Good Friends: As Famine Worsens, Soldiers Go Hungry, Disease Spreads

Good Friends has released two more newsletters, numbered 129 and 130. No. 129 is partially made up of material I had passed along here yesterday, but picks up from there with some interesting reports about the food supply to the military. The reports are from Kangwan Province, which lies just north of the DMZ’s eastern sector.

According to one soldier in Keumkang County, the soldiers in this county are experiencing a food shortage as well. They are fed with less than half a bowl of long grain rice(안남미), a couple of pieces of Korean radish, and seaweed soup that tastes like seaweed, yet does not contain any actual seaweed. Lamenting on how bad their food situation was, he said that only on traditional holidays, can he see some oil floating in the seaweed soup. “Because we can’t eat well, we do not have any energy to participate in military training. Thus, sometimes we get into vacant houses, steal food and resell them to other residents. With that money, we get a good amount of food. Sometimes the owners of the stolen food come and complain about the theft, but we dismiss their claims and scold them for their negligence. He added that to save themselves, there is no choice but to do some harm to the other residents. [Good Friends Newsletter No. 129]

This means that there are food shortages in both of the provinces — South Hwanghae and Kangwon — that border the DMZ, and that at least some soldiers in one of those provinces are feeling the effects of food shortages. Assuming these reports are accurate, they suggest good reason to think that the regime is worried that food shortages could trigger social unrest, though I continue to believe that the regime could localize and crush any uprising short of a general military mutiny or a coup in Pyongyang.

(What would change this equation? The North Korean people first need a galvanizing ideology, an organized resistance movement, and the means to communicate dissident ideology and the events of the day from city to city and province to province. If any kind of armed resistance is to have any chance of challenging the regime — and in the long run, armed resistance is the only kind with any chance of success — its political/logistical/intelligence infrastructure would have to be established among the local population. All of this would probably take years, although outside support could accelerate it.)

Newsletter number 130 reports that opportunistic disease is spreading, with the reports mainly originating from the far northeast — Hoeryong and Chongjin. The diseases said to be claiming more victims include colitis and tuberculosis. Skyrocketing food prices are also crushing North Korea’s nascent mercantile economy. Most people cannot afford even the most basis non-food items.

One farm is reported to have sold its seed for next year’s crop because of the dire shortages. Along with reports that farmers are too weak to plow and sow their fields, this also suggests that next year’s harvest will be even worse than this one. Previous reports have also cited shortages of fertilizer and plastic sheeting. Without substantial and effective international aid, next year’s famine will be far worse. Other reports of note:

* The regime has launched a public education program to dissuade growing numbers of starving women from turning to prostitution to survive. (Meaning, the regime would prefer the alternative?);

* There are more reports that starving people are headed for the hills to pick wild plants, even grass, to eat. These foods have so little nutritional value and do so much harm to one’s digestive tract that the net effect of expending energy to gather them may be to hasten starvation;

* A magnesium clinker mine in South Hamgyeong Province was forced to shut down because so many workers abandoned their duties in an effort to gather these “alternative foods”;

* A recent visit to the northeastern city of Chongjin by Kim Jong Il had the effect of further driving up already high food prices because of the interruption it caused to the city’s food supply:

Due to the Chairman’s visit, the Chungjin area was blockaded for 2 days, which is adjacent to Kyongsong County. All vehicles and passengers were prohibited from entering the area, causing the price of rice to rise. After the lift of the blockade on May 13th, the price of rice stabilized back to the 3,000-3,100won level again. Critics complained that “A national level economic blockade brings a lot of difficulties, which are magnified on the domestic level. It is like our hand and feet are bound. Despite severe criticism by the public, the authorities move forth with the blockade.

It is fair to note that Good Friends wants to go back to the same no-string-attached, government-to-government aid that the regime used to dominate the people and keep them on the verge of starvation for so many years. The reports, nonetheless, are interesting reading (the usual cautions apply). You can read both newsletters in full here:

nkt129-eng1.pdf

nkt130-eng1.pdf