Talk:North Korean famine

Shultz IV's commentary

Because several editors have pointed out the lack of references and obvious bias in the essay by Shultz IV, I've moved his content here for now. I've replaced the article page with content from North Korea, Kim Jong-il, and Famine articles, to serve as a stub.

Shultz IV, please re-add any part of the below after you add references and subtract the commentary. thanks. Appleby 15:39, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

{{references}} {{NPOV}}

The North Korean famine of the 1990s started when Kim Il-sung, an amateur in the ways of farming, ordered more rice to be grown in the hills in many parts of North Korea. He also ordered for trees to be cut down in order to give more room to grow rice.

Realizations

Farmers and agricultural specialists who knew better realized immediately that the lack of trees and natural vegetation would allow the rainwaters to progress faster towards the streams & rivers, causing them to receive more than they can take downstream, thus allowing them to overflow their banks! This way, floods would occur and the disaster wouldn't only be that, but also famine resulting from drowning the crops.

However, no one would dare challenge the Great Leader! Whoever thought of challenging him feared getting sent to a re-education camp. (Like the Yodok Concentration Camp, for example.) Therefore, they had no choice but to obey his orders.

The beginning of the disaster

Sure enough, the floods came and the famine started to sweep the nation. However, North Korean media was still forced to lionize the leaders and their accomplishments, and was completely disallowed from reporting negative happenings in their own country. Nevertheless, Kim Il-sung eventually found out about it. He realized that the only way he would save the country is through Reunification. He started the process moving, but in the wee hours of July 8, 1994, he got in an animated argument with Kim Jong-il, and suddenly collapsed due to a heart attack. If it hadn't have been for that (i.e. if Kim Il-sung checked up on his health earlier), Korea may have been reunified today, with millions of lives saved.

The "Arduous March"

Unfortunately, Kim Il-sung's death halted the reunification process and so the famine was allowed to take its course. Flooding was engulfing significant portions of the nation, and so the crops were not allowed to grow. Due to their ideology of "self-reliance", they would not buy food from any neighboring countries nor ask for help in the get-go. As a result, 200,000-1.5 million North Koreans are estimated to have died in what they call the "Arduous March". The Northern provinces of North Korea, that is, North Pyongan, Chagang, Yanggang, and North Hamgyong suffered the most. Pyongyang and all provinces to the south of the capital were spared the brunt of the disaster.

The Call for Disaster Relief

Eventually, they did call the world for disaster relief, and so the Red Cross and the World Food Programme arrived to give assistance. At first, a great portion of the donated food and resources were diverted to their military due to their so called "Military First" policy and the fact that giving them more food & resources would help maintain their loyalty better. However, the aid organizations eventually found out and ensured that the donations only went to where they needed to go.

Aftermath

There was still a shortage of food in some places, and the living conditions worsened as well. Thus, some North Koreans fled the country across the border, often across the Yalu and Tumen Rivers to find more food and a better life. Many stayed in China and even stay in hiding to this day. Many others made the trek to Shenyang and Beijing to South Korean diplomatic compounds to request asylum.

The Communist regime of North Korea is said to have lost the Mandate of Heaven. South Koreans agree, as well as many people around the world. North Koreans may agree also, although they are not free to say so.

WHAT

There was no "aftermath", people, because it didn't end. Actually it is potentially worse than ever!

Sometimes Wikipedia is a total joke. Articles about some unimportant people are longer than the fate of millions right now. --84.234.60.154 (talk) 08:21, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

"the North estimates its losses at about 2.5 million to 3 million from 1995 to March 1998" 2.5-3 million what? dollars? acres? people? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.14.143.188 (talk) 22:55, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

If the famine never ended, and was worse than ever, by now the population would be virtually extinct.--Jack Upland (talk) 07:38, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

THIS SHOULD BE ONE OF HOTTEST EDITED ARTICLES RIGHT NOW

I can't belive it is TOTALLY IGNORED. --84.234.60.154 (talk) 20:41, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

To whoever who would make a real article

Pleace use external links I provided while re-writting this joke of an article. --84.234.60.154 (talk) 22:05, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

It appears you, 84.234.60.154 (talk), are the best editor to improve this article. You are not prevented from doing the text editing and thinking necessary to make the article say what it should. Templates are a form of complaint, not contribution. Just do it. -- Yellowdesk (talk) 02:51, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

This article overlaps partly with Economy of North Korea#Crisis and famine.--Banana (talk) 22:39, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

No explanation for the term "Arduous March"

I have found no explanation in the article about the meaning of the term "Arduous March". The sentence in Schultz IV' commentary above, "As a result, 200,000-1.5 million North Koreans are estimated to have died in what they call the "Arduous March".", is not very enlightening; why was a famine called a march? --Enaskitis (talk) 09:12, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

I've added an explanation and history of the term. Coinmanj (talk) 09:24, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

External links

The list of external links in the article was just ridiculous. Rather than just delete them I am moving them here for future reference: PC78 (talk) 23:06, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

collapsing --Banana (talk) 22:38, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

march of tribulation

I was redirected from march of tribulation...what does this mean? surely a reason for the redirect? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 27.122.13.129 (talk) 21:40, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

New sections

In an attempt to shorten the article Economy of North Korea I have moved 2 sections (black market activities and the Public Distribution System) into this article since they deal directly with the famine. The shortened "crisis" section of the Economy article now is more summarized and has a link to this article. Coinmanj (talk) 09:12, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Ongoing starvation as a new section?

Should a new section be made about the recent deaths that have occurred in the past year or so? There isn't mention of the current estimations in the right info box, as far as the article 'North Korean Famine' is concerned, it ended in 1998. The estimation of 10,000-20,000 deaths is pretty steep, I think it merits its own section seeing how when a small plane crashes with 3 people on board it gets its own article. Thoughts? Johnsmithy678 (talk) 02:32, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

That sounds like a good idea to me. bobrayner (talk) 11:16, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

I'd vote for that too.SylviaStanley (talk) 13:17, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

The problem is that every so often some media outlet runs a story, with very little evidence, saying, "Famine has returned!", or something like that. The World Food Program, and others who are looking at the situation in the long term, do not say that.--Jack Upland (talk) 07:55, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

There is also the article at the academic 38north,[1] which says things were confusing this year starting with a drought then rain, causing a "lack [of] clear-cut answers" but in the end his assessment is: "food production is still better than it has been in past years". I didn't think it was clear-cut enough to be a useful source, except perhaps his handy table of FAO data covering 2008-2015. Rwendland (talk) 17:19, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

The problem is that a sensationalist claim ends up getting into the article, but a balanced, reasoned analysis doesn't. We also should avoid the fallacy of equating food production with food consumption. Many commentators out-Juche North Korea by presuming that the country should be self-sufficient in food. It doesn't actually have much arable land. You have to look at the economy as a whole. If North Korea expanded its mineral exports (for example), it could import more food etc.--Jack Upland (talk) 23:41, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

Desperate eating measures and depletion of coutryside

YouTube videos speak of desperate measures, such as hunting of small animals like frogs and eating plants such as bark or grass. Also video of the countryside shows a ravaged, yellow countryside. It would be enlightening to read discussion of these developments in this article.Dogru144 (talk) 07:51, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Enlightening, or misleading? Here are some photos I took in the summer of 2012:

Cultivated land in North Korea

North Korean village in the Yalu River delta

You can see more photos at Environment of North Korea. The photos of a "ravaged" countryside are taken after the winter snow has melted, but before spring regrowth. They are not an accurate representation of what conditions in North Korea are like.--Jack Upland (talk) 07:34, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

Fine, but the famine was alleged to have occurred circa 1994-98, not in 2012.

The point is that people are saying that these conditions are continuing or worsening.--Jack Upland (talk) 08:25, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

This article is starting to sound like rabid western propaganda. Starting with the photos, I bet much of the rest is BS. PS Where are the NASA photos - I am sure they can fill in the missing years on a day by day basis. 2601:181:8301:4510:C046:CE4F:B684:C00E (talk) 03:01, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

Propaganda should be ashamed of itself when it is so stupid. The deaths vary over such a range you know that no one knows the number - many millions to 240,000. US Census can't even count Americans with great reliability and now we are told they can estimate population in countries they can't even visit - sorry but BS. 240,000 deaths over 8 years (30,000 a year) over a population of 22,000,000 gives 30/22,000 or 3/2,200 - I bet this isn't statistically significant. The larger death estimates appear to well within error ranges of any US government numbers of the US much less N Korea. I love BS but this is too stupid to even laugh at. 2601:181:8301:4510:B182:F9B2:4167:1552 (talk) 00:38, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

Estimating deaths from long distance would be very difficult. Even if you could estimate the decline in population, you would have to know how much this was caused by a declining birthrate. In times of hardship, people are likely to put off marriage and children. There is also an issue with the deaths of old people. I read something once about a North Korean who said their mother had died in the Arduous March. But she was in her 70s. No doubt the malnutrition, the hunger, the hardship contributed to her death. But I don't think a death that is a few years "premature" is the same as a death that is decades "premature". The concept of "excess deaths" is a statistical construct that doesn't translate well into ordinary lived experience. I don't know if the North Korean government has ever made a statement on this, but it, and it alone, would be capable of producing meaningful statistics. According to the official statistics, the population was 21 million in 1993 and 24 million in 2008: see Demographics of North Korea. Most people, including the CIA, seem to accept these figures. According to the UN there was a 10% natural increase 1995-2000, which is higher than it is now. But I don't think the real issue was the statistics — which as you say wildly vary — I think the issue is the people's suffering, which the regime in North Korea has acknowledged. Logically speaking, this article should not be "North Korean famine"; it should be "DPRK economic crisis" and talk about the multi-pronged crisis that beset North Korea after natural disasters, loss of trade and aid relations with the Eastern Bloc etc. But, unfortunately, there is a famine of logic.--Jack Upland (talk) 09:45, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

US/West sanctions against North Korea

Does the sanctions really help the situation? It is pretty clear that the US/West are trying to overthrow the regime by making the situation even worse. They punish the whole population by doing so and put the blame only on the regime while i think that part of the famine however small or big is to blame on US/West politics. I think there should be a section about that. http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2013/10/10/north-korea-sanctions-punish-the-whole-population/—Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.103.161.92 (talk) 17:41, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

The sanctions don't help, but they have a longer-term effect and lifting them wouldn't change anything in the short term. In particular, NK has made a virtue (Juche) of avoiding foreign trade, so it's not like they're waiting to make changes tomorrow.

The fundamental issues are:

• The countries imposing the sanctions are nowhere near NK and not important trading partners anyway. NK cares about trade with China. (Look at a map; Pyongyang to Beijing is not particularly far.)
• Everyone knows NK can sell anything it likes to anyone in the world as long as it's marked "made in China" and goes through a Chinese middleman. In other words, NK's poverty isn't as simple as lack of access to markets.
• Merely allowing trade doesn't change anything as long as North Korea has no money to buy food if it wanted to. Or wants to spend what money it has on Hennessey cognac for dear leader.
• As long as NK is dependent on donations, it's limited to countries that it hasn't pissed off. That crosses a few off.
• Possible sources of donations don't trust the NK government to distribute it to the people in need. Unless they're allowed to supervise distribution (which the NK government won't allow), they (justifiably) believe it will be siphoned away by the party and the military.

71.41.210.146 (talk) 02:30, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

Sanctions are briefly mentioned in the economy article. That seems an appropriate place, and the information there should be expanded. The sanctions are mainly aimed at the arms industry and luxury goods. This includes the export of arms which has been a major earner of outside revenue. But I haven't seen a good source on the effect on the economy.--Jack Upland (talk) 22:46, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

Floods

This article minimises the impact of the floods (even more so, before I edited it), but most sources say that the floods did have a large impact. (The collapse of the Soviet bloc is also important, of course.) This article mentions economic mismanagement but doesn't explain why this mismanagement would have come to a head in the 1990s.

The citation of Daniel Schwekendiek has been tagged as dubious since 2013. I have located his article, which is based on child height data, and this is the relevant sentence in his conclusion: "Interestingly, the North Korean government's official explanation for the famine—the floods—is not verified here, since the living standards in the previously flood-affected counties were not significantly worse than in the unaffected ones." This assumes that the effect of the floods was localised, which seems to be false. What about flooding of coal mines and damage to hydro-electric dams? The effect of that kind of damage would go across the economy, particularly as it is centralised, and would not necessarily have any impact on the nutrition of nearby children. I will amend the article to reflect what he actually concluded, but I feel the article might be giving undue weight to one study.--Jack Upland (talk) 01:27, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

I have moved information about the immediate flood damage to infrastructure into the "Floods" section. It makes no sense to separate the floods from their immediate impact.--Jack Upland (talk) 01:01, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Cold

Many deaths were related to the cold in winter, but this isn't mentioned.--Jack Upland (talk) 02:01, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

External links modified

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1950s

The Background section has two paragraphs about famines in the 1950s (the first one associated with the Korean War). I think this is unnecessary and misleading.--Jack Upland (talk) 00:50, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

There being no objections, I've now removed them.--Jack Upland (talk) 03:07, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

Another famine?

According to this [2], the quotation came from an article entitled "Chosun's Supreme Power", that wasn't translated into English, and the quotation was: "The path to the revolution is never easy, we might have to go through Arduous March again – in which we only had to eat roots of the grass – and we might have to fight against our enemies all by one’s self". It appears to be a passing comment, the implication of which out of keeping with the general thrust of articles published by Rodong Sinmun [3], which features articles like "Nobody Can Block DPRK's Advance": "High-rise apartment houses will spring up in Ryomyong Street like mushrooms after rain before long through self-reliance and self-development. This represents the mode of the struggle of the Korean people to foil the moves to isolate and stifle the DPRK and bring earlier a rosy future."--Jack Upland (talk) 04:35, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

According to this — Little Story about How the Media Gets North Korea Wrong — the quotation was: "The road of the revolution is long and tough. There may again be times that call for chewing grass roots during an arduous march, and times that call for fighting the enemy single-handedly on a far-flung island…but we have to keep our single-minded loyalty for our dear marshal to the very end even if it costs our lives…". It seems that the reference was only a phrase used in passing. I will remove it from this article.--Jack Upland (talk) 03:41, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

Oh, another fake news about North Korea? Unexpected... emijrp (talk) 10:06, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

Exactly.--Jack Upland (talk) 02:19, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

2002

What is the justification for saying that the famine recommenced in 2002?--Jack Upland (talk) 06:21, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

Since there has been no explanation, I've removed this.--Jack Upland (talk) 08:32, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

It keeps on being reinstated, but there is no citation, and it is refuted by several reliable sources.--Jack Upland (talk) 03:20, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

Dr. O Grada's comment on this article

Dr. O Grada has reviewed this Wikipedia page, and provided us with the following comments to improve its quality:

Nobody--repeat, nobody--believes that 3 million died of famine in North Korea in the 1990s. The best guess is probably that by Spoorenberg and Schwekendiek's (cited in fn 7).

Why the 3 million figure became so widely cited is an interesting, separate question. Haggard and Noland, and Becker (all cited here), who gave such a figure credibility as 'regime change' scholars, over-egged the death toll for political reasons. They are given too much respect here.

That there was a crisis and excess mortality is not in doubt. But perhaps the crisis should be seen as a more long-term shift in average mortality than as a famine.

We hope Wikipedians on this talk page can take advantage of these comments and improve the quality of the article accordingly.

Dr. O Grada has published scholarly research which seems to be relevant to this Wikipedia article:

• Reference : Cormac O Grada, 2014. "Fame e Capitale Umano in Inghilterra prima della Rivoluzione Industriale (Hunger and Human Capital in England before the Industrial Revolution)," Working Papers 201403, School of Economics, University College Dublin.

ExpertIdeasBot (talk) 12:39, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

Unfortunately, there is no relevant, reliable source that we can use.--Jack Upland (talk) 05:59, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

Well, I doubt it would be that hard to demonstrate the 3 million figure is ignored by most relevant scholars. I mean, even The Black Book of Communism only estimates 500,000 famine-related deaths. When I wrote this a long time ago—and keep in mind that I intended that section to be a strong condemnation of the regime, and I might not do it quite the same way today—I cited the same Population and Development Review source mentioned by O Grada: "Estimates based on the North Korean census suggest that 240,000 to 420,000 people died as a result of the 1990s famine and that there were 600,000 to 850,000 unnatural deaths in North Korea from 1993 to 2008." I'm not saying the 3 million figure should be deleted outright, but it would be more informative (if possible) to explain where it comes from—and that most experts find it implausible—than to merely include it in a broad range and call it a day.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 06:41, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. This article needs a lot of work. The problem is that editors largely rely on sensational media. As I've said elsewhere, if these kind of reports were true the North Korea population would be extinct.--Jack Upland (talk) 06:59, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

Census data is the result of current pop + births - deaths. Any data on birth rates. If they fall, the census pop slows down. 2601:181:8301:4510:C046:CE4F:B684:C00E (talk) 03:11, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

Current Situation

Hazel Smith comments on the UN Human Rights Report:

The narrative of the report presents the view that nothing much has changed since the famine years, that the health and nutritional status of the population is uniquely awful and government policies guilty of breaching the human right to food of the population at large. The data presented above, however, indicates that this picture is erroneous.[4](p 27)

Given that Smith's view is backed by several authoritative sources, I think the article should be amended to give a more accurate picture of the current situation. I mean that we should tone down references to starvation, cannibalism etc, and rely on long-term research rather than sensationalist reports.--Jack Upland (talk) 03:35, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

Read this article for the current situation. How many millions of poor ( not well feed ) kids does the US have? Andrei Lankov is professor of Korean Studies at Kookmin University, Seoul. He is the author of "The Real North Korea: Life and Politics in the Failed Stalinist Utopia".Read 2601:181:8301:4510:C046:CE4F:B684:C00E (talk) 03:21, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

I have added Lankov's article to this article.--Jack Upland (talk) 21:49, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

Post-famine developments

The following was removed with the edit summary "Citations dont actually say what the poster is claiming":

However, the World Food Program has reported malnutrition and food shortages, but not famine. In 2016 UN Committee on the Rights of the Child reported a steady decline in the infant mortality rate since 2008. 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. In 2017, the analyst Andrei Lankov argued that previous predictions of a return to famine were unfounded, and that the days of starvation were long since passed.

This is patently untrue. There are a number of citations there, and, while the wording could be modified, the text does reflect the citations. I reinserted the text, but it was removed again with the edit summary "not a usable citation, removed until a relevant one is provided". The UN, a British academic, and a respected analyst of North Korea are not "usable" or "relevant"?--Jack Upland (talk) 13:29, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

References

There being no response, I have restored the text.--Jack Upland (talk) 10:10, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

Hi User:Jack Upland, Thank you for following up the critical issue for the human right. I believe that you have a warm heart for the people in DPRK Goodtiming8871 (talk) 02:48, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

Does North Korea actually claim millions died from famine in the mid-90's?

I am skeptical of claims by the article according to which North Korea claims millions died in the famine (see [Estimated number of deaths]). I have searched extensively through North Korean media and web sites and can find no such evidence anywhere in sight. One of the article cited (see [World: Asia-Pacific North Korea 'loses 3 million to famine']) gives "North Korean" statistics which were in fact provided by Yonhap (linked to South Korean intelligence and never a reliable source for information on North Korea). I would like to remove this from the article as this is most likely a misquote/distortion by South Korean intelligence. If North Korea has ever claimed anything remotely similar to this, please say where to find it (outside of quotations by Yonhap). There doesn't appear to be a single webpage from North Korea which discusses the alleged mid-to-late 1990's famine (let alone any with figures that inflated).

Philippe Biberson, president of Médecins sans frontières, said in 1998 that "we don't have any medical data on this country [North Korea], that's why these studies extrapolating from figures taken on a reduced scale are dishonest" and that "in the places I've visited, I do not believe the people die from hunger." (see [Corée du Nord: la famine «manipulée»Le président de MSF déplore l'opacité et les contraintes qui entourent la lutte contre la disette.] - French original: "On n'a aucune information médicale sur ce pays, c'est pourquoi ces études extrapolant à partir de chiffres pris sur un échantillon réduit sont malhonnêtes" et, also, "Dans les endroits que j'ai visités, je ne pense pas que les gens meurent de faim."). I would like to quote this in the article, but I'm not sure exactly how to do it because it's originally in French - would I simply quote the translation, or provide the original text with it?

Also, another point: the source provided for the claim "Roughly 45% of North Korean children under the age of five are stunted from malnutrition and the population of kotjebi persists." does not actually state 45% of children are stunted, and is sensationalist reporting about young supposed "defectors" whom Laos and North Korea say were actually victims of human trafficking who may have been beaten and forced to convert to Christianity. I have removed it from the article as the citation only discusses "kotjebi" and not the _supposed_ 45% of North Korean children (and what about homeless populations and malnourished children in the developed countries of the world, much richer in terms of average GDP than North Korea - in the United States, just for one example, over 12 million children are food insecure - which amounts to one in six children, if we count children as anyone under 18). The article also has other claims that I plan to follow up at some point. Incogreader (talk • contribs) 17:36, 17 June 2019 (UTC)