Open Sources: Oh, You heard us say that?

The Wall Street Journal’s Evan Ramstad and the Joongang Ilbo notice that North Korea’s plea for the starving children needs some better message control:

On a radio broadcast on July 4, a North Korean official said, “Our farming laborers will, with rifle in one hand and a scythe in the other like in the war for independence, make a decisive change this in year in agricultural production and serve to send more rice for our military, which will strike open the head of the traitor and enemy, Lee Myung-bak.

The same quote citing the same official made it on to North Korean TV and its state-run news agency later in the day. But the part about sending more rice to the military and striking open Mr. Lee’s head was deleted.

Of course, the way North Korea rationalizes its diversion shouldn’t surprise anyone who’s paying attention, but it’s a pretty unsatisfying thing to advocate against giving food aid when the people of North Korea probably really are very, very hungry. While I don’t see the evidence for mass famine, I don’t doubt that plenty of people (especially kids and the elderly) are dying as the state and individual families lose the means (or the will) to keep feeding them. Refugees from the mining town of Musan, near the Chinese border, report that people are starving to death, and that others are supplementing their diets with … manure.

No doubt, you could feed every one of them for the cost of a new Maybach or a centrifuge. But you can’t feed them at all if the regime is determined to go so such extraordinary lengths as this to divert it. In that case, better to let the army suffer with everyone else, at least until the regime comes under enough pressure that it agrees to truly effective monitoring. There’s some reason to hope that might eventually happen. After all, the people who survive the lean years best are those who know how to trade, and that’s where soldiers and officials may find themselves disadvantaged for once.

Meanwhile, North Korea has teamed up with China, a member of the U.N. Human Rights Council, to round up the starving North Koreans who are fleeing to China to get food:

A source in the North Korean security agency reported July 10th that on June 30th at least 90 defectors were transferred into the North via Sinuiju and Hyesan. And on July 11th a further 16 were repatriated in signs that the Chinese are cooperating to more stringently suppress the defection phenomenon.

“At the end of last June,” said the source, “over 60 defectors were brought into holding centers in Sinuiju and at least thirty into centers in Hyesan. In the past the Chinese authorities would catch and repatriate the defectors to maintain internal order. This latest surge in arrest activity is the result of a request made for help from the North Korean security agencies.” [….]

“Because of this,’ said the source, “even those who have married in China and have children and a Chinese identity card are being reported as North Korean and detained.” The phones of Chinese Korean relatives are being tapped as the ratcheted up levels of surveillance extend to Chinese citizens as well. Defectors must be careful not just when they call North Korea but when they make internal calls to Chinese relative, too.

“Recently,” finished the source, “the issue of defectors has become more urgent to the security agents than the issue of feeding themselves. Arrested defectors are going to be more severely punished than before.” [Open News]

If the U.N. had existed in 1942, it would have made Dr. Mengele head of the W.H.O.

Another survivor of Camp 18 has escaped to tell the tale.

An NPR podcast on North Korea’s illicit economy, hat tip to Joseph Steinberg.

How North Korea’s overseas missions pay the bills.

Three more North Korean Women’s World Cup players have failed drug tests. I’m sure it was because of the medicine they were taking to recover from that lightning strike.

Also, I wish that was a joke.