If North Korea’s official media is to be believed, the regime intends to test-fire a long-range missile sometime between April 4 and April 8. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) has already escalated regional tensions by curtailing communications with South Korea and ratcheting up its bellicose rhetoric. Less noticed is how in the process, callous regime hardliners are once again putting their own people further at risk by taking steps to cut off international food aid. The North Korean people will continue to bear the burden of their government’s foolish posturing.

As of this writing, whether or not the regime will actually test-fire another missile remains an open question. But not in question is the continued misery of the North Korean people. Despite persistent malnourishment and the serious threat of another famine, North Korean officials have already halted all food delegations to North Korea. The government also told U.S. humanitarian organizations to leave by March 31. As a result, tons of food commodities on the ground could be diverted or stolen by the regime. This will very likely lead to a formal suspension once again of U.S. humanitarian food assistance, which is intended to help the people and not to enrich the regime. This is the latest installment in a sad litany of North Korean hardliners breaking their international commitments—not just on their nuclear program and missile development, but also on food aid.

In the spring of 2008 the United States reached an agreement with North Korea to provide up to 500,000 metric tons of food under a significantly improved framework that would ensure food reached the North Korean people. This agreement remedied past problems of the regime diverting humanitarian food shipments to the military or for black market revenues. The North Koreans agreed to improve access at all stages of the food distribution apparatus, allow random assessments, and, for the first time, permit American and U.N. World Food Program workers fluent in Korean to work in-country to oversee the distribution process, assess needs in different locations, and review distribution lists.

North Korea’s last famine in the late 1990s is believed to have caused as many as 2 million deaths, approximately 10 percent of the population.

The resumption of food assistance coincided with new major shortfalls in North Korea’s ability to feed its population. The last famine in the late 1990s is believed to have caused as many as 2 million deaths, approximately 10 percent of the population. The resumption of humanitarian food assistance also helped answer the question of what can be done by the outside world to help the people of North Korea, who suffer daily misery under a regime that cares so little for them.

Today, most North Koreans live on less than 1700 calories a day. This puts the population at severe risk of malnutrition and infection and perilously close to starvation in some areas. A North Korean child can expect to be up to 7 inches shorter than his South Korean counterpart and 20 pounds lighter by adulthood.

Anytime that the DPRK lurches back into international headlines, inevitable questions arise over who is in control and just what messages are being sent to the outside world. In this case, are the North Koreans setting up a proxy battle within their own system between relative pragmatists interested in working with the international community on the one hand and hard-line ideologues focused on maintaining power and thus isolation at all costs on the other?

A North Korean child can expect to be up to 7 inches shorter than his South Korean counterpart and 20 pounds lighter by adulthood.

I experienced this tension firsthand in late 2007 and early 2008 on three trips to Pyongyang as the lead American negotiator with the North Korean government over the terms for resuming food aid. During these negotiations, our delegation observed what appeared to be the genuine interest of some North Korean officials in preventing another famine and the concomitant international shame. A few of them even expressed their desire to expand and build on their existing relationships with American and other foreign assistance organizations. But other officials involved in the negotiations contributed nothing but bluster and stonewalling. We successfully concluded the agreement by May 2008, and food shipments under careful international monitoring soon resumed, but it was clear the hard-liners would push back over time. 

Organizations such as Mercy Corps, Samaritan’s Purse, and World Vision should be complimented for all the hard work and effort they put into the resumption of food assistance. Sadly, given the regime’s actions in recent weeks and yet another broken agreement, the looming launch of another missile will also mean it may be some time before the people of North Korea will receive the food they so desperately need.

Michael Magan, senior vice president of the Legatum Institute, formerly served as special assistant to President George W. Bush and led the U.S. delegation that negotiated the resumption of humanitarian food assistance to North Korea.

FURTHER READING: John Bolton wondered if Secretary of State Hillary Clinton returned from her Asia trip “sobered by the depth of the North’s regional and global threat.” Nick Eberstadt says “the real existing North Korean system remains as savagely repressive and defiantly unreformed as ever.”

Image by Darren Wamboldt/The Bergman Group.