Is S. Korean Rice Feeding Kim’s Army?

A film was found featuring a scene in which the North Korea military handled 400,000 to 500,000 tons of rice, originally supplied by the South Korea government every year since 2000.

The film, which was made on May 24, might bring about some arguments as it intimates that the rice supplied to support North Koreans who are suffering from famine may be used for other purposes by the North Korean military.

The 3-hour long film broadcasted in Weekly Donga which was published on September 5 shows that rice with the seal of the Republic of Korea was loaded by North Korean soldiers into trucks from freight cars parked in Danchon station, Hamgyongnam-do.

Moreover, it also shows North Korean soldiers conducting guard duty on freight cars filled with rice and lying down in the cars while on duty, but no evidence was found as to the destination of the rice shipment. The film was made by a North Korean defector who sneaked back into North Korea again, and is known to be currently staying in a third country.

There is a possibility that North Korea has used military vehicles due to its inferior transportation system, but nonetheless, the intervention of the military in moving provisions violates the agreement between South Korea and North Korea. The agreement indicates that the organization which supplies rice to the people is limited to designated “Sumae-yangjeong-seong” under the DPRK administration.

The Ministry of Unification delivered 500,000 tons of rice from July of last year to this past February for the 2005 supply and has monitored the situation on 20 occasions. “The monitoring is conducted by four delivery personnel, but there’s a limitation of inspection since they do not reside in North Korea,” an official of the Ministry of Unification said.

“Only 30 percent of the ration supplied from South Korea is distributed to North Koreans, while the rest is going to military sites as soon as it is delivered,” Ho Hye-il, one of the North Korean defectors who worked as security guard at the inter-Korean summit in 2000, announced in his book published in June.