North Korea might be isolated in the international community, but it now has a modest ally on the Spanish coast — the Pyongyang Cafe, a small bar founded to support North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s strongman rule.
Located in the Mediterranean city of Tarragona, where Roman ruins vie for attention, the establishment sports a huge North Korean flag behind the bar, where tea typical from the country and Asian beers are served.
Socialist propaganda posters brought all the way from Pyongyang adorn the walls of the modern bar, and in a corner stands a bookshelf full of works by leaders of the Kim dynasty that has ruled North Korea since 1948, translated into Spanish.
Photo: AFP
“North Korea is the world’s big unknown,” says Alejandro Cao de Benos, founder of the bar that opened in the middle of last month and also president of the Korean Friendship Association, which has delegates in more than 30 countries and is officially recognized by Pyongyang.
While North Korean restaurants complete with traditional food and dancing have popped up across Asia, the 41-year-old says this is the only such Western establishment.
A restaurant opened in Amsterdam in 2012, but closed several months later.
“We want to break with all the myths, manipulation. And as not many people can go to Korea, because it’s complicated and far, they can come to our cafe,” Cao de Benos says.
Appointed special delegate for international cultural relations by Pyongyang in 2002, Cao de Benos is the only Westerner to occupy a post in the North Korean regime, even if it is merely honorary.
A staunch communist, his interest in the country peaked after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and he came to know some North Korean families in Madrid.
He started traveling to the country, and says his interest for North Korea eventually “turned into my passion.”
As such, Cao de Benos regularly appears in the media to defend a country long criticized for its human rights violations and nuclear tests.
In a 2014 report, the UN highlighted a long list of crimes committed in North Korea — extermination, slavery, torture, rape, forced abortions, political persecution and disappearances, among others.
Amnesty International spokesman Angel Gonzalo says the situation in the country is “distressing.”
“People are completely at the mercy of what Kim Jong-un decides for them,” he says. “It’s difficult to find a right that is not being violated.”
Not so, Cao de Benos says.
“Access to food, a home or work is much more widespread in North Korea than in any other capitalist country,” he says. “Those are the real human rights in which we believe.”
He says that Pyongyang is the victim of defamation for not following Western doctrines or obeying the US, and dismisses critical reports — whose authors are not allowed into the country — for being based solely on refugee testimonies.
However, Park So-keel of Liberty in North Korea, an association that helps North Korean refugees in Seoul, says these are genuine.
“We have thousands or ten of thousands of people describing the same picture of the country,” he says.
Nevertheless, the mysterious country sparks interest in an otherwise open, globalized world.
Cao de Benos says his association counts about 17,000 members and the bar has been welcoming about 35 people a day on average in its first opening days.
He aspires to make it a cultural center, complete with talks on gastronomy and tradition, film screenings or lectures.
However, its first such event — a talk on tourism — attracted only 10 people.
“Lots of people think that you can’t travel to North Korea and that’s not true,” Sergio Guijo, director of the Spain-based agency Travel Corea, told the attendees.
About 50,000 tourists visit North Korea annually, a large majority of these Chinese.
Guijo’s agency has organized trips there for 60 Spaniards over a year.
However, tourism is a double-edged sword for the country, Park says.
Tourism and the foreign currency it brings can help prop up the regime, which is the subject of many international sanctions, but it can also contribute to opening up the country.
“A North Korean refugee told me that when she saw these Chinese visitors, it made her think: ‘Chinese people can come to Korea, so why can’t I go to China, why can’t I go to the outside world?’” Park said.
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