Daily Archive for December 17th, 2007

REACH E-Mail: The Families - True stories (PDF)

Published
by
Jack
on December 17, 2007
in Humanitarian Topic and North Korea
. 0 Comments

Got an E-Mail from REACH, and you folk should check this out. Thanks Asano:

The Families - True stories

Chapter 1: The Yokota family — Their 13-year-old daughter, Megumi,
disappeared on her way home from school. Her family made every possible
effort to find her, but in vain. 20 years later, they learned that their
daughter had been abducted by North Korea. The family’s new struggle has
begun, and Megumi has become the symbol of abduction.
http://www.reachdc.net/book/1.pdf

Chapter 2: The Masumoto and Ichikawa families — Rumiko Masumoto and Shuichi
Ichikawa were kidnapped during a seashore date on a hot summer day. When
the Japanese government finally made contact with North Korea almost a
quarter century later, the families were told the cruel fact that the couple
had already deceased in North Korea. But who would believe it?
http://www.reachdc.net/book/2.pdf

Chapter 3: The Chimura and Hamamoto families — Yasushi Chimura and Fukie
Hamamoto were also kidnapped during a date. They returned home after 24
years as a result of a Japanese and North Korean meeting in October 2002.
However, Yasushi’s mother, who had been long ill, passed away shortly
before her son’s return. Yasushi wailed at her picture, “Mother, I’m
home!” The couple was also heartbroken, since they left their three
children in North Korea. http://www.reachdc.net/book/3.pdf

Chapter 4: The Arimoto and Matsuki families — Keiko Arimoto was
unacquainted with Kaoru Matsuki. Keiko vanished from Denmark in 1983, and
Kaoru from Spain in 1980. One day in 1988, a letter from a third person,
revealing their life together in North Korea, arrived out of the blue. They
must have taken a huge risk of being caught and placed the letter in a
traveler’s hand. The letter was folded many times and postmarked in
Poland. http://www.reachdc.net/book/4.pdf

Chapter 5: The Iizuka and Hara families — Yaeko Taguch’s brother adopted
the toddler, whom Yaeko left behind when she vanished, and brought him up as
his own son. Many years later when the family found out that Yaeko had been
abducted by North Korea, they had to hide the fact to protect the young son.
When he became 21, they finally told him the fate of his poor birth mother.
http://www.reachdc.net/book/5.pdf

Chapter 6: The Hasuike and Okudo families — Kaoru Hasuike and Yukiko Okudo
were also kidnapped during a date, and they were among the five Japanese
abductees who were released from North Korea in October 2002. At the
airport, Kaoru’s father held him tightly to make sure that his son actually
had returned home to Japan. It was the end of 24 long, difficult years,
searching for the couple, but it was also the beginning of yet another tough
time. The couple had to wait for their two children they had left in North
Korea. http://www.reachdc.net/book/6.pdf

Chapter 7: The Terakoshi family — Three Terakoshi family members
disappeared while fishing in the Sea of Japan, where their empty boat was
found floating the next morning. Were they abducted? Two died in North
Korea, and the youngest, who was then 13 years old and is still living in
North Korea, cannot say that he was abducted. He needs to protect his life
and family there. http://www.reachdc.net/book/7.pdf

Chapter 8: The Soga family — Hitomi Soga was abducted from Sado Island in
the Sea of Japan 24 years ago, and returned home from North Korea with four
other abductees in October 2002. But her mother, who was abducted at the
same time as Hitomi, is still missing. Hitomi left her American husband and
two daughters in North Korea. Who can reunite the separated family?
http://www.reachdc.net/book/8.pdf

Sphere: Related Content

Coca-Cola in the DPRK

Published
by
Jack
on December 17, 2007
in DPRK Forum Blurbs
. 0 Comments

Here is an interesting aside about the upcoming Olympics. Pyongyang will have advertising for the torch relay in the upcoming 2008 games in Beijing. Advertisements include Coca-Cola and Samsung. Of course, there are provisions and restrictions. One of them is no outdoor billboards (that is reserved for the Kims). In my opinion, the games should be boycotted…

Sphere: Related Content

Food woes in the DPRK (Resources included)

Published
by
Jack
on December 17, 2007
in Defectors, Diplomacy, Economy, History, Humanitarian Topic, Interesting reading, Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il, North Korea, Policy Elites, Politics, ROK, Speculation, The region and United States
. 0 Comments

North Korea farmThis article got me thinking a lot, and the food shortages in North Korea seem to be getting worse and worse.

[...]

According to the survey results, which were announced Thursday, North Korea’s gross production of grains such as rice, corn and wheat, was about 4.01 million tons in 2007, down about 470,000 tons from the year before.

North Korea reportedly needs 6.5 million tons of grain to meet domestic demand, meaning it is facing a shortfall of about 2.49 million tons.

Especially devastating were torrential rains in August and a typhoon in September that hit the Korean Peninsula, which resulted in the flooding of about 11 percent of rice paddies in the country. As a result, rice production was 1.53 million tons, down by 360,000 tons from the previous year.

[...]

(Emphasis mine) North Korea’s food shortages are not new, and while I am not a farmer, I have read several places the land has been so overworked and the hills so stripped bare for fuel, the floods made the crops fare even worse. This article shows an eerie foretelling of the events of August 2007:

Photographs which depict a lush, rural environment are misleading. The country needs an average of 1m metric tonnes in food aid a year.

Yes, we have heard about the model farms before, but after the flooding, even some of the best crops were eradicated. Yes, in North Korea, image is everything, but it seems to me the facade is fading fast with the walls cracking and the real face showing behind it. The more that is shown, the bleaker it becomes. After a while, no amount of “spin” will make it better. In my mind, it is only a matter of time before everything is clear to everybody, and that will not be pretty for anybody.

“North Korea is not an agrarian country,” said Kathi Zellweger, a frequent visitor to the country with aid organisation Caritas. It is mostly rugged mountain terrain, and only about 18% is arable.

It is dependent on fertilizer and machinery to make that land productive, both of which are expensive.

Fertilizer and spare parts seem to be a very serious problem. With a growing population, the demand for more food rises (and you guessed it), the State cannot deliver when there is little to farm the land with. As the article goes on to suggest not only natural disasters takes its toll on food production, but decades of political central mismanagement of the Kims made things even worse (Among other things: see One Free Korea’s review of Marcus Noland and Stephen Haggard’s book on the famine - Markets, Aid and Reform as must read):

[...]

“If their farm produces five times as much, they don’t get five times as much food,” he said. Instead, they concentrate on their own private plots, which they use to feed themselves and to produce food for the markets.

The problem with this system is that market reforms, instituted in 2002, have sent prices soaring at a higher rate than wages. “Who can afford this stuff in the markets?” asked Mr French.

The answer: only the elite. Government officials, senior managers of state enterprises, security forces, and the leadership of the army are all unlikely to go hungry.

But a typical urban family can now only afford to buy 4kg of maize - the cheapest commodity - a month.

[...]

As Children of the Secret State suggested, the poor are only left with crumbs. The article only goes further to show a bleaker picture:

The urban diet is partly made up of a ration provided by the government, but this has dropped from 300-250g of cereals per person per day. North Korean officials have told the WFP they expect it to slump to 200g a day.

“The rural folk have already learned how to cope,” said Tim Peters, director of aid agency Helping Hands Korea. “But the urban people are so dependent on the government for distribution.”

As a result, foreign donations that have helped to prop North Korea up in previous years are doubly important this year.

To date, only 270,000 of the 500,000 tonnes of food needed for 2005 has arrived, the WFP says.

Then the prediction comes:

And there is always the risk of natural disaster.

Floods exacerbated the extreme food shortages 10 years ago, and North Korea’s ability to cope with them “is now probably worse”, said Mr French.

Ongoing land clearance has destroyed natural water breaks, “so it all just comes flooding down”.

…and that is precisely what happened with the major floods of August 2007. Then a little while later, a typhoon hits making the situation even worse. Not a lot has been said as to the result of the 2006 floods and how many people are perishing as a result of it, but the ROK did deliver tons and tons of food/medicine aid to the stricken North. If that helped, I am not sure of. However, one thing is clear. North Korea cannot continue to go on like this, and the people at some point are going to rebel especially if the food shortages hit the elite and/or KPA. It seems like it is happening already.

The DailyNK also paints the same shortfall with some reservations. What was the reservation?

[...]

A North Korean expert observed, “Due to the flood this year, the overall crop yield was reduced, but the products from North Korea’s paddy fields which are spread all over the place do not count in official statistics. When considering the food support from the outside world, the food shortage is not at a worrisome level.”

[...]

So this quote suggests the aid seems to be helping some, but I have to say this is still only a band-aid. I simply cannot see this level of suffering going on much longer without a lot of problems. However, I could be wrong, and have been wrong before. Also:

A majority of defectors insisted that the agricultural production level from North Korea’s individually cultivated lands (including paddy fields and fields attached to homes) will surpass the cooperative farms’ 30% standard.

So again, time will only tell, but along with the other news and rumors floating around including a lot of “firsts” for the reclusive regime tells me volumes. Something is changing in North Korea, and it may be bittersweet.

Also, see:

Country Studies

Food Security in North Korea: Designing Realistic Possibilities (PDF)

Famine and Reform in North Korea (PDF - Marcus Noland)

Hunger and Human Rights- The Politics of Famine in North Korea (PDF Haggard, Noland)

Edit: See One Free Korea

Sphere: Related Content