The North Korean authorities have imprisoned a group of lumbermen up to eight years for illegally butchering and eating cow which had been pastured in the collective farm field, according to a report released on the 21st by Good Friends, Seoul-based NGO dedicated to North Korean people.

The report said, “In the late January, a group of lumbermen working for the forest complex in Daegwan of North Pyongan Province were caught of slaughtering and eating cow which had been pastured in the neighboring farm field. The authorities sentenced the man who led the incident nine years and his four accomplices five years.” The report said that local people criticized the act of the authorities saying, “Look, Cows’ lives are valued more than human lives!”

Many defectors testified that there had been cases of public execution for stealing and eating cow during the food crisis of the mid 1990s.

Good Friends also reported about the country’s deteriorating food situation. It said that some collective farms in North Hamkyung Province have provided up to five hundred kilograms of annual food rations to their member households. However, it turned out that some households had to use their food rations to buy and send pork to the army as tribute and pay back bushels of corn they had borrowed in the preceding summer, Good Friends reported. Often time, these households ended up using more than what they have received for rations.

Good Friends said that food lent on usury in the previous years created this vicious circle of food insecurity. In North Korea, for instance, if one borrows 10 kg of corns, the person has to pay back twice as much as the debt. Hence, individuals who borrow food are usually left with nothing when they pay off the debt from their food rations, and end up borrowing again. Good Friends said that at this early time of the year, there are many North Korean households which have already borrowed corns again.

Good Friends said that about 20 percent of the rural population has already run out of food and this figure would likely increase up to 40 percent by the end of March. “These days, it is getting difficult to borrow food because the rumor is being spread around the country that the country’s food situation will further deteriorate this year,” said Good Friends.

According to Good Friends, the army too suffers from food shortage. It said that there have been many cases of empty-bellied soldiers who sneaked out their military bases and stole grain from adjacent civilian villages. Once in a while, the soldiers came across civilians who gave them food and liquor out of sympathy due to the fact that the soldiers had to leave their families and put up with difficulties to serve the country. However, most civilians do not welcome the soldiers because they have lost faith in the soldiers who continue to damage the livelihood of people, the NGO said.

Furthermore, Good Friends reported that the North Korean authorities have arrested four sixteen-year-old middle school students for dealing drugs in Pyongsung of South Pyongan Province. “Two of them confessed that their parents forced them to sell drugs, and that confession created quite a stir across the country,” said Good Friends.

“Those parents tried to evade the law by using their children,” said Good Friends, adding, “They will likely receive heavy punishment because a huge amount of drugs were found at their places.”