A Pinhole of Sunlight

The State Department confirms that several cans of donated American food were found aboard a North Korean submarine that ran aground off South Korea last fall, adding credibility to suspicions that at least some relief supplies meant for famine-stricken civilians have gone instead to the military. That makes expansion of international monitoring of famine aid even more essential, to try to assure that food reaches those most desperately in need rather than the relatively well-cared-for military. Aware that further aid could be contingent on allaying donors’ doubts, Pyongyang says it will let 10 more relief monitors join the seven already in the country. Moreover, in an unprecedented step, it will soon admit a seven-member team of U.S. experts to assess how food is being distributed.

How freely these observers are able to move about could provide an important clue to how serious North Korea might be in wanting better relations with the world outside. Even a carefully chaperoned visit should provide insights into a society under sentence of starvation on a wide scale and sliding steadily toward economic collapse. A Washington Post reporter who was able to accompany a visiting congressman on a brief trip to North Korea last week describes fearsome scenes of dying teenagers with the body sizes of 6-year-olds, of surgery performed without anesthetics in cold, reeking, dark hospitals, of the lights in the showcase capital of Pyongyang going out every evening because the power plants lacked fuel.

This is not likely to be a passing crisis. Drought, floods and soil erosion have laid waste to the countryside. No less destructive have been the decades of Stalinist controls that have retarded opportunities for development and growth. That the world’s most reclusive state is now, even in a small way, opening itself to scrutiny is a clear sign of how desperate its plight has become. For what outside observers are seeing is not just the results of nature’s ravages but the consequences of a mindless and failed system that, like so many of North Korea’s pitiful citizens, seems to be slowly, painfully, inexorably dying.