Pyongyang Rejects Monitored Food Aid

I strongly favor food aid to the North Korean people, but when I see stories like this, I’m increasingly convinced that the people won’t see any of it and it will only serve to sustain the regime itself. North Korea continues to insist that it’s kicking out international food aid workers, leaving the 6+ million North Koreans who depend on that aid to go hungry.

Pyongyang is also riled by attempts by the WFP, which was providing about 100,000 tons of aid, and other international bodies to monitor where the aid is going. The WFP continually tries to check whether food aid is being diverted to the military. Last year, when its shortage grew serious, Pyongyang cooperated with the monitoring efforts by the WFP, but now it says they are interference in its internal affairs.

Experts say the Stalinist country is trying to reduce aid from bodies that want to see where their aid is going and replace it with aid from South Korea and China, which stand accused of not doing enough to monitor distribution. “The international community is demanding that Seoul gives aid to the North through international bodies with sure monitoring systems,” says Kwon Tae-jin, a fellow of the Korea Rural Economic Institute (KREI). “If we cannot cooperate with the international community, the effectiveness of our aid could be halved.”

If you’re only feeding the Army and the party elite, you’re only prolonging the country’s agony. Which brings us to the question of just what the North Korean people may really need, given the apparent determination of their rulers to starve them to death.