N. Korean Famine Spurs Broad Discontent But Little Resistance So Far

Several new reports inform us that the famine in North Korea continues to worsen, and to claim ever larger numbers of victims. Reports from Good Friends and the Daily NK suggest that discontent is spreading among all generations and political strata of North Korean society.  Dissent is expressed more openly than in the past, but aside from some isolated protests over market restrictions, it has not yet translated into active resistance.

Andrew Natsios suggests that it may:

“The North Korean famine of the mid-1990’s which killed at least 2 ½ million people was principally an urban famine, and the incipient famine now developing there is also likely to be urban as well. It is also the case that urban famines are politically much more destabilizing than those in rural areas where poor people die in silence,” he added.  [Daily NK]

Natsios’s view is published as part of a series of prognostications about the connection between this year’s famine and the potential for more resistance. Although I have great respect for Natsios and don’t discount the potential for active resistance to broaden, I don’t accept his African analogies as applicable to North Korea’s exceptionally regimented society.  Furthermore, the character of this famine has thus far been more rural than urban.

Good Friends has also  released two  more newsletters. Newsletter Number 131 (newsletter-number-131.pdf) reports that in the County of Goksan, the regime mobilized 15,000 workers to rebuild an irrigation project destroyed by two consecutive years of floods, but without the means to feed them:

Because there is no food or aid being distributed by the central government, most people are subsisting on little more than a handful of maize sprinkled with salt. Often, people are forced to eat grass roots mixed with chaff. Forced with exhausting labor and little food, the number of people dying is increasing. Central government members, shocked at the news of workers dying, began visiting the fields to survey the situation. Upon encountering the current conditions, government officials stared open-mouthed and speechless, shocked by the appalling conditions. Asked what they needed by the officials, the crowd responded in unison, “It would be nice to eat a meal!”

Newsletter Number 132 (newsletter-number-132.pdf)  contains this quote suggesting that the North Korean people know the deal:

Jung Young-ho (57) at Pyongsung criticized the party officials bluntly, saying, “Party officials’ main goal is to please and glorify the Beloved Leader and to hide all the problems from him. Consequently, no progress or solution to the problems can be expected to come out. He continued, “They ascribe the causes of the problems to natural disasters or economic sanctions by the United States. They try to evoke hatred and hostility. They are focused on expanding expenditures on the military. When on earth would the lives of people are going to improve?” [….]

Even high ranking party officials at Pyongyang have something to complain about. One such official said, “Those of us who could afford food are definitely affected this year due to food shortage. There is restriction on the usage of electricity and water. We cannot take baths as needed. It is true that we are living in a different world from those who starve to death, but we find that life gets tougher and complaints are increasing. High ranking officials also agree that due to bad government policies the food crisis is getting worse. Only “because I cannot afford to lose my job, I must keep my mouth shut. Who would dare to make recommendations when a word said in wrong way may destroy generations of families?” (He) confessed thus the difficulty of forming public opinions.

North Korea’s quasi-official reaction: lies! all lies!

North Korea admitted that the country is experiencing a dire shortfall in its food supply, but denied claims by aid groups that massive deaths from starvation have begun in the country, a pro-Pyongyang daily in Japan said Friday. “It’s true that our food situation is difficult,” said the Choson Sinbo, the newspaper of Chongryon, the pro-Pyongyang General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, quoting an unnamed official of the North’s agricultural ministry. The official, however, “strongly denied” allegations that North Koreans are dying of starvation, said the newspaper, which usually represents Pyongyang’s position. [Yawnhap]

It’s easy enough to trivialize this, but this is how North Korea starves its people by the millions. I do not completely accept the “duty to protect” theory, which carried to its logical conclusion is really to accept socialism as a human right. I do accept, however, that governments are obligated to either provide for their people or create the conditions where they can provide for themselves.

North Korea’s government clearly can’t provide for its people, and what’s more, it’s doing everything it can to impede them from surviving on their own. The regime’s obligation, then, is to allow someone to provide for its people, which would of course unravel the propagandistic demonization of those who would be passing out the food.

Thus, preserving the propaganda requires the regime to deny that there’s widespread starvation, to better justify denying the world’s generosity access to the starving.

Related: Have you heard the Internet rumors, probably false, of Kim Jong Il’s assassination?