US-led efforts to impose ever more sanctions against North Korea have had little impact on North Korea’s top leadership, but they are being felt by the average North Korean civilian, according to aid groups.
With some 70% of North Koreans food insecure and medical aid badly needed in many parts of the country, aid groups say that the international sanctions are making it ever more difficult to provide even basic humanitarian aid in the country.
Getting medical equipment shipped into North Korea is a struggle, and transferring money into the country to pay for any sort of aid projects s virtually impossible, UN special rapporteur Tomas Quintana is pushing for the UN Security Council to start assessing the impact of their sanctions on humanitarian agencies.
Whether that happens or not remains to be seen, but with the US hyping the mounting “threat” posed by North Korea, anything that actually gets food or medicine to North Koreans is likely to be seen as a distraction.
Opening up North Korea, so its people see the alternatives, is a far better option than anything currently done. Send in the aid, and send information and contact with it. Bring students out. Open up the communications in every way. That problem will solve itself, and without war. And without mass killing of innocents caught in economic conflict.
US policy regarding Yemen: Maybe the starvation siege should be eased at some point. But when the topic is N Korea, what our country is saying is the more suffering we cause the better.