeong (Jong), according to data compiled in 2015 by the South Korean Statistical Information Service, that included estimates for North Korea.
Because Korean genealogical records are paternalistic, an unknown distant relative with the same surname would be easier to trace than an unknown close relative with a different surname.
Translated by Claire Lee and Leejin Jun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.