A gruesome tragedy reportedly looms in one of the world’s most secretive and brutal societies. Relief experts returning from North Korea say the hard-line Communist country is on the verge of a major famine that could claim many thousands of lives in the months ahead.
After decades of cockeyed economic mismanagement and devastating floods in each of the past two years, North Korea is said to be running out of food and in need of more than 1 million tons of foreign grain to feed its 23 million people until the summer harvest can be gathered. Humanitarian agencies have issued urgent appeals for help. The heart says yes, but the head has reservations.
The throwback, xenophobic regime in Pyongyang is clearly edging towards collapse. A measure of its desperation is its willingness to accept aid from western countries after a half-century of hostile, snarling isolation. The regime has gone so far as to invite foreign observers to visit a few carefully selected sites and witness heartbreaking scenes of hungry children as part of a well-scripted campaign to win sympathy from the outside world.
If only it were that simple–supplying sustenance to the children and old people who are the first victims of any famine. Unfortunately, there is the risk that a humane effort to feed starving North Koreans could have the unintended and unwanted effect of shoring up the country’s crumbling ruling clique, delaying its inevitable demise. The longer the regime hangs on, the more agony it can inflict on its long-suffering subjects.
Even as many ordinary North Koreans struggle to survive on a few-hundred calories a day, much of it from grasses, leaves and tree bark, there is alarming evidence that the country’s leaders are chiefly fixated on preserving military muscle. Defectors report the country’s fighting forces are far better provisioned than the civilians, with the bulk of earlier food aid having ended up on military bases. This fuels fears that the regime may be contemplating an attack on South Korea in a last-ditch gamble to cling to power.
On the other hand, the regime has displayed some signs that it is slowly coming to its senses. It has signed a nuclear accord with the U.S., apologized for sending a submarine into South Korean waters and entered into preliminary peace talks with the U.S. and the South. To keep this momentum going, Washington will provide some 50,000 tons of food aid this spring.
We think that’s a sensible approach for now–but only if the U.S. and other donors can be assured that the food is actually going to the people who need it most. North Korea must allow effective inspection. If it won’t, then we’ll know the regime can’t be trusted.
