1990s North Korean famine
The Rodong Sinmun urged the North Korean citizenry to invoke the memory of a propaganda fable from Kim Il Sung's time as a commander of a small group of anti-Japanese guerrilla fighters.
The story, referred to as the Arduous March, is described as "fighting against thousands of enemies in 20 degrees below zero, braving a heavy snowfall and starvation, the red flag fluttering in front of the rank".
[15] In North Korea, people are required to call the great famine the Arduous March (Korean: 고난의 행군, romanized: ko'nan-ŭi haenggun).
It was one of the most important events in the history of North Korea, because it forced the regime and its people to change their lives in fundamental and unanticipated ways.
[16] Due to North Korea's terrain, farming is mainly concentrated along the flatlands of the four western coastal provinces, where there is a longer growing season, level land, substantial rainfall, and well-irrigated soil conducive to the high cultivation of crops.
[10] Without Soviet aid, the flow of imports to the North Korean agricultural sector ended, and the government proved to be too inflexible to respond.
Agriculture reliant on electrically powered irrigation systems, artificial fertilizers and pesticides was hit particularly hard by the economic collapse.
[8] North Korea's state trading companies emerged as an alternative means of conducting foreign economic relations.
From the mid-1980s, these state trading companies became important conduits of funding for the regime, with a percentage of all revenues going "directly into Kim Jong Il's personal accounts... [which have been] used to secure and maintain the loyalty of the senior leadership".
For a time, China filled the gap left by the Soviet Union's collapse and propped up North Korea's food supply with significant aid.
In 1993, China faced its own grain shortfalls and need for hard currency, and it sharply cut aid to North Korea.
[28] As devastating floods ravaged the country in 1995, arable land, harvests, grain reserves, and social and economic infrastructure were destroyed.
The United Nations Department of Humanitarian Affairs reported that "between 30 July and 18 August 1995, torrential rains caused devastating floods in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).
[29] The major issues created by the floods were not only the destruction of crop lands and harvests, but also the loss of emergency grain reserves, because many of them were stored underground.
[32] North Korea lost an estimated 85% of its power generation capacity due to flood damage to infrastructure such as hydropower plants, coal mines, and supply and transport facilities.
[8] The attempt to follow a closed-economic model caused the regime to abandon the possibility of engaging in international markets and importing food and instead restrict demand such as carrying out a "Let's eat two meals a day" campaign in 1991.
[8] Attempts to increase exports and earn foreign exchange through the Rajin Sonbong free trade zone in 1991 were unsuccessful – it was located in the most isolated part of North Korea and lacked a clear legal foundation for international business.
[8] The North Korean government also missed the opportunity for the short-term option to borrow from abroad to finance food imports after defaulting on foreign loans in the 1970s.
[6] Inadequate medical supplies, water and environmental contamination, frequent power failures, and outdated training led to a health care crisis that added to the overall devastation.
According to a 1997 UNICEF delegation, hospitals were clean but wards were devoid of even the most rudimentary supplies and equipment – sphygmomanometers, thermometers, scales, kidney dishes, spatulas, IV giving sets, etc.
In 1996, it was reported that people in "the so-called better-off parts of the country, were so hungry that they ate the maize cobs before the crop was fully developed".
Pregnant and nursing women faced severe difficulties in staying healthy; maternal mortality rates increased to approximately 41 per 1000, while simple complications such as anemia, hemorrhage and premature birth became common due to vitamin deficiency.
[54] In 2001 and 2007, independent groups of researchers have estimated that between 600,000 and 1 million people, or 3 to 5 percent of the pre-crisis population, died due to starvation and hunger-related illness.
[62] With the desperation derived from famine and informal trade and commercialization, North Koreans developed their black market, and moreover, they were surviving by adapting.
However, the actual monthly income could be estimated to be around US$15 as most North Koreans were earning money from illegal small businesses; trade, subsistence farming, and handicrafts.
[67] Such supervision would ensure that aid does not get seized and sold by well-connected elites or diverted to feed North Korea's large military.
For example, South Korea decided to "postpone consideration" of 500,000 tons of rice for the North in 2006, but the idea of providing food as a clear incentive (as opposed to resuming "general humanitarian aid") has been avoided.
[81] Another report by the Japanese Asia Press agency in January 2013 claimed that in North and South Hwanghae provinces more than 10,000 people had died of famine.
[84] An academic analysis in 2016 found that the situation had greatly improved since the 1990s and that North Korea's levels of health and nutrition were on par with other developing countries.
[85] In 2017, the analyst Andrei Lankov argued that previous predictions of a return to famine were unfounded, and that the days of starvation had long since passed.
