By This is an issue I have a tough time with because at least a little bit of the food aid does eventually make it to some of the common people though the military and regime elite get first dibs on the food:
The U.S. will not resume food aid to North Korea unless there is a guarantee that the food will be distributed properly among North Koreans who need it. U.S. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly told reporters Wednesday, “We currently have no plans to provide additional food to North Korea. Any additional food aid would have to have assurances that it would be appropriately used.”
“We remain very concerned about the well-being of the North Korean people, but we are very concerned because we need to have adequate program management in place, monitoring and access provisions, and we don’t have that right now,” he added.
Kelly said North Korea rejected U.S. food aid in March, expressing regret that Pyongyang threw out all NGO food monitors by the end of March.
Meanwhile, the World Food Programme said there has been no single donation for the food aid program for the North since its nuclear test in May, and the program has been downsized to one-third of the original plan. [Chosun Ilbo]
What is interesting about this announcement is that the White House and the corrupt UNDP had announced two weeks ago the restart of international aid to North Korea. It makes me wonder if this suspension has anything to do with the US responding to a lack of progress in the dentention of the two US reporters Euna Lee and Laura Ling?
I will throw this out there because I have conflicted feelings about denying food aid to North Korea, but it appears giving nations like North Korea international food aid just encourages the regime to not to use its own money to feeds its own citizens. Clearly if the regime has enough money to continue constructing a huge waste of money like the Ryugyong Hotel then it has enough money to buy food for its own people. I don’t see where the international community has an obligation to feed the citizens of a nation where the government is unwilling to spend its own money to feed its own people?
If anyone is wondering, a recent survey showed that the majority of North Koreans didn’t even know that their country was receiving food aid.
7:06 am on July 3rd, 2009 1
I think I can be a humanitarian and I struggled with this question in the 90's, when I was helping the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker group, send food to North Korea for the first 90's famine.
After it was revealed that food was diverted to the army, the AFSC didn't give food again. Food aid was empowering the regime. (a common outcome for any foreign aid).
When the even the Quakers don't want to help a situation, it is really messed up.
I'm sympathy-fatigued myself. The younger SK generations seem pretty apathetic on average. It's understandable, but it annoys me.
9:27 am on July 3rd, 2009 2
Why not play hardball with NK to get it’s own citizens back? What does the US have to lose? Obama needs to show his strength and this is a good way to show it. NK will release the prisoners and everything will go back to normal. Remember folks, the US ultimate goal is to keep a presence (troops in SK) on the Asian continent. No more, no less.
12:40 pm on July 3rd, 2009 3
COntrary to popular foreign belief, the U.S. does not plan to keep its forces on the Asian continent because of the fact that we do not plan on becoming the second Roman Empire. It is up to south Korea to tell us when we can come back home.
7:48 pm on July 3rd, 2009 4
LOL, what the hell is that supposed to mean?
7:55 pm on July 3rd, 2009 5
I do not like the idea of not giving aid to people who need it, but when they do not recieve the aid given, whats the use? North Korea and its administrators are responsible for feeding their people. If they refuse to do so, they are guilty of crimes against humanity. And should be dealt with accordingly.
Perhaps the Chinese will fill the gap, as they feel more of a kinship with the North Koreans and have political reasons for keeping up the status quo. So let them do what they need to do, or let them agree with the rest of the world that another approach is needed.
5:13 am on July 4th, 2009 6
Keep in mind that food aid will not convince the North Koreans to give up the journalists. The regime has already shown they would let hundreds of thousands of people to starve to death as long as it wasn’t the regime elite that was being effected. So far nothing has been done to make the regime elite suffer. Vigorous financial sanctions that cut off money going to the regime elite is the best way to do this.
7:16 pm on July 4th, 2009 7
It should be up to the ROK to provide food/assistance to their "brothers and sisters" in the North.
It's their war after all. The US should stop wasting money on North and South Korea.
Stop sending aid to the North and start making plans to bring the boys and girls back home. Both Koreas just aren't worth it.