North Korea is lavishing money on an Olympic-size swimming pool and on renovating its capital while people grapple with a growing food crisis, a Web newspaper run by defectors said yesterday.
The Seoul-based Daily NK, citing North Korean media reports in the past week, said Pyongyang was showcasing a “modern” image while failing to address chronic food shortages.
Choson Sinbo, a newspaper published for North Koreans in Japan, reported last week that a modern swimming pool was under construction at the Kim Il-sung University in the capital.
The “top-notch” facility would include an Olympic-size pool, a water slide, spas, restaurants, massage parlors and various other facilities, it said.
In a separate report Choson said the three-story Gwangbok Department Store in Pyongyang was having its entire facade replaced with glass for the first time in 20 years.
“We are trying to bring a modern sense to the facade of the department store,” manager Kim Bong-sun reportedly said.
Defectors gave a chilly response to the work, the Daily NK said.
“Starving people have resorted to eating wild roots to survive,” one of them was quoted as saying.
“In contrast, the authorities are promoting construction enterprises that are designed to serve only the privileged. This shows that [leader] Kim Jong-il has no interest whatsoever in people’s wellbeing,” the defector said.
Since a full-scale famine in the 1990s which killed hundreds of thousands, North Korea has depended on foreign aid to help feed its 23 million people.
The North’s official Korean Central News Agency reported last week that Kim Jong-il was “satisfied” with his visit to a newly renovated movie theater and remodeled restaurants in Pyongyang. It also reported on the construction of an outdoor swimming pool for students and workers in Sariwon, south of Pyongyang.
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