RELIEF AID : If N. Korea Famine Proves Real, Blame the Tragedy on Politics

March was traditionally a harsh month in Korea--so bad that Korean even has a word for that dismal time of year: chungungki, the “spring famine period.” It came after the late-summer and autumn crops of rice and corn were consumed and before the spring barley harvest.

While South Korea hasn’t seen a spring famine for decades, for tens of thousands of villagers in the Communist-ruled North, where crop lands were devastated by summer floods, the slow terror of chungungki may return early in 1996.

But no one knows for sure. For one thing, enough aid, as requested by the International Committee of the Red Cross and the United Nations’ World Food Program, may arrive to head off deaths from starvation and malnutrition-induced disease.

More fundamentally, no one outside knows much about anything concerning North Korea, perhaps the world’s most secretive country. Analysts here, in Washington and elsewhere are sharply divided over basic questions such as whether North Korea even needs food aid--and why Pyongyang, after fierce self-reliance for decades, has suddenly begun begging for help.

“Many people believe the food shortage is a real one, very serious. The second school of thought is the North Korean leaders are exaggerating the situation to receive more aid from foreign countries,” explained Lee Seo Hang, a North Korea specialist at the Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security, a think tank run by South Korea’s Foreign Ministry.

If widespread starvation hits North Korea next year, it will be a tragedy caused by politics, not floods. Plenty of food would be available from the international community--if Pyongyang behaved like even an ordinary dictatorship.

But as the world’s last Stalinist state, North Korea is such a forlorn misfit that it may bring disaster on itself. One way would be if it truly is in desperate need of food but cannot convince an alienated world of that fact.

Pyongyang describes the Seoul government as “a den of thieves, people with no honor, no legitimacy,” while it calls Americans “warmongering imperialist fascists,” noted a U.S. diplomat, discussing North Korea’s limited prospects for global assistance, if needed.

Washington, Seoul and Tokyo want Pyongyang to take steps to reduce tensions, such as resuming a formal North-South dialogue, if it expects to get food aid. Beijing wants to see Pyongyang initiate economic reforms.

An even more serious way for the North to self-destruct would be to bungle apparent recent attempts--made for purposes that remain unclear--to ratchet up military tensions in the heavily fortified demilitarized zone between North and South. Analysts here say that, while chances are small--Lee puts them at easily less than 1 in 100--the possibility exists of a miscalculation leading to war.

South Korean President Kim Young Sam, on a visit to front-line troops last week, noted that North Korea has recently moved 100 attack aircraft, including fighters and bombers, closer to the border. South Korean-U.S. allied forces are watching North Korean moves carefully to deter any provocations, he said.

“We will not launch a preemptive attack on the North,” Kim declared. “But if the North recklessly tries to provoke us, we will crush it. We are fully prepared to counterattack.”

Some reports in South Korean media view the government’s recent warnings about possible North Korean provocations as aimed mainly at boosting military morale and solidifying political support for Kim, rather than an indication that the risk of war has risen significantly.

But since last year, Lee said, Seoul has had a plan, as reflected in Kim’s comments, to respond forcefully to any truly major North Korean thrust. If famine were to touch off an internal crisis and Pyongyang tried to divert its people’s attention by initiating a clash with the South, the outcome could be a devastating war.

“If North Korea attacks,” Lee said, “we will engage in total war, until we defeat the Communist regime and achieve unification.”