The Forked Tongue of Lee Jong-Seok, Part 4

You’ve probably already forgotten him, but the man who once sustained Kim Jong Il’s centrifuge fund the North Korean people with trainloads of cash so recently is now trying to make the transition to scholar and elder statesman. In the course of doing so, he reveals a rather obvious fact -that North Korea’s per capita annual income is fact much lower than the official Bank of Korea estimate, $1,100. The real figure is probably closer to $400, putting North Korea among the world’s poorest and at stark contrast to the affluence of its neighbors:

“If you had the slightest bit of interest or knowledge about the North, you would have asked the question: ‘In that case, why is the majority of North Koreans starving?”‘ Lee, who was Minister of Unification in 2006, said in a report published on Friday. [Reuters, Jack Kim]

Whoa. Starving? People are starving there? A majority, even?

“At least since 2000 when we began providing assistance to the North, no one there has been starving to death,” Lee said.

““ Lee Jong-Seok, quoted in Yonhap, May 2, 2006, archived here

How could people possibly be starving after Lee Jong-Seok sent all that aid to North Korea? I mean, who else could be eating it all?