By Mark Magnier
10/25/2006

Click here to read the entire article.

Below is an excerpt of an article from the LA Times:

Humanitarian experts see even more difficulty ahead for long-suffering North Koreans following their government's Oct. 9 nuclear test, amid fears that worsening conditions could spur an exodus of refugees across the border with China.

Aid shipments are exempt from the restrictions outlined under United Nations Resolution 1718, passed after the test. But experts say the international community is not in a generous mood, particularly after the government in Pyongyang balked at measures designed to ensure that aid go to ordinary people and not the military or senior Communist Party members.

"The responsibility rests squarely on North Korea's shoulders," said Anthony Banbury, the World Food Program's Asia regional director, who is based in Bangkok, Thailand. "Donors are being asked to take a leap of faith, and blowing off a nuclear weapon reduces that trust. I just don't know how North Korea is going to fill the food gap."

--

The North's food production is deteriorating as a result of years of economic mismanagement and a nationwide drive to plant crops on the steepest parts of hillsides and adopt other unsustainable practices, experts say.

It is also believed that North Korean farmers are planting less and hoarding more after a policy change in late 2005 under which Pyongyang banned the selling of rice and other grains in the marketplace, returning instead to government distribution.

--

With less food, humanitarian workers expect more health problems and more refugees flooding into China by January or February as the Tumen River freezes. Beijing has a history of returning refugees to North Korea over the objections of foreign governments, the U.N. and aid groups.

"I don't think they can contain people from crossing the border," said Joel Charney, vice president of Refugees International, a Washington-based refugee rights group. "There's been something of a breakdown in discipline in North Korea, and if things get bad, soldiers will be hungry too."

These additional shocks are hitting a population in which an estimated 40% of children and 33% of pregnant women are already malnourished or anemic. North Korean farmers in recent years have been able to produce only about 80% of the 5.5 million tons of food needed to feed the population, with the rest made up by foreign aid.

--