North Korean famines

North Korea does not just make the headlines for missile and nuclear bomb tests, it is also well-known for famines. Though there is plenty of money for military hardware, the hardline Communist regime often struggles to feed its own people.

In such a secretive country, it is hard to be sure which was its most disastrous famine, but there were fears that one in the first decade of the 21^st century may have killed up to 3.5 million people, with tens of thousands fleeing into China, and women being sold as brides or forced into brothels and illegal sweatshops.

A decade earlier, in 1994, defectors were reporting things had got so bad that old people were going out into the fields to die so their families would not have to feed them. As floods and drought struck in 1995-97, the government had to appeal for international help while it appeared to be channelling what food there was to the army of one million and party activists.

In 1998, a visiting research team from the US State Congress estimated that at least 900,000 had died of starvation over the previous 3 years, though it reckoned the real figure might be as high as 2.4 million. Malnutrition was also widespread.

For more see A Disastrous History of the World. See also my posts of 22 September 2010, 26 May 2011 and 31 January 2016.

Ghost boats of the Sea of Japan

At regular intervals, ghost ships, or more precisely ghost boats about 30 feet long appear in the Sea of Japan. Last November alone, 13 were found drifting, deserted except for dead bodies – a total of 26, many of them already largely decomposed.

There are indications that they are from North Korea – a handwritten sign in one saying it belonged to a unit of the North Korean army, the tattered remains of a national flag, the boats’ dilapidated condition and the lack of equipment.

Were they carrying defectors? Apparently some of those who escaped the closed, repressive regime in the past arrived in such vessels. Or were they fishermen under pressure from their fanatical Communist government to get bigger catches, who strayed too far out to sea?

The last explanation would fit with the regime’s desperation to conceal the scale of North Korea’s dreadful food shortage. In spite of aid from abroad, there has been little improvement in production since the mass starvation of the early 2000s.

*For more on North Korea's famines, see A Disastrous History of the World. 

Bangladesh war crimes execution

The execution that attracted most attention over the last few days was the killing – apparently by machine gun fire – of Jang Song Thaek, the uncle of North Korea’s young dictator, Kim Jong Un, but there was another of great significance in Bangladesh.

An Islamist leader, Abdul Kader Mullah, was hanged after being found guilty of crimes during Bangladesh’s bloody war of independence in 1971, which cost the lives of up to 3 million people. He was the first person to be executed following conviction by Bangladesh's International Crimes Tribunal.

At his trial, he was described by prosecutors as the ‘Butcher of Mirpur’, a suburb of the capital, Dhaka, where he is alleged to have been involved in the massacre of unarmed civilians and of intellectuals who supported independence from Pakistan. Mullah always denied the charges, and human rights groups have expressed concern about the court’s fairness.

Another 4 members of Mullah’s Jamaat-e-Islami party are also facing the death penalty. His execution has led to clashes in which at least 5 people have died.

Korean War + 59 - still alive and kicking

The rumpus over showing the wrong flag at the North Korean women’s opening Olympic football match (above is the one that should have been used) reminds us that 59 years after an armistice, there is no peace between North and South Korea.     Today is the anniversary of that armistice.

The Korean War is seen as the first Cold War conflict.    At the end of World War Two, the Americans occupied the southern half of the peninsula and the Soviet Union the northern end, where they established a Communist regime.     War broke out in 1950.

A United Nations force dominated by the Americans, but including also troops from the UK and 20 other countries, fought against the Chinese and North Koreans.   The US had nearly 40,000 of its servicemen killed, and South Korean military losses were around 46,000, while perhaps 200,000 North Koreans and 400,000 Chinese troops were killed.

Both sides committed atrocities against civilians.   In areas it occupied, the North Korean army executed all the educated people it could find, while the South Korean regime killed left-wing and communist sympathisers.      Total civilian deaths are estimated at up to 3 million.

North Korea - new famine?

A US delegation has gone to North Korea to examine how serious food shortages there are, with the United Nations due to take a decision shortly on whether emergency aid should be released.    According to some estimates, 3.5 million North Koreans are suffering from severe malnutrition.

For years, the regime has relied on handouts from the USA and South Korea to feed its people, but it also regularly bites the donors’ hands.    Last year it shelled a South Korean island, and is believed to have sunk a South Korean naval vessel, and both the government there and the US have been reining back aid.

Food production, which is never very efficient, is thought to have been hit this year by an exceptionally cold winter, widespread flooding and an outbreak of foot and mouth disease.  Some observers, though, maintain the regime is exaggerating the problems in order to build up food stockpiles for next year’s celebrations of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Kim-Il Sung, the ‘Great Leader’ who founded the Communist republic.  

During the 1990’s, the country suffered one of the worst famines of modern times, with up to 2.4 million people dying.   

North Korean disasters

In hyper-secretive North Korea, an extremely rare conference of its ruling “Workers’ Party” is expected to pave the way for 20-something Kim Jong-un to be confirmed as successor to his father, Kim Jong-il as the country’s third hereditary Communist dictator.

Meanwhile, the few fortunate enough to have escaped their regime tell stories of people starving in the streets as the economy performs even more disastrously than usual. Famine is nothing new in North Korea. In 1998, a visiting research team from the US Congress estimated that at least 900,000, and possibly as many as 2.4 million, had died of hunger over the previous 3 years.

The following year, overseas aid reduced the number of deaths, but in 2000, there were still reports of famine in most parts of the country outside the capital Pyongyang, and it was estimated that 10 million people were undernourished.

Earlier this month, North Korea was hit by Typhoon Kompasu, which, according to the official state media, destroyed more than 8,300 homes and 230 public buildings, as well as damaging roads, railways and power lines. “Several dozen” people were killed.