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June 02, 2005
More North Korea Starvation
The AP reports that North Korea is moving its people from the city to the countryside:
North Korea is sending millions of people from its cities to work on farms each weekend -- another indication that the risk of famine is particularly high this year, a U.N. official said yesterday.
The U.N. World Food Program (WFP) is the only aid organization that has a presence outside the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, and its officials have reported the movements of the North's people from cities to farms, said Anthea Webb, spokeswoman for the Rome-based agency.
"It's not a new phenomenon, but it certainly caught our folks' attention in terms of the size and the scale," she said. "I suppose also we're so worried about the situation, it's one more sign that things aren't going well."
Captain's Quarters thinks this is a sign of intentional starvation:
According to that description, it appears that the famine has been artificially induced, to an even greater extent than Stalinist agricultural systems naturally produce them. At a point in time where rumors have flown for months about the stability of the Kim regime, such an artifical result has to beg the question: is Kim deliberately touching off a famine?
I have argued before that Communism = Hunger and that North Korea is simply following in the footsteps of Stalin and Mao. While most of Mao's starvation was probably due to gross incompetence, much of the Stalin created famine was an intentional way to oppress his subjects. Kim's starvation is probably a horrid combination of stunning incompetence and intentional cruelty.
Posted by Pete at June 2, 2005 10:41 PM
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