Readers React: Pyongyang’s drab architecture is getting a makeover. What about North Korea’s prison camps?

To the editor: I read with incredulity the front-page puff piece on the architectural rebirth of Pyongyang, North Korea. (“North Korea is building something other than nukes: architecture with some zing,” May 20)

I’m wondering if there will also be remodeling of the prison camps, home to many people whose only crime is to be the descendant of a person who fell out of favor with the dictator. Select prisoners are ordered to breed in order to enforce the dictum of punishment through three generations.

Also missing from this “news” story is an investigation as to where the money is coming from to build these new structures. The state-run newspaper recently warned North Korean citizens to be prepared for a new “arduous march, during which we will have to chew the roots of plants once again.” The last arduous march, in the 1990s, resulted in death by starvation of up to 3.5 million North Koreans.

Perhaps this glowing praise is to curry favor with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un so he aims his nuclear weapons somewhere other than Los Angeles.

Susan Stalzer, Tustin

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