dprk military preferential treatment of defectors

#DPRK MILITARY PREFERENTIAL TREATMENT OF DEFECTORS CODE#
#DPRK MILITARY PREFERENTIAL TREATMENT OF DEFECTORS SERIES#

The first case of famine occurred during the Korean War. If this inherent weakness was further aggravated by crisis conditions, such as war, drought, floods, or a sudden unfavorable change in North Korea's balance of trade, famine was likely to break out. The agricultural potential of the northern part of the country was historically inferior to that of the southern region, and hence the division of Korea produced a negative effect on the food supply of the northern areas. The famine of the 1990s was not the first in North Korea's history.

#DPRK MILITARY PREFERENTIAL TREATMENT OF DEFECTORS CODE#

The great famine, known in North Korea by the officially mandated code words konanŭi haenggun (The Arduous March), was a central event in the country's history, forcing the regime and its people to change in fundamental and unanticipated ways.

Those citizens who said deaths were due to the famine could be in serious trouble with the authorities. The story, referred to as the Arduous March, is described as: fighting against thousands of enemies in 20 degrees below zero, braving through a heavy snowfall and starvation, the red flag fluttering in front of the rank.' Īs part of this state campaign, uses of words such as famine and hunger were banned because they implied government failure. The Rodong Sinmun urged the North Korean citizenry to invoke the memory of an apocryphal fable from Kim Il-sung's time as a commander of a small group of anti-Japanese guerrilla fighters. The term 'Arduous March' became a metaphor for the famine following a state propaganda campaign in 1993. 5 Failure of sanitation, energy and health systems.Recent research suggests the likely number of excess deaths between 19 was about 330,000. Out of a total population of approximately 22 million, somewhere between 240,000 and 3,500,000 North Koreans died from starvation or hunger-related illnesses, with the deaths peaking in 1997. The North Korean government and its centrally-planned system proved too inflexible to effectively curtail the disaster.

#DPRK MILITARY PREFERENTIAL TREATMENT OF DEFECTORS SERIES#

A series of floods and droughts exacerbated the crisis. Economic mismanagement and the loss of Soviet support caused food production and imports to decline rapidly. The famine stemmed from a variety of factors. The North Korean famine, which together with the accompanying general economic crisis are known as the Arduous March ( Hangul: 북한기근 Chosŏn'gŭl: 고난의 행군) in North Korea, occurred in North Korea from 1994 to 1998. Militarization of economy spread of limited market activity food aid from South Korea, China, United States, Japan and the European Union Economic mismanagement, natural disasters, collapse of the Soviet bloc, military-first policyįood and humanitarian aid (1994 – present)

Dprk military preferential treatment of defectors