As this issue of Hot Press was being put to bed, Concern were deciding whether or not to fully withdraw from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, where they’ve had a presence since 1998. Their Country Director was summonsed to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Pyongyang last Friday, where they were told that because of the “grave” security situation, their safety could no longer be assured.

“We’ve three international staff in North Korea, two of whom have left the country following the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ warning,” reveals Concern’s Overseas Director of Aid, Paul O’Brien, who’s been a regular visitor to the country. “Whether we maintain a presence there is being reviewed on a daily basis. I like to think it’s an elaborate charade designed to engineer direct talks with America, but you don’t know. Kim Jong-un is just 28 and trying to prove to his own military that he’s made of the right stuff. I can’t see him backing down without the international community offering something in the way of concessions.”
What O’Brien has seen of day-to-day life in DPR Korea is bleak, to say the least.
“I never believed a society could be so controlled in terms of the lack of access to information,” he resumes. “There are two TV stations – the Culture Channel and Propaganda Channel, which are almost indistinguishable from each other. People don’t listen to radio because if they do they’re liable, along with their children and grandparents, to be sent to re-education camps where we know from defectors that conditions are horrific. There’s obviously no internet access either, so the media is 100% government-controlled.
“You know the book 1984? Well, it’s alive and well in North Korea. Everything is centrally controlled including farming. Whatever food is grown is put into a big pot and divided up by officials, but there’s not enough to go around. There’s a nutritional issue there, in that a third of under-fives are what we refer to as ‘stunted’. Both their physical and mental development are impaired. I’m 6ft and rarely did anybody there come up to my shoulders. Pyongyang is very developed, with skyscrapers and all the other big city trappings, but in rural areas there’s little mechanised agriculture. The winters are harsh with temperatures dropping to as low as -20 degrees, and there are really only four food-growing months – May, June, July and August.”
Paul reckons that one of the overriding reasons for wanting talks with the international community is to discuss the lifting of sanctions.
“They’re the biggest reason North Korea is unravelling at the moment,” he believes. “They’re designed to force them into abandoning their nuclear programme, which is one thing if you’re asking them to give up their missiles, and another entirely if it extends to nuclear power generation. They’re desperate for electricity, which would substantially improve the lives of normal people who are bearing the brunt of the sanctions. 10 years of sanctions in Iraq ensured that children were denied adequate health care, because of a lack of access to medicines. It’s the same, I think, in North Korea: the poor sections of society lose out while the elite are largely unaffected. It’s very notable that people in Pyongyang are carrying a bit of weight while their rural counterparts have a greyhound look about them from not having enough food.”
O’Brien has seen first-hand how the government choreographs its big set-pieces.
“The smiling workers cheering and clapping their glorious leader, Kim Jong-un, are either the military or people they’ve press-ganged into service. Travelling away from the capital I’ve never seen what I’d consider to be a spontaneous display of affection for the regime. It’s all stage-managed.”
Given the severity of the food shortages, is there a Chinese-style ‘one child only’ policy?
“From what I can make out, no, but it’s rare to see parents with more than two children, simply I imagine because they can’t afford to. It’s very hard to know for certain because everywhere you go you’re accompanied by minders and translators who are severely restricting what you see and hear. Instead of us employing local staff, we have 20 North Koreans seconded to us who’ve obviously been through a government vetting process. On the odd occasion you get to mix socially, everyone’s very friendly and hospitable.”
What’s there to do when the fields have been tilled?
“Drink! There’s a potent local spirit, which I imagine in some small way helps. They like their basketball, which explains perhaps why Dennis Rodman and four of the Harlem Globetrotters were over last month. I was surprised at a roadside stop-off last year to run into a US high school team, who were there for a tournament. They seemed to be opening things up a little bit, only to then pull the shutters down again.”
Is Concern’s work in North Korea publicly recognised by the authorities?
“They have something called ‘juche’, which is a policy of self-reliance so, no, we haven’t made it onto the North Korean six o’clock news! That said, I’ve met middle-ranking officials who are highly appreciative of the work Concern is doing in relation to water, sanitation and promoting sustainable organic agriculture. We try to make what food there is more palatable and digestible for people because they don’t really have the mills to grind the grain. It’s all about introducing more protein into the diet. We’ll only abandon those programmes, temporarily or otherwise, if it’s 100% necessary.”

See concern.net