The Bungang area of Yongbyon, North Pyongan Province, is home to several nuclear facilities and as such is a restricted area. Hordes of scientists began to move there in the early 1970s when the North launched its nuclear development program in earnest and hundreds of discharged military servicemen were deployed year after year to construct related facilities. A special administrative district independent of Yongbyon, the Bungang area has a population of over 40,000, who led a stifling life under strict control until Pyongyang and Washington signed a nuclear accord in Geneva in 1994, when it eased somewhat.

"Bungang women used to be banned from marrying outside the district, and unmarried men wishing to marry them had to move into the area to get married," recalls Kim Un-suk (alias), 26, who was born in Bungang and worked at a nuclear-related plant before fleeing to the South.

Traveling to a town outside the Bungang area requires a pass, while three People's Army brigades are deployed in and around the district. Walking to the Yaksandongdae path, famous for azaleas, which used to take only half an hour, now takes up to two hours because of the need to detour round military checkpoints and barbed-wire fences.

Letters Bungang resident send to their relatives outside the district are thoroughly inspected, and travel passes have to be approved by a number of institutions, ending with the State Security Agency. Consequently, residents seldom travel outside.

Ms. Kim worked at "August Business Establishment," a plant processing uranium and extracting nuclear fuel. The plant employed 2,000 workers, split into a dozen work teams and classified into four grades - extraordinary, first, second and third. Workers of the first two grades worked in hazardous areas and wore anti-radioactive garments. Women workers, mostly grade three, were assigned to machine rooms. In the wake of the signing of the nuclear agreed framework, said Ms. Kim, certain major plants stopped operations, but ordinary work never ceased and she herself continued her routine job.

Fearing radiation, people shun working in the nuclear facilities, as rumors have it that people working there get disabled and give birth to deformed babies. Kim did not observe any such cases, however, perhaps because of tight security steps enforced.

The Bungang area population enjoys treatment equal to those accorded Pyongyang citizens, with their personnel affairs and housing arrangements administered by the Atomic Power Administration. Until the onset of the perennial food shortages, they were way better off than ordinary citizens with all daily necessities shipped direct from the capital. With the rationing of daily necessities except soybean sauce, soybean paste and edible oil suspended due to the economic plight, however, their living became very difficult. Their hardship is further compounded by the fact that, unlike their counterparts living elsewhere who engage in trade, they are not permitted to earn extra money on their own.

When international agency representatives visited the nuclear facilities under the 1994 nuclear agreed framework, all workers were banned from leaving their job sites. They were instructed to tell the foreign visitors to identify their work sites by their nuclear-related functions.

Despite nearly a total suspension of work at the nuclear facilities under the agreed framework, workers' were not permitted to move elsewhere for a long time. In response to repetitive appeals by the cadres, however, women workers were first allowed to marry bachelors from elsewhere and workers, except those of extraordinary and first grades, were subsequently permitted to return to their hometowns if they wished.

The "February Business Establishment" of the Bungang area is equipped with reactors, and the construction of the "March Business Establishment" was suspended under the agreed framework.

Most Bungang area residents are said to believe with pride that North Korea possesses nuclear weapons. But since the operation of major nuclear facilities has been suspended under the nuclear accord, they say, "After all, we've been defeated," according to Ms. Kim.

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