There Must Be a Better Way

Advocates of getting tough on North Korea over food aid are getting their way. Donations are down, and the World Food Program is cutting back the list of those who will be fed this year. The problem, of course, is that the food wasn’t going to the hungry; most of it probably went to help Kim Jong-Il reward those who keep him in power. Still, some must have found its way to those who needed it, even if only through the black market. The decision is agonizing. Aid or no aid, this winter, many North Koreans will expend what little energy they have hacking away at the frozen earth to bury people they love.

All of which brings us to the bitter truth–Kim Jong-Il probably wants a few thousand (or million) more “surplus” people to die this winter–that is, those in the classes deemed politically “wavering” or “hostile.” Why, then, must we recognize the North Korean government’s right to decide who eats and who starves? Why must we accept the classic U.N.-think that invests all rights in governments, no matter how illegitimate, no matter how lacking in the consent of the governed or compassion for their suffering?

The question then becomes how to save lives without starting a war. Chris at FreeNorthKorea.net correctly notes that feeding people without the permission of the government means you need an airlift. No one is under any illusion that you can save many people without the heavy-lift capacity of an air force. Could this be done without provoking a war? Put differently, the question is whether Kim Jong-Il, knowing that war means the loss of his pleasure squad, his fine brandy, and his collection of Daffy Duck cartoons, would see a humanitarian airdrop as a causus belli. I venture that he would not. What he lacks in compassion for those who would die in a war, he makes up for in cold, rational selfishness. War is not in his personal interest unless it poses a direct and immediate threat to his personal lifestyle.

Of course, no government has decided to carry out such an airlift, and none of the countries within easy range of North Korea has the chutzpah to lend us an airfield. Doug Shin and Norbert Vollertsen have tried using balloons to carry a few radios, but they are well aware that they are mostly delivering media attention. Another quixotic idea that Doug Shin has discussed–and which I believe could actually work on a limited basis–would be using simple, inexpensive, GPS-guided UAVs to carry substantial amounts of humanitarian supplies to specific destinations. Other organizations, like Helping Hands Korea, smuggle small amounts of food into North Korea from China.

It is a tragedy that North Korea’s heartlessness has forced us to this point. But it’s inexcusable that we have no plan to help the North Korean people in spite of this.