"The residents were somewhat puzzled because most of those to be executed were men of power or wealth," recalled Im Sang-gil, 25 (alias), a North Korean emigrant in the South who witnessed the executions. " More than 10,000 people gathered to watch the executions."

Among those executed were the Hyesan commerce administrator (So Ok-sun), the Dulzok Distillery head, and a footwear plant's junior party secretary, all convicted of state property embezzlement or illicit accumulation of wealth. Kim Ki-song and Kim Kang-nam, 26, well-known merchants in Hyesan, and hooligans with the nicknames "tiger" and "pickaxe" were also executed, convicted of espionage activities in the course of helping people flee to China or arranging reunions in China between separated North and South Korean families, while engaging in smuggling.

Among those who were executed in secret were the political officer of the 376th People's Army unit stationed in Hyesan, the political guidance officer of the border guards, investigation division chief Kim Song-u of the Yanggang provincial People's Security Bureau (police), and a security officer at a munitions factory. The Army unit's political officer is said to have been convicted of misappropriating military supplies, and the political guidance officer of a crime of having a South Korean film, "General's Son," screened to his unit's soldiers for educational purposes. The police investigation officer was reportedly found guilty of receiving bribes, and the munitions factory security officer of embezzling factory property. A leaflet giving the names and posts of and charges brought against the executed in secret was pasted on various spots around the city.

The cases involving the executed were investigated by the People's Army Defense Command, who even went so far as to investigate influential institutions, according to North Koreans defectors here who witnessed the Hyesan public executions. Unlike in previous instances in which the condemned were fastened to poles and shot from a certain distance, those publicly executed in Hyesan were made to kneel down on the ground and where they were shot in the head with revolvers, creating even more gruesome scenes, said the defectors.

The authorities appear to have taken the extraordinary steps to warn the elite under a judgement that no more serious cases of corruption involving the higher echelon could be tolerated. In addition, over 100 senior officials were sentenced to prison terms or services in labor camps, and their families banished. The social atmosphere in Hyesan at the time was said to be warlike. Rumor had it that Kim Jong Il instructed the Defense Command of the People's Army to "sweep it away with a damp rag," following the command's promise to "sweep Hyesan with a broom."

To placate the citizens who remained stressful for sometime after the investigations and dispositions of them, the Defense Command was said to have told the citizens they could, "Feel at ease now that the investigations are all over." Instances of brazen corruption involving senior administration officials have declined since the large-scale purges, but crackdowns are being stepped up recently as smuggling cases take place in large numbers, added the North Korean defectors.

(Kang Chol-hwan, nkch@chosun.com )