National Defense Commission Chairman Kim Jong Il delivers special gifts to over 20,000 individuals in the country each year, according to sources familiar with North Korean affairs. Those receiving the gifts may be described as the core force underpinning the North's system. They are mostly key leading officials of the party, administration and military, but many are chosen for particular reasons as the occasion demands.

Of the total, 6,000-plus receive gifts without fail on three national holidays - New Year's Day, Kim Jong Il's birthday falling on February 16, and the late President Kim Il Sung's birthday on April 15. The remainder are selected periodically to mark various events or specially designated dates. "Gifts given under the name of Kim Jong Il are being used as an un-publicized means of maintaining the system," observed a source.

Among those regularly getting gifts on the three national holidays are over 1,000 leading party officials including secretaries, department heads, deputy department heads and section chiefs. The next biggest group comprises about 1,000 regimental commanders and above in the military. The premier, vice premier, cabinet ministers and deputy ministers, who clinch the gifts regularly, are much smaller in number, an indication of their weaker status. Also included among the gifts' regular recipients are 300-plus retired veteran anti-Japanese partisans or their bereaved families, and families of "revolutionary combatants" (espionage agents) dispatched to the South.

Taking charge of purchasing and delivering various special presents under the name of Kim Jong Il is the Kumsusan Assembly Hall Accounting Department, which has been handling the assets of the Kims since the Kim Il Sung era. The department has a section specialized in matters related to gifts.

The type of gift differs by rank; party secretaries, the premier and deputy premier get the highest level of gifts, consisting of such basic items as quality cloth for two suits, two bottles of foreign liquor, quality underwear, a watch on which Kim Il Sung's name is printed, and a carton of "Daesong" cigarettes, the top quality brand produced in North Korea. Added to them are supplements such as the latest refrigerator available on the market, a color TV set, and American dollars in cash or foreign exchange coupons worth between US$1,000 and US$2,000. Other gifts are delivered to them on special commemoration days such as the Party Foundation Day on October 10, falling on years divisible by the figures of five or ten.

Workers' Party Central Committee department heads, deputy department heads, cabinet ministers and vice ministers get gifts falling one class below. But the head and deputy heads of the central party Organization and Guidance Department, the minister and vice minister of the People's Armed Forces, the commander of the General Guards Command, and the head of the State Security Agency's First Department are eligible for gifts identical in class with those delivered to party secretaries and the premier.

The gifts are normally delivered on the eve of national holidays or events in two ways. One is for guidance officers of the Kumsusan Assembly Hall Accounting Department to visit relevant organizations and hand the gifts to recipients in ceremonies attended by recipients only, un-disclosed to outsiders. In the ceremonies, the guidance officers, representing Kim Jong Il, call recipients by name in a manner done by royal emissaries of the Yi Dynasty before handing them the gift certificate. A recipient bows or salutes to the portrait of Kim Jong Il hung in the hall and pledges, "I will loyally return the deep political trust and consideration the great leader General Kim Jong Il has bestowed on me." The other is for agencies involved to hold such ceremonies on their own after bringing the gifts from the Kumsusan Assembly Hall Accounting Department.

The gifts Kim Jong Il sends to over 20,000 people every year are estimated to cost $20,000 on the average. The costs are dispensed out of a sort of ruling fund the Kumsusan Assembly Hall Accounting Department sets aside to the tune of 1% of the state budget, and foreign exchange earnings from exports by 50-some plants and corporations managed by the department.

Those who are given the gifts are forbidden to disclose the effect or the contents of the gifts, observes a source, in an apparent bid not to create social disharmony. Leading officials who have long received the gifts, but who are suddenly eliminated from the roster are said to become crestfallen, as it indicates their fallen status. People from provincial cities and towns who receive the gifts on an irregular basis, however, are not eagerly discouraged to disclose the effect in an attempt to publicize that anyone who has rendered meritorious services to the state is eligible for the special gifts from the supreme leader.

(Lee Kyo-kwan, haedang@chosun.com )