Posted on 05/04/2003 7:00:58 AM PDT by dufekin
I received an e-mail from Mr. Moon Kook-Han this morning. He sent two Korean-Chinese to North Korea last week to deliver some food urgently needed. He could not do it for a while because he ran out of money. What those two Korean-Chinese reported back to Mr. Moon after they came back from North Korea is much much worse than we feared. It is worse than 1996 or 1997. I translate his message written on April 14th at 10 P.M.(Korean time):
Dear Mr. Nam: I just talked to the sister helper who visited North Korea recently. She has been going back and forth to North Korea since 1996, and she knows the North Korean situation very well. She is a very strong person, and she cries very seldom. I got to know her in 1997, and worked with her to deliver food to North Korea in 1997 and 1998. She told me the following:
No food dispensation even on Kim Il-Sung birthday (April 15th): We heard that the food situation in North Korea has been very bad. However, North Korean government used to give out some food every year on around April 15th to the people to celebrate the father dictator Kim Il-Sung birthday. There has been no food dispensation this year, not even 1 kg of food. This must be the worst ever even in North Korea.
Mass suicide in many villages: Starving near to death for the past several years and with no hope for the future, many families kill themselves now by taking rat poison. There had been incidents of this kind before, but mass suicide has become more frequent and wide spread now. The City of B where the aid worker visited this time was rather better off than the other areas because it is located near the border. Even the City of B experiences the worst food shortage these days.
The Army is looting the civilian residences: The Army, if they know that there are some valuables or food in a residence, break into the house and rob anything of value. The supporter eyewitnessed a robbery by the Army when she was in the village. They came and took the only bicycle from a house. They were all armed, and the residents could not even protest. There is no law in North Korea now. The Army can rob civilians in broad daylight and when people are watching them. The Army must be starving too. Recently, a soldier was starving in the Army. His family paid off some officers and got him discharged. He had nothing to eat at home either. He ran away.
The situation is worse than 1997 which was considered the worst year ever: The aid worker went to a railroad station. There was a pile of burnt ashes left over from the train. People fought to get a place in the ashes to keep themselves warm. Their faces looked all black and bloodless from starvation. They could not walk straight. They all said that half the City of B residents would perish this year if they did not get help.
Farmers cannot work on their farm even in this spring: They do not have any seeds to spread in the farm. Nobody is working.
No people in the market: It used to be crowded in the market with people. Nobody has money to buy anything. She did not see any people in the market. The aid worker saw an old lady peddling a bowl of mountain grass roots.
Things are much worse now than 1996-1998 which everybody thought was the worst. It defies description. Nobody can predict what may happen this spring in North Korea. The aid worker in China who reported these stories used to be so strong, but she could not complete her story and hang up the phone, crying.
What can I do? Heaven help them, and us!
Sin-U Nam
Let them eat all that plutonium and uranium they have in storage to threaten us with!
Let them eat their nukes...
In all likelihood, people mentioned in this article live in N.E. part of N. Korea. The place is furtherest away from DMZ. Besides, to get through DMZ, you have to pass layers and layers of military checkpoints, minefields, and machine gun nests. They could use boats. But boats are tightly controlled in N. Korea. Only some fishermen and their family have made it to S. Korea. But that is only after long meticulous planning.
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