Is it True that North Korea Diverts Food Aid to the Military?

For the past few years North Korea has been facing allegations that it has been diverting the food sent by foreign countries for humanitarian aid to the military. Though there were no proofs regarding this, the allegations didn't stop. But after a few visits, American members of Congress confirmed this by saying that they believe that the food is wrongly diverted to the military.

These members said that even after repeated attempts, North Korea didn't allow to monitor the food aid reports. But there is no transparency in food distribution. Though South Korea is aware of the diversion of food, it hasn't been able to take any actions because there is no transparency in the distribution of food. South Korea has been sending food to North Korea since 1995 when the mass scale deaths in North Korea because of starvation has seen light and was known to international society. South Korea has been providing on an average 500,000 tons of rice and a good amount of corn to North Korea every year.

Many researches revealed that many kids in North Korea are affected by malnutrition. Video footages of these kids show how pathetic the condition is in that place. Many kids are dying every year because of the lack of food. Besides this, there are many deceases prevailed in that area because of the lack of food. The government is not at all bothering about these kids.

If the food is being distributed to people, then they should be receiving it. But on research some facts has seen light. Not even a 10% of people received food aid at least once in a year. Most of the people buy food at markets is the other fact known from these studies. United Nations and humanitarian aid rules strictly oppose the use of food aid in the market. This lead to investigate about where the food was gone and the facts were almost known.

The facts that were known from this research are the food is first distributed among army, security agency, and administrative organizations, among which 90% of food is being sent as army provisions. This research also revealed that not even 10% of people received food and these people too received food which won't last even a month. Reports also revealed that more than 50% people know that the food is being diverted to military.

Most of the food aid sent to North Korea has been used as war time reserve and as field unit's food aid. The food which is unloaded in ports are sent to war time reserves for storing and are taken on military vehicles. During this process, most of the food is sent to markets and sold there.

Many bags of rice piled up in the military camps were captured on camera and were distributed among press. The most controversial thing is that North Korean democratization president said on record that Kim Jong decides how much percentage of food goes to army, party to show his authority.

It is a pathetic thing to do by a leader of any nation. In North Korea, the food is being diverted to the army people who are loyal to the leader rather than millions of people who are starving and many are dying.

http://www.groundreport.com/article.php?articleID=2833728&offset=3

http://www.wwrn.org/article.php?idd=11052&sec=23&con=21

http://www.voanews.com/english/2008-05-13-voa64.cfm