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RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK 0033

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 SHENYANG 000076 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR EAP/K, EAP/CM, DRL/IRF, PRM 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: TEN YEARS AFTER KOREAN UNIFICATION 
TAGS: PINR PGOV PREL PHUM KIRF KN KS CH
SUBJECT: DPRK: RASON THROUGH THE EYES OF AN AID WORKER 
 
REF: A. (A) SHENYANG 67 
     ¶B. (B) SHENYANG 68 
     ¶C. (C) 07 SHENYANG 133 
     ¶D. (D) SHENYANG 7 
 
Classified By: CONSUL GENERAL STEPHEN B. WICKMAN. 
REASONS: 1.4(d). 
 
¶1. (C) SUMMARY: Rason, in northeastern North Korea, is home 
to a variety of foreign-assistance ventures, involving 
everything from agriculture and animal husbandry to power 
generation, transportation and pharmaceuticals, according 
to a Westerner involved in several projects there, but 
tensions have emerged among government bureaus over the 
area's degree of openness.  The late 2007 arrest of a 
Canadian humanitarian worker led to a palpable tightening 
of strictures on Rason's foreign aid community, including 
on religious life, that continues.  PRC nationals abound in 
Rason, but some local North Koreans grumble about their 
northern neighbors.  Our contact reported that Russian 
personnel involved in the implementation of an April 2008 
Russia-DPRK agreement to improve the railway/port around/in 
Rajin have already arrived on site.  END SUMMARY. 
 
¶2. (C) During a recent trip to the PRC-DPRK borderlands of 
Jilin Province, Poloff met May 16 with a Western 
humanitarian worker involved in several aid ventures in 
Rajin-Sonbong (Rason), on the DPRK's far northeastern 
coast.  Temporarily back in China's Yanbian Korean 
Autonomous Prefecture preparing for another return trip to 
the DPRK, the humanitarian worker offered a read-out on 
Rason's foreign aid community; recent atmospherics in the 
area; and the significant Chinese presence there, inter 
alia. 
 
RASON AID VENTURES, HEALTH TROUBLES, INTERNAL TENSIONS 
--------------------------------------------- --------- 
¶3. (C) Rason is currently home to a wide variety of 
foreign-assistance ventures, though a precise tally of 
projects and personnel remains elusive.  Our contact, for 
instance, is personally familiar with at least 25-30 
discrete aid endeavors, though she explained that these 
constitute only a subset of the greater aid community in 
Rason.  Existing projects with which our contact is 
familiar involve everything from food production (e.g., 
small bread/noodle factories) and small-scale agriculture 
(e.g., greenhousing) to animal husbandry--aid groups are 
trying increasing amounts of chicken farming of late, she 
noted--power generation (e.g., harnessing water/wind), 
transportation infrastructure and pharmaceutical 
manufacturing. 
 
¶4. (C) Expanding on national deficiencies in the DPRK, our 
contact explained that her group's North Korean minders 
regularly ask her and her colleagues for medicines to treat 
their sick children.  Tuberculosis remains particularly 
prevalent in Rason, she claimed.   North Korean officials 
there recently asked a Rajin-based group--the operator of a 
pharmaceutical venture, where a friend of hers works--for 
two container-trucks full of IVs, apparently in part for 
treating tuberculosis patients.  (NOTE: Our contact claimed 
that according to the friend involved in the Rajin 
pharmaceutical venture, China earlier in the year clamped 
down on what she described as a "black-market channel" for 
shipping expired/poor quality medicine into North Korea. 
She offered this without any details.  END NOTE.) 
 
¶5. (C) Turning to Rason officialdom, our contact claimed 
tensions abide between local officials in charge of foreign 
investment and officials responsible for overseeing the 
area's aid community.  Citing direct conversations with 
Rason investment officials--the primary interlocutors of 
our contact's NGO, which operates one of the few 
humanitarian aid projects in Rason licensed as commercial 
ventures--our contact explained that frictions stem from 
the investment bureau's comparatively greater 
openness/permissiveness toward foreigners, from whom it is 
eager for investment.  Recalling more offhand comments made 
 
SHENYANG 00000076  002 OF 003 
 
 
by Rason investment officials, our contact also suggested 
ongoing frictions existed between what she described as the 
more progressively-minded Rason and the more conservative 
Pyongyang over the number of foreign aid workers in Rason 
and the area's overall degree of openness. 
 
RASON TIGHTENS: KIM ARRESTED, NGOS "HASSLED" 
-------------------------------------------- 
¶6. (C) The November 2007 arrest--and subsequent two-month 
detention--of KIM Je Yell, a Korean-Canadian humanitarian 
worker involved in Rajin since the 1990s, led to a palpable 
tightening of strictures on Rason's aid community.  (NOTE: 
Kim was released in early 2008, but the precise reasons for 
his arrest remain unclear.  The ostensible trigger, 
according to our contact, was North Korean authorities' 
alleged discovery of writings unflattering to the DPRK 
government in the form of notes Kim had taken at a 
conference he had attended overseas.  Another contributing 
factor likely included the religious worship sessions he 
led for foreigners in Rason.  Kim's organization's 
practice, in the months before his arrest, of ferrying in 
appreciable numbers of foreigners into Rason without clear 
purposes, in some cases seemingly for tourism, also likely 
attracted further scrutiny.  Our contact added that Rason 
officials--with whom she said Kim enjoyed good relations-- 
privately "made clear" to her own colleagues that the order 
to arrest Kim had come directly from Pyongyang.  END NOTE.) 
 
¶7. (C) Since Kim's arrest, for instance, she said North 
Korean customs officials have enhanced already rigorous 
inspections of Rason-destined aid workers when they cross 
into the DPRK from China (via Quanhe Land Port, near 
Hunchun).  Once in Rason, officials generally "hassled (aid 
groups) more" in small ways not done before, said our 
contact without elaborating.  More challenging 
operationally has been the ensuing greater difficulty--and 
longer wait times--in securing the official DPRK invitation 
letters that allow Rason's aid groups to renew visas or add 
additional team members in the area.  Our contact alleged 
Rason's visa-related clampdown tightened further in late 
April or early May, when Rason officials explicitly 
proscribed Kim's associates from bringing any new 
individuals into the DPRK.  Some aid groups, however, have 
fared better.  Our source's group, for instance, is still 
able to secure renewal-invitations for existing workers 
already "in the system" (i.e., known to the North Koreans, 
working in Rason), though the process is appreciably longer 
than in the period before Kim's detention. 
 
¶8. (C) North Koreans officials also attempted to tighten 
strictures, or at least the enforcement thereof, on 
religious life for foreigners in Rason.  Following Kim's 
arrest, Rason officials requested aid workers to return to 
China on weekends, knowing that Christian workers typically 
worshipped together on Sundays.  They knew that such 
services had been happening in Rason in the past but "put 
up with it" provided no North Korean nationals were 
involved, explained our contact, a participant in such 
Sunday fellowship sessions.  Our contact knows of "several" 
aid groups who are currently complying with the North 
Korean request, but also of others who are not and do not 
appear to be suffering major consequences. 
 
NORTH KOREAN VIEWS OF THE CHINESE PRESENCE IN RASON 
--------------------------------------------- ------ 
¶9. (C) PRC nationals--business personnel in particular-- 
abound in Rason, but our contact suggested a certain 
ambivalence among some local North Koreans about their 
neighbors across the Tumen River.  During her trips from 
Yanbian into North Korea, our contact typically sees large 
numbers of PRC trucks on the road from Quanhe Land Port to 
Rason.  PRC businessmen in Rason are numerous, operating 
everything from market stalls to Chinese restaurants.  Most 
establishments she frequents and all taxis she uses accept 
both North Korean won and Chinese renminbi as payment. 
Much of Rason's produce and other food staples are imported 
from China.  (NOTE: Food prices in Rason surged in recent 
months, eroding workers' salaries; see refs A-B.  END 
 
SHENYANG 00000076  003 OF 003 
 
 
NOTE.) 
 
¶10. (C) Purely anecdotal observations and conversations 
with her organization's North Korean laborers and Rason 
investment officials, however, ultimately led our contact 
to assess that North Koreans in Rason "don't like" the 
Chinese.  They "tolerate" the Chinese because they "need" 
their northern neighbors for investment and trade, 
including food.  Poor experiences with certain Chinese 
businesspeople and investors appears to fuel this ill will 
further among North Korean officials.  In a candid moment, 
for example, a Rason investment official told our contact's 
colleagues that "some" Chinese businessmen are "not 
trustworthy" as business partners, confiding that he tends 
to "trust" other foreigners more.  (NOTE: Chinese 
businessmen in northeast China commonly complain to us 
about unscrupulous North Korean partners, but we have also 
heard the less-common, converse observation elsewhere; see 
ref C.  END NOTE.)  More mundane dynamics might also be at 
work.  Several North Koreans, for instance, grumbled to our 
contact about the "inappropriate" dress of some Chinese 
women--typically the assistants who travel along with their 
Chinese businessmen-bosses, as opposed to the resident 
Chinese businesswomen who tend to dress more modestly in 
relatively conservative Rason society.  (An unofficial 
dress code proscribes aid workers from wearing jeans, for 
instance.)  In restaurants, many Chinese businessmen tend 
to come across as "loud and arrogant," acting as if they 
are "not guests" in the country, she added, caveating the 
anecdotal nature of these impressions. 
 
RUSSIANS ALREADY IN RASON FOR RAILWAY/PORT PROJECT 
--------------------------------------------- ----- 
¶11. (C) Russian nationals involved in implementing a recent 
DPRK-Russia railway/port-improvement project are already in 
Rason, related our contact, who has an aid-worker friend 
living at the Rajin hotel that houses the Russians. 
Another of our contact's North Korean interlocutors, a 
Rason investment official who claimed to be involved in the 
negotiations on this project, told our contact's colleagues 
that Pyongyang was pleased by the inking of the April 2008 
cooperative agreement.  (NOTE: Under the project a joint 
venture will reconstruct the dormant 50-plus-kilometer 
railroad linking Rajin and Khasan, a border settlement 
directly across the Russian border by rail bridge.  Russian 
plans are also underway to modernize parts of Rajin port. 
See ref D for background.  END NOTE.) 
SWICKMAN