POLITICS AND POWER

Can be Famine a Weapon of War?

Can be Famine a Weapon of War?

Introduction

In recent times, several writers on famines have made the suggestion that famine has been used by some governments as a 'weapon of war'. By a 'weapon of war' we mean that just like a gun, or a warship, it is used to kill people. It is used as a means of intimidation, like the threat of an airstrike. Hunger can also be used for propaganda purposes. Famine can be used to convince people of the benefits of supporting one side, as opposed to the hurt and damage that results from supporting the other side. It can be used to force the migration of communities. Two examples follow to explain this in the cases of two areas in sub-Saharan Africa.

In recent years we have met with a wave of terrorist attacks, with mass migration, with a deterioration of the environment, and with instability in many other areas. Besides this we hold lively debates about, and attempt to help effectively, the poorest countries and those who cannot exercise their basic civic and human rights. We experience many deep disagreements. But nowhere do we come up against a state as closed as North Korea, whose citizens live in utter isolation, who can avail of no human rights and who, what is more, are the victims of a centrally run, i.e. state-supported, humanitarian catastrophe. For the second decade, that country is experiencing a chronic shortage of food; the famine at the end of the 1990s was the direct cause of the deaths of at least one million people. That famine, however, need not have been North Korea's fate, if its own citizens had not been denied the most basic human rights.

After over ten years of humanitarian missions on the territory of North Korea, these programs are far from fulfilling international standards. We have no guarantee that aid is reaching the truly needy, and the communist regime consistently spoils any attempts to control its distribution. International solidarity is therefore abused directly by government structures, with the privileged army to the forefront. Furthermore, efforts to monitor needs and distribution in a more detailed manner by the World Food Programme are made relative by the direct imports of South Korea and China. The brutal regime supplies them only to the most loyal. If anyone bears even a sign of suspicion that he has lost blind faith, the suspect is immediately deprived of basic foodstuffs and medical aid; he loses his job and even the chance to receive an education. It is not unusual to end up in a system of concentration camps not dissimilar to the Soviet Gulags.

Coping responses by households during the famine contributed to a bottom-up marketization of the economy, ratified by the economic policy changes introduced by the North Korean government in 2002. What began as a socialist famine arising out of failed agricultural policies and a misguided emphasis on food self-sufficiency has evolved into a chronic food emergency more ...