It has been learned that a secret farm is operated in Yulla-ri Village, Sinwon County, South Hwanghae Province that serves the needs of the top elite of the North, including Kim Jong Il. Called the "Presidential Office's Cattle Farm," the town-wide area, surrounded by mountains and a lake, is off-limits to the public with layers of checkpoints set up at many spots. Soldiers honorably discharged from the General Guard Command, the vanguard of the socialist system, are assigned to the farm as workers, who lead family lives on the farm.
"The pasture was an absolute exception from the food shortages that gripped the North at that time," recalls Kim Yong-suk, alias, 59, a North Korean defector now living in the South, who visited the cattle farm in 1995 for a fortnight on duty. Discharged soldiers and their young wives were living there with one or two kids of the same age group. While being virtually alienated from the outside society, they enjoyed sufficient rations of edible oil and sugar. Beef in particular was available there for NK1.20 per kilogram, less than one-thousandth the market price, she reminisces.
The workers who live in moderately comfortable houses equipped with home appliances such as television sets and refrigerators, in principle, are not allowed to go outside or invite relatives to visit their homes. Instead they have to meet their visitors at the entrance checkpoint. Outings are only permitted on special occasions such as their parents' 60th birthdays.
Cattle there are put out to pasture, fed nutritious natural feed including medicinal herbs, and bred in a sanitary way. Flawed cattle are butchered and disposed of on the spot. The Mount Kumsu Memorial Palace Presidential Office, which manages the farm, dispatches trucks to the cattle farm periodically to carry healthy cattle to Pyongyang. Administered by a director, the farm is comprised of a number of work teams and operates a steelworks, hospital and flourmill.
(Kim Mi-young, miyoung@chosun.com)
