Soaring global food prices and reluctant donors are pushing North Korea back towards famine, which could see the secretive government turn even more repressive to keep control, a paper released on Wednesday said.
China is trying to keep its food prices down and South Korea won't shovel aid without reciprocal moves on North Korea's nuclear program. We're probably good for another year, at worst. So there may well be no short-term surrender to the Pillsbury Nuke Boy.
And North Korea won't bend on their nuclear program to get aid. Their sick rulers count on democracies caring more for starving North Koreans than the so-called leaders of North Korea. These rulers might be wrong this time.
With the people of North Korea learning hints that what lies beyond their border is far better than their own country, more desperation knowing that their government will let them starve, and a military that has been shortchanged as well to keep the goodies flowing to the ruling elites, can North Korea's rulers survive this latest crisis with the same old solution of repression?
Isn't there a point when the spirits of the people will be so crushed by the weight of their hopeless existence that they refuse to bow under repression under the view that even death cannot be worse than their lives?
Will the army have the stomach to repress people who are that desperate?
Or is there no limit to the brutality that the North Korean regime can inflict on the people?
