朝鮮能否挺過下一次饑荒?

【英文原文】

Handling The Next North Korean Famine
The annual North Korean flower festival, celebrating today's birthday of founder Kim Il Sung, began this week in Pyongyang. Given the theme -- 'President Kim Il Sung, the sun of humankind, is immortal along with the flower of the sun' -- no wonder money is apparently no object. The festival organizing committee supplied tissue culture-bred seedlings to greenhouses around the country to boost the growing of Kimilsungia, a hybrid orchid named after Kim Il Sung. According to the Pyongyang Times, cultivators 'have ensured the right temperature in day and at night and prevented damage from blights . . . despite climate change and the low percentage of sunshine this year.'

What is particularly outrageous about this year's festival is that it comes at the same time that bad weather, compounded by the state's economic mismanagement and ineffective collective farming methods, is causing a failure of the overall agriculture sector. Experts in the United Nations' World Food Program are warning that this year North Koreans may face the worst food shortage since a famine claimed a million lives in the 1990s. Mid-April also happens to be when the so-called choongoong, or spring poverty, season begins. This is when North Korea runs out of the last bits of the previous year's fall harvest but before summer crops can be harvested.

In a still largely command economy, many North Koreans are left without a safety net against starvation. Disastrous monetary 'reform' last November effectively wiped out the savings of many North Koreans, stripping them of purchasing power that could be used to buy food. Hoarding and barter trade are once again prevalent. Periodic crackdowns on private-market activities certainly haven't helped either.

As severe hunger looms, the question for donors is whether to resume food aid to North Korea and, if so, how to ensure the assistance reaches the people most in need and is not diverted to the military. Proper monitoring is essential. Some critics think it would be impossible to monitor food deliveries, as the North Korean government would simply reject such a condition, fearing foreigners would learn too much about the world's most secretive state.

But there is some precedent for meaningful, if not optimal, monitoring of food aid. For instance, the United Nations' World Food Program conducted an average of 388 monitoring visits a month in 2005, and 440 a month in 2004. For much of these two years, U.N. employees had access to 160 of the country's 203 counties and districts. More than half of the World Food Program's international staff, numbering 32 at the end of 2005, were directly engaged in food aid monitoring during the year, and some of them spoke Korean. Such monitoring meant at least some of the young children, the elderly, the disabled, and pregnant and nursing women received food aid.

The North Korean government can hardly afford another period of severe nation-wide hunger. The country's leaders know that at some point a social explosion is possible as people become desperate. During the years of the famine in the 1990s, North Koreans were still so brainwashed by government propaganda that they died in massive numbers at home, waiting for rations that never came, not letting go of their faith in Pyongyang to save them. North Koreans are now better informed about the outside world, and know whom to blame for their hunger. The survivors have learned that it is foolish, even dangerous, to blindly depend on the government to deliver food.

This means renewed massive hunger could pose a risk to the continuity of the North Korean government. As the Dear Leader, Kim Jong Il, works to ensure another leadership succession to his youngest son, Kim Jong Un, he should consider that North Koreans may not endure another epoch of massive hunger as quietly as they did the last one.

That political imperative may force Pyongyang to act sooner, rather than later. Given that, the foreign-aid community can -- and should -- insist that aid workers be allowed to properly monitor aid distribution according to standard international protocols for transparency and accountability. The North Korean government must also pledge to end discrimination in government distribution of food in favor of ruling party officials, the military, the intelligence services and the police -- and against the 'hostile' classes deemed politically disloyal to the government. Otherwise, most donors will remain reluctant to give food aid to North Korea. And that would be a tragedy, on a truly massive scale.

【中文譯文】

上週平壤剛剛慶祝了一年一度的朝鮮太陽節。這個節日是爲了慶祝朝鮮開國元勳金日成(Kim Il Sung)生日。這個節日的主題是“人類的太陽金日成主席與太陽花一道永垂不朽”──難怪錢顯然不是問題。節日組委會向全國各地的溫室提供了通過組織培養方法繁育的種子，以增加“金日成花”(Kimilsungia)的種植，這種雜交蘭花以金日成的名字命名。據《平壤時報》(Pyongyang Times)報道，種植者日夜確保適宜的溫度，防止病蟲害，克服了一年來的氣候變化以及較低的日照水平。

今年的“太陽節”最令人氣憤的一點是，它正好趕在了整個農業因惡劣天氣、經濟措施不當以及效率低下的集體農場方式而歉收的時候。聯合國世界糧食計劃署的專家警告說，朝鮮今年可能面臨上世紀90年代導致百萬人餓死的饑荒以來最嚴重的糧食短缺。4月中旬也正好是所謂的春荒季節的開始。春荒是指朝鮮用完了上年的秋糧，然而夏收作物尚未收穫的這段時間。

朝鮮仍是以指令性經濟爲主體的國家，因此許多朝鮮人沒有能夠抵禦饑荒的安全網。去年11月災難性的貨幣改革有效的清除了許多朝鮮人的儲蓄，剝奪了他們原本可以用來購買食品的購買力。囤積和易貨交易再一次盛行。對自由市場活動的定期打壓當然也不會有所幫助。

隨着嚴重饑荒的逼近，捐助者面臨的問題是：是否重啓對朝糧食援助，如果是，如何確保援助能送到最需要的人民手中，而不是被轉移給軍隊。適當的監控必不可少。部分批評人士認爲不可能對食品的發放進行監控，因爲朝鮮政府將明確拒絕此類條件，害怕外國人對這個世界最隱祕的國家瞭解得太多。

但在監控食物援助方面有一些有意義的（如果不能稱之爲最佳的）先例。例如，聯合國世界糧食計劃署平均一個月進行監控調查的次數在2005年爲388次，2004年爲440次。兩年間，聯合國人員到達了朝鮮203個區縣中的160個區縣。2005年底，聯合國世界糧食計劃署的國際事務官員共有32人，其中一半以上直接參與了當年的糧食援助監控，部分官員會說朝鮮語。此類監控意味着至少部分兒童、老人、殘疾人、孕婦和哺乳期婦女得到了食物援助。

朝鮮政府幾乎不能承擔另一段嚴重的全國性饑荒。朝鮮領導人知道，人們變得絕望時社會有可能發生暴亂。上世紀90年代的饑荒歲月中，朝鮮人仍如此地相信政府的宣傳，以至於大批民衆在家中死去時仍在等待永遠不會到來的糧食配給，仍始終相信平壤政府會來救助他們。現在，朝鮮人對外界更爲了解，知道誰應該爲自己的飢餓負責。倖存者已經知道盲目的依靠政府發放食物是愚蠢的，甚至是危險的。

這意味着再次暴發大規模饑荒將危及朝鮮政府的存亡。在偉大領袖金正日(Kim Jong Il)努力確保把領導權傳給他最小的兒子金正雲(Kim Jong Un)的時候，他應當考慮一下，朝鮮人或許無法像上一次一樣安靜地忍受另一段大饑荒。

這種政治需要或許會迫使平壤儘快採取行動，而不是推後行動時間。鑑於此，外國援助團體能夠且應當堅持要求當局允許援助人員對救援食品的分配進行適當的監控，這也符合旨在促進透明與問責的國際標準程序。朝鮮政府還必須保證停止其分配食物時的歧視性作法，不得偏向政府官員、軍隊、情報機構和警察，不得歧視被視爲政治上不忠於政府的“敵對”階級。否則大多數捐助者將仍不願向朝鮮提供食品援助，而這將造成真正大範圍的悲劇。