Japanese and South Korean human rights activists have released video footage they say shows international food aid being sold at inflated prices on the North Korean black market, RFA's Korean service reports. They say the video was shot last month in Haesan, a North Korean town bordering China.
The video, released Wednesday in Seoul, purportedly showed a market at which bags of rice--some bearing the words "A gift from the United States," "ROK" (South Korea), or "WFP" (the U.N. World Food Programme)--were offered for sale.
Lee Young Hwa, head of the Japanese-based organization Rescue the North Korean People, said the video confirmed a long-standing suspicion that the North Korean police and military were selling aid to fill their pockets.
Oh Kyung-sup of K Net--the Seoul-based Network for North Korean Democracy and Human Rights--urged international aid donors to "establish transparency [in] the distributing process" in North Korea.
"Distributing South Korean rice at a market is a desperate measure taken by the North Korean government, which uses every means possible to collect money from its people [to keep itself in power]. It has nothing to do with the regime's voluntary market reform plan," Oh said in a statement.
"Prices are relatively low in Haesan city, so the rice must be traded at higher prices in other areas," he said.
North Korea has relied on international aid to feed its 22 million people since the mid-1990s, after a series of weather-related disasters wreaked havoc on its already moribund economy. Hundreds of thousands of people, if not far more, are thought to have died of hunger over the last decade.
Park Sang-hak, a North Korean defector who reviewed the video footage before it was made public in Seoul, said the Haesan market was essentially unchanged since he fled the country in 1998.
"It hasn't changed... The buildings, what people wear, and the way people talk are all the same, but I found the rice bags labeled 'South Korea' unusual," he said. "When I was there, we were not able to display something like that at a market. This is one change I found here. I was a bit surprised."
Park said rice vendors usuallly sold mainly Chinese rice, while international rice aid went first to the North Korean military.
"Rice traded at the market must have been hoarded secretly from aid donations, or the government sold it to vendors. Although it's not legal, the government overlooks this," he said.