North Korea has executed a ruling party official blamed for the botched currency reform last November which led to runaway inflation and threatened new food shortages, in what is an attempt to contain civil unrest.
Pak Nam-ki, the 77-year-old head of planning and finance, was executed by firing squad in Pyongyang last week according to South Korea's Yonhap news agency.
Mr Pak, who had been purged in January, was executed for "deliberately ruining the national economy" as a "son of a big landowner," Yonhap reported.
However many both in the regime and in the wider population apparently believe that Mr Pak was made a scapegoat for the crisis, which threatened the smooth succession of power from the country's leader Kim Jong Il to his youngest son Kim Jonh Un"The mood in the leadership has made Pak Nam-ki a scapegoat," an unnamed source was quoted as saying.
In November, the regime announced a drastic revaluation of the currency - the won - in an apparent effort to curb the burgeoning free-market economy.
All North Koreans were required to swap old notes with new ones at an exchange rate of one to 100, knocking two zeros off their value.
Because of a cap of 100,000 won per family — about £500 at the official exchange rate — anyone with significant holdings of cash had their savings wiped out.
The ensuing food shortages and inflation led to a rare public admission from Mr Kim that his father's Utopian vision of a thriving economy had not materialised. “My heart bleeds for our people who are still eating corn," he said.
Since the revaluation, shops and markets in North Korea have remained closed and all cash transactions have been frozen.
According to the Seoul based DailyNK website, it was alleged that Mr Pak had submitted a report claiming that revaluation would "improve the people’s lives and secure the national budget."
Sources told the website that his promise that people's lives would be bettered had persuaded Mr Kim to revalue the won, until soaring prices proved Mr Pak wrong.
Mr Pak was publicly denounced as a traitor at a Party convention in late January, and arrested on the spot.
In the capital, Pyongyang, yesterday only the few shops and restaurants permitted to trade in foreign currencies — patronised by the privileged elite and the city’s small foreign population — were open for business.
All other enterprises and services based on cash, including markets, long-distance bus services, barbers’ shops, saunas and bath houses, were suspended until the revaluation of the won is completed next week.
In the 1990s, North Korea publicly executed a top agricultural official following widespread starvation
Source:The Times
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