Music

00:00

MCDONELL: We're about to get on a flight for Pyongyang. North Korea's one of the toughest places for a journalist to get into, but we've been invited. We're going on an official tour though, so we'll see what they show us.

00:12

We board a vintage Air Koryo Tupolev.

00:26

Plane takes off

Music

00:29

McDonell on plane reading newspaper

MCDONELL: The propaganda is soon at hand. North Korea apparently owes it all to, former leader and still god like figure, Kim Il Sung. The only other significant contributor has been his son and current leader Kim Jong Il.

00:36

Pyongyang shots

We arrive in North Korea's capital, a city shrouded in mystery. Pyongyang is North Korea's showcase, with boulevards, monuments, grand government buildings...

00:00

Female traffic police

And signature traffic police.

01:17

Pyongyang shots

The capital is home to the country's elite who are sheltered from its worst hardships.

01:23

The city seems frozen in time - there's no advertising, no jeans, mobile phones are banned and people seem to walk everywhere.

01:30

Basic utilities are in short supply, but the propaganda machine never sleeps.

01:43

Statue of Kim Il Sung

Music

01:50

McDonell and minders leaving hotel to get on the bus

01:55

McDonell and others on bus

MCDONELL: It's day one of our four day express tour. There are 12 of us and we'll be accompanied at all times by four minders. We're not allowed to leave the hotel without them.

02:04

Mr Kim

MR KIM:  This is the Jun Goo Yok. In English, it is the central district.

02:16

 MCDONELL: Kim Hyon Chol is our main guide.

02:21

Arrival at Man Gyong Dae

First stop - Man Gyong Dae, the ancestral home of the Great Leader Kim Il Sung.

02:25

It's Sunday - North Korea's day of rest - and there are plenty of visitors.

02:33

Mr Kim is already frustrated that we're not paying enough attention.

02:40

Mr Kim with group

MR KIM:   Some people listen to me and some people didn't listen to me. Yes let's go.

02:43

Visitors at family well

MCDONELL: Visitors enthusiastically drink from the Great Leader's family well.

02:55

MR KIM:    I also drink the water from the well every time I come here because

03:01

Mr Kim with McDonell

the well was used by the family well of President Kim Il Sung.

03:06

Guide with visitors

BRADLEY:  The people who are permitted to guide us are chosen for their loyalty and for their understanding of the system and its position on matters

03:14

Bradley

and they are supposed to be representatives of that position.

03:24

McDonnell in bar with Bradley Martin

MCDONELL: Joining our tour is American journalist and author Bradley Martin. This is his sixth trip to North Korea in the last 18 years. Having written a book about the personality cult of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, he's a little surprised he's been allowed back in.

03:31

BRADLEY:  Americans basically are not welcome here in general, the only way I've been in, in recent times is as a tourist. This is a country that is based on propaganda

03:51

Bradley. Super: Bradley Martin
Author

and what they show us on these tours is propaganda. So I come here and I gratefully receive the latest instalment of the propaganda and I try to see what's changed.

04:02

Subway

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04:16

MCDONELL: Next, the Russian built subway.  These are the best maintained stations in the system and the only ones tourists ever get to see.

04:30

Pyongyang's underground railway was built in 1973.

04:45

McDonell and Mr Kim on train

MCDONELL:  How important is it to life of Pyongyang, the subway?

MR KIM:   I know that 50,000 people use this network everyday, so it plays a good role in transporting the people. 

04:53

Music

05:12

MCDONELL: 50,000 out of 3 million Pyongyang residents isn't that many.

05:16

Trams and buses

The vast majority either walk or use the trams and buses. We don't get a ride on them - possibly because they're falling apart.

05:27

USS Pueblo

Moored on Pyongyang's Taedong River is the captured American navy ship, Pueblo.  The North Koreans say it was spying on them when they seized it in 1968.

05:37

Mr Kim and McDonell by river

Here Mr Kim opens up a bit about life in North Korea.

05:52

MR KIM:  Ten years ago there were many difficulties for my family: not only with food, clothes and electricity - no electricity, no water. Now we have everyday there are two or three hours of water. Yes, here comes the water. And electricity, yes we have enough electricity. I have TV, computer. refrigerator, tape recorder and so on.

05:57

MCDONELL: Your Dear Leader, how's he been able to look after the country, I mean what do you think of his performance, if you like?

06:22

MR KIM:  How can I know about that? Your question is... There is something strange here. How can I know what is our leader's idea? How can a common person, know the great and deep idea? That's just... I can't know.

06:30

Driving shots into countryside

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06:45

MCDONELL: When it's time to leave the city, we're told not to film while driving on country roads. Apparently, it's because we might see sensitive military facilities -- but there's another reason.

BRADLEY:  They're ashamed of the countryside, because

06:50

Bradley. Super: Bradley Martin
Author

every mountain and hill has been picked clean of vegetation. You see, there's no forest out there. They have ploughed the hillsides. All of this to try and survive during the time of the famine.

07:07

Train

MCDONELL: In the mid-1990s, hundreds of thousands of people died of starvation in North Korea - some estimates put the number in the millions.

07:25

Farm villages

Whether people are still starving is difficult for us to find out, we're not allowed near ordinary people. But in March the North Korean Government made a rare admission that it's expecting a food shortfall of 20 percent this year. This could see hundreds of thousands suffer from malnutrition. 

07:36

BRADLEY:   I assume they're doing somewhat better than they were during the great famine, but

08:00

Bradley

they don't have anything to boast about in the rural areas and they know it.

08:05

International Friendship Exhibition

Music

08:10

MCDONELL: Three hours drive north of Pyongyang, at Mt Myohyangsan, we're taken to the International Friendship Exhibition - a museum dedicated to gifts given to Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il. Foreign cameras are not normally allowed through these doors, but we manage to convince them to let us in.

08:14

Guide at exhibits

FEMALE  GUIDE:  If you take one minute to look at one gift, then it will take one and a half years to look at all the gifts.

08:38

Various gifts on display

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08:44

MCDONELL: The collection of presents is enormous and diverse -- with gifts from tyrants to sports stars, religious figures to corporate bosses.

08:48

McDonell looks at gifts

MCDONELL:  So what do we have here? This is an alligator carrying a series of cups. It looks like it's from the Sandinistas in Nicaragua have given this present to the DPRK.

09:02

Now here we have this bear from President Ceausescu of Romania. He's said to have actually killed this bear himself and given this as a present.

09:14

There's a bullet-proof car given by the Soviet Union and used by Kim Il Sung during the Korean war. And, if bullet-proof cars aren't enough...

09:24

Train carriage

A bullet proof train carriage, given by Soviet Leader Stalin.

09:35

MCDONELL: This is a remarkably well fitted-out train for what is essentially a security device for the President. We've got meeting rooms, bathrooms, sleeping compartments and it's quite ornate.

09:42

Bradley taking notes on tour

When author Bradley Martin questions the rationale behind building a huge extension to the museum, our guide is not happy.

09:55

FEMALE GUIDE:  Do you know about the hard time our country experienced from 1995 to 2000?

10:03

BRADLEY:   When I suggested that this was a lot of money to spend at that time 1995 when people were starving,

10:12

Bradley

she was outraged. She said it's our duty to take care of these gifts.

10:20

FEMALE GUIDE:   Our people will appreciate our leader and general because he makes all of these gifts belong to his people.

10:26

Arirang stadium

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10:42

Performers in festival

MCDONELL: Back in Pyongyang performers warm up for North Korea's mass gymnastics spectacular. It's the centrepiece of the Arirang Festival, with a hundred thousand performers.

10:45

Arirang tells the story of the birth of North Korea.

11:05

... There's the war against Japanese occupation...

11:13

and later prosperity and peace, as the Korean Workers Party comes to power.

11:19

The exploits of Great Leader Kim Il Sung and Dear Leader Kim Jong Il are central to everything.

11:29

BRADLEY:   I'm looking at the show to see what it shows about their military stance. This time they changed it slightly. They took out some really blood curdling smoking scenes with lots of noise of North Korean soldiers

11:42

Bradley

demolishing, wiping out their enemies who are us, basically.

12:01

Performers in festival

In the place of that, they did not add a nuclear explosion scene.

12:06

Music

12:16

Leaving stadium in bus

MCDONELL: Back in the bus, the performance sparks a discussion about the causes of the Korean war. Bradley Martin suggests it was North Korea which started it.

12:24

Mr Kim and Bradley on bus

MR KIM:   I can't stand it. Frankly speaking, sorry I can't stand that. If you say that word in our country any more then I can't secure your life in this land.

12:33

BRADLEY:   Oh my goodness. That's frightening.

MR KIM:   That's fine?

BRADLEY:  Frightening, frightening.

12:49

Bradley. Super: Bradley Martin
Author

BRADLEY:   If I sat down and told them that the Russian archives have opened up and it said right there that Kim Il Sung went to Stalin three times asking for permission to invade the South and finally Stalin said yes, I'll help you, so let's do it, they would not believe me. They simply would not believe me and they would have no basis for believing me. It's just not within their realm of experience to believe such a thing.

12:55

Mr Kim and Bradley on bus

MR KIM:  If you are right then let's begin the war  between Korea and the US.

BRADLEY: I don't think that's a good idea.

13:20

MR KIM:  Why the US army is in South Korea? Why? Why? Why?

BRADLEY: The South Korean people want it there right now.

MR KIM:  They don't want it. You made it worse. You made it --  you US aggressors made it.

13:27

Statues. Night

MCDONELL: North Korea seems at times like a giant, closed-off museum. But there are some signs that the DPRK may be opening a little to the world.

13:53

FELIX:  North Korea is open to foreign investment and business. They are interested in getting more foreign investment

14:07

Felix

because the development of the economy has a high priority.

14:15

Felix and McDonell in shop

MCDONELL: Swiss businessman, Felix Abt, runs a pharmaceutical joint venture in Pyongyang. It mainly produces pain killers and antibiotics for humanitarian organisations, but it's looking to export in the near future. He's opposed to international sanctions.

14:23

FELIX:   I believe that sanctions hinder economic development. I think economic development like elsewhere, including China, helps integrating the country into the larger world community

14:43

Felix

and I think that's in everybody's interest.

14:58

Travelling to DMZ in bus

Music

15:01

Mr Kim on bus

MR KIM:  I want you to pay special attention today.

15:05

MCDONELL: Today we're off to Panmunjon, the village in the Demilitarised Zone between North and South Korea .

15:12

MR KIM: At that area if you didn't keep the rule, it is permitted to shoot you.

15:20

Captain Han gives briefing

MCDONELL: On arrival we're briefed by Captain Han Myong Gil. He says both sides worry about accidental shootings with a million soldiers on either side of the frontier.  But what we're keen to know is the North Korean military's view of its Government's recent promise to give up nuclear weapons as part of the Six Party Talks.

15:34

CAPTAIN HAN:  We didn't mean to announce to give up nuclear weapons. Our stance has always been the same: to counter violence with violence; to react to talks with talks. To freeze the Yongbyon nuclear power station does not mean we'll give up nuclear weapons.

15:58

When the US side gives up its hostile policy toward us we won't need a single nuclear weapon any more. This is like two people pointing guns at each other. The US side asks us to put down our gun first. How could this be reasonable? Our two sides should put down the guns at the same time.

16:12

North Korean soldiers/ American soldier

MCDONELL: This is the point where soldiers from both sides face each other every day. An American comes to have a look at who on earth the North Koreans have brought here.

16:36

DMZ

CAPTAIN HAN:   Every time I see the military demarcation line I feel pain, but I believe the day will come when the military demarcation line disappears.

16:48

Music

16:59

MCDONELL: Captain Han told me that the lesson of Iraq is that a strong country can defend itself, but a weak one will be beaten down.

17:04

Juche statue

In the heart of Pyongyang is the monument to the Juche idea. The Juche philosophy is central to the regime's ideology. It means militarily, economically - and in all ways - North Korea doesn't need anyone else to survive.

17:18

Pyongyang people

What most ordinary North Koreans think of the Juche, nuclear weapons - or anything else about the way the country's run - is virtually impossible to know.

17:38

BRADLEY:   Is anything really changing? Are people getting sick and tired of this in their hearts? It's possible, some people are, but how would they express this?

17:51

Bradley

It's a country where dissent in unthinkable.

18:03

Statues

Music

18:07

Bus

MCDONELL: As we prepare to leave the country Mr Kim wants to end on a good note.

18:19

Mr Kim and Bradley on bus

MR KIM:  Especially our professor, I'm so sorry.  I am so, so sorry. Again I say it.

BRADLEY:  You did a good job. 

18:23

MCDONELL: Despite their differences, Mr Kim says he respects our author and wants us all to come back.

18:30

MR KIM:  On behalf of all members of our Korean International Travel Company, I thank you so much.

18:36

McDonell farewells Mr Kim

MCDONELL:  Thank you very much guys.

18:48

MCDONELL: Our minders have been anything but a bunch of clichéd hard liners.  They've been genuinely hospitable, helpful and fun.

18:51

MCDONELL:  Has it been interesting for you too for us to be here?

GUIDE:  Yes. I wish you good health.

MCDONELL: I wish you good health too. Thank you.

19:00

19:12

Credits:

Reporter: Stephen McDonell

Camera: Rob Hill

Producer: Mary Ann Jolley

Editor: Simon Brynjolffssen

Production Company: ABC Australia - Foreign Correspondent