He calls it Juche, I call it murder

Just more proof of how mad the government is in Pyongyang. North Korea is asking that all humanitarian internation assistance end by year's end. In face of food shortages(if not famine), and a medical system that was called a national disaster by the WHO, this is madness. Kim-il Jung and his cronies promote what they call juche or self-reliance. An admirable goal except their countrymen have died by the millions because of such a policy.

I truly wish for an end of suffering for the people of North Korea. They deserve better than the corrupt, insane leadership they now posess.

Note- The article was written by Bo-Mi Lim. He writes that the food situation is getting better over the last few years. Every article I can remember before this one has said that DPRK was on the verge of another famine. Mr. Lim is unaware of the facts or a propagandist for the North.

Sunday OTB- Jo's Cafe

SEOUL, South Korea - North Korea's demand that food aid be terminated and changed into development assistance underlines the regime's desire for a long-term strategy for feeding its people and becoming less dependent on foreign help, according to experts on the country.

The North, emerging from a famine that killed 2 million people by some estimates, announced Thursday that it wanted all emergency humanitarian assistance from international organizations to stop by the end of the year, in part because of what it called political interference from the United States.

In line with the North's request, the United Nations' World Food Program, which provides food assistance to about 6.5 million North Koreans, said earlier it would end a decade of emergency food shipments by January and focus on development projects.

"North Korea has survived a life-and-death situation where people starved to death and there is now some stability, albeit at a minimum level," said Paik Hak-soon of the Sejong Institute in Seoul. "They now want a long-term survival strategy."

North Koreans would want development assistance rather than "aid that can be consumed and simply disappear," Paik said.

The nation of 22 million people has relied on foreign assistance since natural disasters and mismanagement caused its economy to collapse in the mid-1990s. Nearly $2 billion in food aid has flowed into the country over the last decade, according to a report by the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea.

The food situation has improved in recent years, but not enough for aid groups to end their humanitarian work, Undersecretary-General Jan Egeland, the U.N. humanitarian affairs coordinator, warned Friday.

Analysts stress the North is not asking for a halt to food assistance, but for programs that will grant more independence — central to its guiding national ideology of "juche," or self-reliance.

"The North obviously doesn't have leftover food laying around," said Lee Woo-young, professor at the University of North Korean Studies. "But with emergency food aid, there is the issue of dependency."

On Thursday, North Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Choe Su Hon said the humanitarian situation has improved "to a great extent," grain production is expected to increase, and the government can feed its people.

But he said another reason for the termination is the attempt by 13 countries, especially the United States, "to politicize the humanitarian assistance" by linking it to human rights.

While the United States insists it does not use food aid as a political tool, its recently appointed special envoy on North Korea's human rights, Jay Lefkowitz, suggested earlier this month that future U.S. aid might be linked to the North's human rights record.