[imText1]To celebrate the Korean edition of the recent report on North Korea’s chronic food crisis, “Hunger and Human Rights: The Politics of Famine in North Korea” produced by the US Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, a press conference was held in northern Seoul.
The day’s speaker, one of the co-authors of the report, Marcus Noland, gave a concise presentation on his work and shared his perspective on the North Korean famine and its relation to North Korean politics.
Dr. Noland, a senior fellow at the Institute Economics, is already a well known author to the South Korean readers for his book, “Korea after Kim Jong Il,” in which the Korean edition was published only last year.
“North Korea is in its second decade of its food emergency. The famine which started in the 1990’s killed 600,000 to 1 million people or about 3-5% of its population,” said Noland opening the conference.
He described his recent report by saying, “This report examines hunger and food access issues in North Korea through the lenses of Human Rights. It examines the origin of famine and its impact. We argue that the famine reflected that the North Korean people failed to be able to avail themselves to their external entitlements to food.”
He said the origin of the North Korean famine was, “Due to the delay by the North Korean government in asking for assistance, it was due to the North Korean government impeding humanitarian assistance once it began to be delivered, and finally it was due to the North Korean government cutting the commercial imports of food once aid began arriving. This failure of external entitlements is intimately related to the absence of basic human, civil and political rights in North Korea, and the consequence in the inability of the North Korean people to hold its government accountable.”
Background on the North Korean Food Situation
One of the most notable arguments of Dr. Noland was refutation against the prevailing belief; he argued that North Korea’s famine was not due to the natural disasters that occurred in the consecutive years of the mid 1990’s. “Deduction of food began falling in 1990. Flooding did not occur until 1995. North Korea had appealed for aid and reached an agreement with Japan and South Korea in the spring of 1995 before the flood occurred in June, July of 1995. The flooding made the situation worse. But the idea the North Korean famine had occurred because the flood is a myth,” said Noland.
Another innovative argument made in the report was that if North Korea had continued importing food on its own instead of the international providence of food aid, North Korea would not be having the kind of food crisis of today.
“In the recent years, more than 90 percent of the food arriving in North Korea has been in the form of aid. Why is this important? We argue that if North Korea had simply continued to purchase food with money, there would not have been a famine,” said Noland finger pointing the charts as evidence from the report.
Showing the empirical data, Noland explained, “The amount of food available had always exceeded the amount needed for minimum human needs. So the famine was distributional in nature. There was enough food, it was just spread unevenly across the population The primary way the people in North Korea received food was through the Public Distribution System (PDS).”
Failed Attempt to Restart the Public Distribution System by the North Korean Government
“Even after the food aid arrived in the country, the PDS did not deliver minimum human needs. The most recent data up to 2005 has the PDS providing 250-300g a day to each adult. This is 300g of rice.” In order to show the reporters the amount that the North Korean government promised to provide its people, the speaker pulled out a bottle that had 300g of rice, which is the promised amount the PDS was to provide daily for an adult.
“This is what the system delivers as your daily ration. I don’t think there is anyone in this room who can survive on this amount of food a day. I certainly don’t think anyone who is engaged in manual labor could live on this amount of food. And what we have learned is that the people do not live on this amount of food.”
Emergence of the Market, People’s Primary Source for Food
Noland explained that it was out of people’s need to search for food that the market became active. “The state system was unable to deliver enough food for the people to live on, so they had to obtain food through some other mechanism, some other needs and we conclude that for most North Korean families, it is the market not the state that is the primary source of food. What started out as an almost classic socialist famine in which the access to food was politically determined has metamorphosized into a situation more akin to what we observe in market or transitional economies in which one’s ability to get access to food is determined by one’s economic status.”
“The data indicate that the North Korean household, 50% up to 80% of their household budget is spent on food. In this situation this fall, the North Korean government did three things. First of all, it went into the rural areas and forcibly seized grains from the farmers. Secondly, the government announced a revival of the PDS, a quantity rationing system of food. The PDS had never completely disappeared. For certain groups, and certain geographic areas such as capital Pyongyang, the PDS had always operated. In other parts of the country, the PDS had not operated for more than ten years. Accompanying the attempted revival of the PDS banned the private trade of grains. So what does this mean? It means that the North Korea government this fall had attempted to stop what the North Korean families get most of their food, through the market.”
Recent Development after the Attempted PDS
After the North Korean government announced the restarting of the public PDS, it requested all the aid-providing international organizations in North Korea to leave. Describing the interviews he held with the WFP officials, Noland said, “The North Korean government expelled the WFP and associated humanitarian NGOs. All humanitarian feeding in North Korea had stopped, the WFP’s five regional offices outside of Pyongyang had been closed, all 19 food factories that were operating by the WFP have been closed, the WFP continues to talk with the North Korean government but under the most optimistic scenario, they will not be able to resume their normal activities until March 1.”
Another one of the North Korean government’s attempt was to change the humanitarian aid it is receiving to “development aid.” About such an attempt, Noland explained, “North Korean insistence it wants development assistance rather than humanitarian aid further undercuts the case for not wanting assistance in the human rights situation inside North Korea. It is one thing if you are saying we are in a humanitarian crisis, and the child knows no politics, so we should simply provide food, but if were providing development assistance, we are talking about building railroads and electrical power plaints like any other country in the world, it is normal and legitimate that we talk about the government and the human rights situation.”
In his last remarks, Noland made his argument clear that the famine was not an inevitable event that occurred by helpless situations such as natural disaster. Rather, he described North Korea’s ongoing crises as “intentional.”
“In conclusion, I would like everyone here to look back and remember what you were doing ten years ago. Ten years is a very long time. A chronic food emergency of this sort that exists in North Korea could only occur under a political regime that systematically denies off its citizens’ back human, civil, and political rights.”
The report’s argument that 25% to 30% of total food aid sent to North Korea is diverted and sent not to vulnerable groups but rather to elites and privileged groups in the society, it makes a good counter-argument against the position of the South Korean government that has long been providing a generous amount of food aid to North Korea. Noted by strong remarks and empirical evidences, Haggard and Noland’s report on the North Korean famine is expected to bring another storm of discussions on North Korean food aid.
