ROK Food Aid Policy Misses the Point

Is Seoul’s resumption of food aid about saving lives, national pride, or something else?

The government has decided to resume food aid to North Korea, which was stopped in summer 2007, and is considering when to start and how much to give. [….]

Another government official said the government is considering giving “10,000 to 30,000 tons” of food. If Seoul were to resume food aid on the scale of previous administrations, which was between 300,000 and 400,000 tons, it “would need a strategic decision taking progress in the North Korean nuclear issue into consideration,” a senior government source said.

A security officer said, “The government isn’t going to give aid to the North blindly. We’ll watch if the North does more than apologize” for the death of six South Koreans as a result of its sudden discharge of water from a dam into the Imjin River, “and if it accepts our humanitarian aid suggestion at inter-Korean meetings such as Red Cross talks.” [Chosun Ilbo]

South Korea certainly has the right to condition its aid on ensuring that its citizens are safe, although no compelling evidence ever emerged that North Korea’s release of water, causing that fatal flood in South Korea, was intentional. But food aid for people who have nothing to do with setting North Korean government policy ought to be given according to humanitarian principles, starting with the donor’s ability to monitor distribution to assure that it’s given according to need. I see nothing in this article suggesting that North Korea has agreed to such transparency (maybe some reader out there can be helpful in that regard, although we all know the value of a North Korean promise).

If the South gives a small consignment of food aid, and it’s just enough to feed a small number of North Koreans, can’t we all guess whose stomachs it will end up in? As long as the elite are fed and the proles are hungry, North Korea will have no incentive to allow transparent aid distribution to everyone. That’s why small consignments of direct aid are really anti-humanitarian.