Graphic accounts of famine conditions in North Korea from some of the few international observers who have been given access to them bring home the urgency of providing immediate food aid and the need to orchestrate a political response to the future of the isolated and beleaguered Stalinist state. This is not a visual famine in the African fashion, which helps to explain why its scale has not had the impact it deserves on Western consciousness. But there can be no denying its gravity. There is a shortfall of over 50 per cent in the annual food requirement as winter approaches, following a series of climatic disasters coming on top of economic mismanagement. Millions of people are suffering from hunger and shortages of the most basic kind, as the interview with a Trocaire representative in this newspaper today makes clear. Confronted with such evidence, many governments having dealings with North Korea are reluctant to respond generously because of the belligerent history and stance of its regime and for fear that aid would be rechannelled to protect it from collapsing. North Korea is in many respects a highly developed state, which should, they feel, be able to divert resources towards basic food provision. Only this week, for example, work is beginning on the construction of two nuclear power stations costing five billion pounds funded by South Korea, Japan and the United States. This is on condition that another plant with military potential be discontinued. The issue highlights North Korea's military preparedness, which tends to deepen suspicions that it could launch a war rather than contemplate regime collapse. Alternatively, there is the temptation to bargain food aid against the incremental opening up of North Korea's relations with its neighbours and the rest of the world. Given the great reluctance on the part of its rulers to depart from their tradition of self-sufficiency and their proud refusal to admit that grave mistakes have been made in the past, the combination of these two approaches compounds the immediate problem of food shortfalls and quite irresponsibly endangers the lives of millions of ordinary Korean people. They have borne their suffering quietly. They do not deserve to be made the victims of political intransigence, whether from the regime or its international critics. Unless food aid is provided rapidly, it is impossible to see how many of them can survive the winter.
Those governments which are markedly reluctant to provide unconditional food aid must take full account of the possible consequences of their policy. A catastrophic famine this winter could hasten the chaotic collapse of the regime. This would be destabilising for the entire region - just as much for South Korea, theoretically committed to reunification but reluctant in practice to face up to its immense potential costs, as for Japan, Russia, the US or China, which have reasons to fear changes in the regional balance of power. Better by far would be policies directed towards a soft landing for the North Korean regime, which would encourage it to change gradually by opening up to the rest of the world and towards its own people. Trocaire is to be commended for stimulating such a wider political debate as well as for its dedication to providing immediate relief.