Dear Reader: The Unauthorized Autobiography of Kim Jong Il

by Michael Malice

When a nation is under assault from a plague, the first step is to localize the disease to make sure that it doesn’t spread. Thus came the Marshal’s Decree No. 149. According to this decree, hostile-class members were forbidden from residing by the border or the coastlines. They couldn’t live within 50 kilometers of Pyongyang or Kaesong, or within 20 kilometers of any other major city. As part of the songbun classification process, hundreds of thousands of Koreans were moved to the mountainous north, quarantined from the rest of the population. The worst of the hostiles were sent to the new “enlightenment centers,” where they were concentrated in camps and allowed to work their way back into the nation’s good graces. They did not deserve this mercy, of course.