Mick Hartley

The case for providing humanitarian aid to North Korea may seem a powerful one, given that something like a quarter of the population are reckoned to be "in urgent need". The US has recently signalled its willingness to resume food aid and suspend sanctions in return for a halt of the North's uranium enrichment programme.

We've been here before. It didn't work then and it won't work now. Pyongyang refuses to allow monitors in to oversee the distribution of the aid, which simply gets diverted to the military. The basic assumptions behind the offer of aid – that the North Korean regime cares about the welfare of its people, and that it can be trusted – are both demonstrably false.

Here's a timely interview from Free North Korea Radio with a US aid worker with 14 years experience in the field:

Right now there is a very strong push to start food aid again, what are your views on this?

I am strongly opposed to providing commodity (principally corn and rice) food aid to NK at this time. Exceptions are high nutrition and therapeutic supplements and other such food items for children, the elderly, pregnant and nursing mothers. I strongly believe that, regardless of our best efforts to monitor, the vast majority of commodity food aid will be diverted to others than the agreed upon recipients i.e. the most in need. My opinion is based upon my own experience and that of others, as well as the knowledge gained from interviewing a wide variety of defectors. For example, one such interviewee described his NK government job of “retrieving” food from locations, earlier “monitored”, and redistributing it to the military. He described this as a “common occurrence”. Monitors, without actually “occupying” a location, simply cannot prevent such activities nor, in an atmosphere of trust, should they find it necessary to do so. Another military officer described the painting over, the camouflaging, of military trucks to disguise them at the seaport where they were loaded with bags of rice in the presence of monitors. I myself recall the incident of a “lost” container of soybeans which we had purchased in China for delivery to a soy milk plant in Pyongyang. I could further describe numerous additional defector testimonies detailing the diversion of food aid. Of great significance at this time, are the current political, military and economic conditions which compel and make more urgent the government’s necessity to divert food aid. The central government’s need for cash (via monetized food and preserving the cash necessary to procure food), the military’s need for food and cash and the regime’s mandate to stockpile food (described to me by a defector) leading up to the promised day of North Korea becoming a “strong and prosperous nation in 2012”. Finally, but no doubt most important, is that regime survival is the central stimulus to these motivations and drives the government’s efforts to divert food away from those most in need yet least able to contribute to sustaining the regime and contribute to the achievement of national objectives.

Rural children and their families, the elderly, the disabled and young mothers are included in this group. An essential prerequisite to providing humanitarian assistance, and specially bulk food, is mutual trust and a clearly agreed upon beneficiary. In spite of words, agreements, promises and all appearances, this essential prerequisite is simply not achievable with this government. Combine this fact with the lessons learned from the quite recently failed efforts to successfully provide large scale food assistance, and one can only conclude that there should be no commodity food assistance at this time. Add to this the fact that there appears to be more reasons now than there were three years ago to expect a very poor outcome. This issue of trust, and the absence thereof, simply overwhelms all other considerations….

Do you have any expectation that the situation will change with the succession of Kim Jong Un to power in North Korea?

No, military is pulling the strings and has control.  The “military first policy” will take precedent especially during this period of transition.  We should not rush to engage particularly out of fear.  We should not go ahead with a gesture of food aid now because there will be a shakeout in North Korea.  I still believe in narrowly defined food aid for a very specific purpose such as helping infants. But we should not provide corn, wheat, flour rice, soybeans especially now…

What do you think is the ultimate solution to the food problem in North Korea?

The ultimate and only solution to the food problem is a change of the regime.  

[…]

Regarding the current debate about resuming food aid, perhaps the following quotation says it best:

“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.” – Albert Einstein.