NAMPO, North Korea - A single small freighter waited in the West (or Yellow)
Sea outside the locks to the entrance of the Daedong River behind the West Sea
barrage, an eight-kilometer-long dam built in the 1980s to ease passage in and
out of this critical port 60 kilometers southwest of the capital Pyongyang.
"It's carrying rice," said a guide, gazing from the hill overlooking the locks.
"We import rice and export coal."
Another guide, heaping praise on the late Great Leader Kim Il-sung for pushing
the project as a "unique measure to overcome the tides", said 10 ships a day
pass through the locks on the way to the docks eight kilometers upstream.
The barrage remains as North Korea's most impressive
accomplishment, not counting the cavernous stadiums and theaters and museums
and monuments in the capital, but the small scale of trade provides an insight
into the North's pervasive economic problems.
These are compounded by the crisis over North Korea's nuclear weapons program,
which has attracted heavy economic and other sanctions. United States envoy
Christopher Hill on Friday ended a three-day visit to North Korea during which
he was to attempt to persuade Pyongyang not to restart its program. Talks
involving six countries over North Korea's program have been stalled since
mid-August over a dispute on how to monitor its extent. Hill is due to soon
report his progress to the other countries involved - Japan, China, South Korea
and Russia.
"North Korea is hardly self-reliant," said Chung Kwang-min, a research fellow
at South Korea's National Security Strategy Institute, playing on the North's
watchword, juche for self-reliance. "They're not able to produce plants
or basic necessities."
As hard as the guides try to keep visitors from visiting shops and markets,
much less talking to anyone besides themselves, they can hardly avoid covering
up the threadbare impression this port gives during a drive through the city to
and from the showcase barrage.
Half a dozen ships are visible from the road that runs by the piers, but most
of the cranes above them are motionless, Almost no traffic goes in and out of
the harbor area. Office buildings appear little used, and bare-footed children
are seen looking for food outside shops that seem mostly empty.
The most obvious sign of commercial suffering is that nothing beside an
occasional van or government vehicle is seen moving on the 10-lane highway
built years ago in anticipation of a flood of traffic, the kind you see in a
normal metropolitan port region, between here and Pyongyang. The roadway shows
signs of cracking here and there, not from use, but from age.
For years, the major concern has not been the failure of North Korean industry
but the starvation and disease that continues to threaten portions of the
country more than a decade after the famine of the 1990s that killed as many as
2 million people.
"The food crisis is now as serious as it was in 1995," said Tae Keung-ha,
president of Open Radio which broadcasts into North Korea from the South with
US funding. Tae, speaking at a seminar in Seoul, estimated between 100,000 to
half a million people had starved to death this year.
"After the great famine in the late 1900s, the distribution system collapsed
and the government lost control over the people's food issue," said Tae. "The
government continues to exercise strict control over rice markets while the
price of rice has almost doubled in this year alone."
The extent of free-marketeering is far from clear. "It is very difficult to say
if markets are opened," said Jean Pierre de Margerie, director of the World
Food Program (WFP). "But we believe there's more market activity than whatever
was seen in the 1990s. People have to put food on the table."
The rising price of food products, however, means that those who depend on
government handouts can hardly afford to supplement their diets on the free
market. "This year the price of stable commodities like maize and rice has gone
through the roof," said de Margerie.
It is in this atmosphere of desperation that North Korea has appeared more
receptive of late to requests by the WFP, the channel for US rice shipments, to
try to make sure the rice gets to those who need it most rather than to the 1.1
million members of the armed forces and another 1 or 2 million who form a
privileged upper stratum in the capital and other urban centers.
"The level of outreach we're having in terms of access is going very well,"
said de Margerie. "We have launched an expanded operation since July and have
had excellent cooperation."
He sees near-famine conditions in the northeast provinces along the Tumen River
border with China and Russia partly because the WFP three years ago was told to
stop going there.
"For over there years there was no assistance in those areas," said de
Margerie. "In June, we realized the situation was reaching the level of
crisis." The WFP is now getting into all but a few counties.
The sensitivity over the northeast provinces reflects the flow of people
through the region into China in search of food and work. Though some intend to
leave for good, many go back and forth. All of them have to bribe border guards
- and all risk capture by Chinese soldiers and police who return them to North
Korea.
The cross-border traffic in that region is now so routine that those who are
caught are likely to receive jail terms of several months rather than the
extreme forms of punishment of several years ago when torture, lengthy
imprisonment and executions were routine.
The real suffering of the people, whether from starvation, disease or
imprisonment, remains largely invisible, not only to a typical visitor on a
tightly controlled tourist trip, but also to aid workers who still must request
permission to go anywhere - and then only with a guide.
In early autumn, one sees green fields awaiting a harvest on which the country
depends to get through the long winter. The United Nations' Food and
Agriculture Organization, as well as the WFP, have received permission for the
first time in four years to check out,harvests and come up with an estimate of
what's needed.
The harvest this year is expected to be better than usual if only because the
country has escaped the severe floods that led to a food crisis last year.
Rains over the years have eroded great stretches of hills stripped bare for
firewood, making them useless for production.
"Right now there's no statistics on harvest amounts or what's needed," said Tae
Keung-ha in Seoul, adding that the WFP is guessing the North this year will be
able to produce 75% of its minimal needs.
The US has promised 500,000 tons of food aid, but South Korea has been
withholding shipments this year while North Korea excoriates President Lee
Myung-bak for his conservative views - and demands an end to the North's
nuclear weapons program. The North is said to rely on China for 80% of its
food, most if coming across the Yalu River border through the Chinese city of
Dandong.
The impression of hardship dissipates somewhat as one enters Pyongyang, where
more cars are visible. Wisps of smoke rise from the city's power plant, fueled
by coal from the northern mountains, in a complex dating from the first few
years after the Korean War in the 1950s.
No factories are visible anywhere, but workmen are seen putting up apartment
and office buildings in a burst of new, if rudimentary, construction. It's not
clear, though, if the workers are soldiers or civilians, or what the buildings
are for.
At the West Sea barrage, you are told 30,000 soldiers participated in building
it after Kim Il-sung's son and heir, Kim Jong-il, appeared to provide
on-the-spot guidance on the plans. And Jimmy Carter, the former US president
who visited Pyongyang in June 1994 to help resolve the nuclear crisis, posed
for a photograph with Kim Il-sung on the barrage.
"The soldiers who take part all say, �We do it if our party decides',"
said a guide. She did not say, though, how much or whether they were paid,
whether they volunteered or were forced into the often dangerous project or
that many died before it was done.
Nor did the guides explain why soldiers are not dragooned these days to build
the infrastructure and factories that are badly needed to put goods onto the
highways and feed the people.
"They may face another famine," said Chung Kwang-min in Seoul. "We should not
spoon-feed them. We should not be simply providing food. What they need most is
markets, but the power of the market economy is so weak."
"That's why they have food problems," he said. "Aid should be provided to
promote activities. There should be more support to tackle the issue. There
should be small business activities and financial institutions."
Here in this quiescent port, there's no sign of any of such "activities", only
reverberations from the guides about the evils of the South Korean regime and
forecasts that Lee will soon be overthrown. Exactly what difference that will
make for the hungry people on the streets is a question that goes unanswered.
Journalist Donald Kirk has been covering Korea - and the confrontation of
forces in Northeast Asia - for more than 30 years.
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