It’s usually top generals or potential rivals who feel the wrath of North Korea’s leader, but this week Kim Jong Un’s ire was directed at a terrapin farm.
According to North Korea’s state-run KCNA news agency, the country’s Supreme Leader recently carried out an inspection of the Taedonggang Terrapin Farm where he noted a number of “serious shortcomings.”
For one thing the farm, which is located on the outskirts of Pyongyang, didn’t pay enough attention to the study of his late father, who KCNA said was the inspiration behind the project to “provide the people with tasty and nutritious terrapin widely known as a precious tonic from olden times.”
“It is hard to understand that the farm visited by Kim Jong Il did not arrange even the room for education in revolutionary history,” KCNA quoted Kim as saying. “The employees who failed to bear deep in their minds his leadership exploits could hardly perform their role as masters in production.”
He then added, ominously, that the farm’s atmosphere was completely different from others he visited.
Lobster failure
The farm was also meant to breed freshwater lobsters. But, because of the “incompetence, outmoded way of thinking and irresponsible work style” of its managers, it failed to do so, Kim said, according to KCNA.
North Korea is preparing to mark the 70th anniversary of the Korean Workers’ Party (WPK), likely to be a lavish affair celebrated with the types of food the majority of North Koreans can only dream of. But with the importation of luxury items halted because of United Nations sanctions, the reclusive state needs to produce its own — and that includes lobsters.
This again drew stinging criticism from the third generation of the Kim dynasty to rule the country. “All personnel and people of the country are working hard round the clock to make good presents to the 70th founding anniversary of the WPK but he could hardly understand with what success the officials and employees of the farm would like to greet the October festival,” KCNA said, citing Kim.
Weather fail
While most “on the spot” visits to state-run enterprises are lauded as success stories, Kim has been known to express his extreme displeasure in the past.
In 2014, the North Korean leader complained that there were “too many incorrect” weather forecasts during a tour of meteorological facilities.
The report in the state-run newspaper Rodong Sinmun included photos of a red-faced Kim chastising what appeared to be sheepish meteorological personnel.
Blaming outdated equipment and scientific method, the young leader stressed a need for accurate forecasts to protect people’s lives and property from “abnormal climatic phenomenon” (sic) and to safeguard industries like agriculture and fisheries from natural disasters in a timely manner, according to Rodong Sinmun.
In 2013, he hit out at broken pavements and overgrown weeds as he walked around an amusement park. At one point, and with an irritated look on his face, he bent down to pluck them up one by one, KCNA said. He said officials at the funfair had a “below-zero spirit of serving the people.”
