Mick Hartley

The EU is sending $14.5m emergency food aid to North Korea: 

The EU's decision follows a June trip by a team to assess the food situation there.

The EU said its plan for the food shipment is to save the lives of 650,000 vulnerable residents in the communist nation despite long-stalled denuclearization efforts. The first batch of delivery, apparently non-rice products, is scheduled to arrive there next month.

Observers said the EU's initiative will put pressure on the U.S. and South Korea, which are considering similar assistance.

Jimmy Carter and his pack of Elders, after their futile visit earlier in the year, called it a "human rights violation" not to send food aid.  And this latest move will no doubt make EU decision makers feel good about themselves. But what do North Koreans themselves think? 

With the EU decision to restart the flow of food to North Korea, the conflict over aid has been revitalized. Now, recently arrived defectors have given their opinions at a meeting with reporters to commemorate the groundbreaking ceremony for the 2nd Hanawon complex near Hwacheon in Gangwon Province.

Launching today’s meeting, Yang, a 46-year old female currently in the South Korean government’s education program at Hanawon following her March, 2011 defection, repeated a familiar refrain, saying, “Rice aid given by the Republic of Korea does not go to normal people; the bulk of it goes into the jangmadang or to soldiers.”…

“If monitors from the UN go to a nursery, when they go then the cadres come again. In the end, the rice goes to Party and military cadres, it never goes to the ordinary people,” she added, concluding, “My parents are still in North Korea, yet because food aid does not go to the people, I do not want to see aid support going there.”

Kim, a 20-year old male who recently arrived across the MDL added on the same subject, “I heard the rumor that food aid had come from South Chosun [South Korea] a number of times, but people say they didn’t catch a glimpse of any. The people are suffering in many ways due to food shortages, but because it goes to military grain stores, military bases and the National Security Agency, it does not go to the ordinary people.”

A weakening of military morale, including food shortages in the usually well-fed army, is one of the clearest signs that the Dear Leader's regime may be tottering. EU assistance will soon put that right though. And Pyongyang will have more money to spend on matters of greater significance – like bribing Pakistani military officers for nuclear know-how.