---

North Korea: Nuclear Test

My Lords, I have not visited the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, although not for want of trying. I therefore speak as an outsider. Despite that, there have been several opportunities in the recent past to learn more about what is going on in the DPRK from a variety of informed sources, including academics, US and UK officials and the UN special rapporteur Mr Muntarbhorn. What are the main messages that come across from those briefings? They are that North Korea is isolated, fearful, economically and militarily impoverished and pretty convinced that the US is ready to attack it at any moment, which suggests that bilateral talks between Pyongyang and Washington are an urgent necessity. It suffers an absolute shortage of food—as evidenced by reliable production figures, which demonstrate an annual shortfall of food—and shocking infant and maternal mortality and morbidity due in large part to an insufficient food intake. North Korea’s expenditure decisions underline its major concerns: whereas the US spends approximate $0.58 per person on defence, the equivalent figure for North Korea is $11.50 per person. The noble Lord, Lord Garden, gave a list of threats that North Korea poses, and I shall add another threat that is equally important as the threat of nuclear missiles, and possibly even more dangerous—the possibility of a nuclear accident, which is very likely in a country that has low technological skills. The DPRK has a brutal disregard for human rights, and democratic freedoms are almost non-existent, as we have heard from several noble Lords. It is a rogue state, and is, according to the US Administration, a member of the ““axis of evil””. As the leader, Kim Jong-il, is apparently willing to sacrifice citizens in order to maintain a prideful stance, many thousands of people may well die in the coming months due to starvation. Famine is not a wholly natural disaster; it is more a man-made one. It is therefore also preventable. Having studied the phenomenon of famine for many years in many parts of the world, we know that early warning indicators of that long-onset disaster are obvious and readable. Famine is, to a large extent, a product of totalitarian regimes in which early crop failure is ignored and there is no public discourse to discuss causes or preventive action. One of the best examples of that is the great leap forward famine in China between 1959 and 1961, during which something like 20 million people died because no one dared tell the great leader that his people were starving. Famine is also hugely more likely in conditions of war and conflict where normal lines of exchange are disrupted. Famine is almost never caused by an absolute shortage of food; it is caused by food becoming too expensive for people to buy as a result of market hoarding and other actions. When people begin to move, even across borders, in large numbers in search of food or feeding camps, it is usually taken as the first sign of famine, but it is, in fact, the terminal stage—at that stage, it is almost impossible to prevent a massive number of deaths from starvation. All the indicators are that massive starvation is imminent in North Korea. One wonders what the international community can do to prevent the ongoing tragedy of starvation in North Korea and, in particular, what the UK Government, who have a somewhat remote connection with North Korea, can do. The DPRK accepted food aid during the floods of the 1990s and in the earlier years of this century. The main donors were South Korea, China and the UN World Food Programme. However, earlier this year, the DPRK suspended World Food Programme distribution and banned the private sale of grain. The much hated public distribution system was reintroduced. Under it, food is given according to whether a family, not an individual, is deemed to be loyal, wavering or hostile to the regime. Needless to say, families that were deemed to be hostile received almost no aid. The DPRK has been a UN member since 1991 and is a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. It can therefore be considered to be a fully fledged member of the UN. That may afford the international community some opportunity for intervention. The right to food is a clear right and is enshrined in the economic, social and cultural rights covenant. It is clearly in the interests of the DPRK’s immediate neighbours—South Korea and China—to avert a humanitarian disaster, which would have a massively destabilising effect on the region. Once people begin to move in large numbers, that has a destabilising effect, as we have seen in many parts of the world, particularly in the Horn of Africa. Can the Minister and the Government use their good offices and their influence, not only with China and South Korea—and possibly also with Japan, which might have some leverage with North Korea—but within the forums of the UN, and to some extent the EU, to pursue some pragmatic actions to try to gain a relationship with North Korea that would prevent some of the awful tragedies that are about to happen? One of the major issues would be to continue to offer food aid to North Korea. The leader, Kim Jong-il, has decided that NGOs and the WFP should no longer be active in North Korea. We should ask that food continues to be offered and that the North Korean Government accept that it is necessary to resume the distribution of food aid. At the same time, we could perhaps request that the distribution is fair and equitable, which is possibly a long-lost hope but is nevertheless important to mention. Incidentally, China and South Korea are prepared to give food unconditionally, whereas that is not true of the WFP. That should be thought about and perhaps negotiated. There is huge scope for working with the UN to start up food-for-work programmes. North Korea is inevitably a very vulnerable country because it does not produce sufficient food for its own population even in so-called good times. Of course, North Korea should be encouraged to accept the WFP’s offer of food. Perhaps the right to food could be reinforced also within various UN forums. The international community also has a role to play, not only in continuing to offer food aid, but also in pressing North Korea to accept food assistance from the WFP. Perhaps the UK is well positioned to try to persuade the Chinese to allow the setting up of NGOs on the border between China and North Korea so that the inevitable mass movement of people—I do not think that it will be possible to prevent famine entirely—can be helped at the border, and to persuade the Chinese to stop arresting and deporting those who come across the border. To send back those people who have fled from North Korea in order to get sanctuary in China to, as the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, has said, certainly torture and possibly death is reprehensible, to say the very least. Finally, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for introducing this extremely important debate. Let us hope that we can pursue it in the months to come.