North Korean cannibalism fears amid claims starving people forced to desperate measures.

[another_liberal]

This is undoubtedly one of the most disturbing news items I have come across in some time. I am not kidding. Stop reading now if you are easily sickened or offended:

Reports from inside the secretive famine-hit pariah state, North Korea, claim a man has been executed after murdering his two children for food. The grim suggestion that North Koreans are turning to cannibalism were reported by the Asia Press, and published in the Sunday Times. They claim a 'hidden famine' in the farming provinces of North and South Hwanghae has killed 10,000 people, and there are fears that cannibalism is spreading throughout the country. The reports come as sanctions are tightened against the backdrop of angry rhetoric over missile testing. In one particularly disturbing report, a man was said to have dug up his grandchild's corpse. Other lurid reports included the suggestion that some men boiled their children before eating them.

OK, I think we can agree: The sanctions are having an effect. Perhaps not the effect we intended, but they are clearly having an effect.

Asia Press is a specialist news agency based in Osaka, Japan, which claims to have recruited a network of "citizen journalists" inside North Korea. The reports are considered credible. Interviews have led Asia Press to conclude that more than 10,000 people have probably died in North and South Hwanghae provinces, south of Pyongyang, the capital. North Korea has not confirmed or denied any reports of the deaths. One informant, based in South Hwanghae, said: "In my village in May, a man who killed his own two children and tried to eat them was executed by a firing squad.

"While his wife was away on business he killed his eldest daughter and, because his son saw what he had done, he killed his son as well. When the wife came home, he offered her food, saying: 'We have meat.' "But his wife, suspicious, notified the Ministry of Public Security, which led to the discovery of part of their children's bodies under the eaves."

There is more, of course, and if you think you can stomach it, use the link below:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/north-korean-cannibalism-fears-amid-claims-starving-people-forced-to-desperate-measures-8468781.html

[orpupilofnature57]

1. And we're concerned with their nuclear program ?

[another_liberal]

2. Yeah, and we're sure . . .

Yeah, and we're sure having great success slowing them down on that front. Aren't we?

[Le Taz Hot]

3. Lift the sanctions and the aid

will be funneled to the military, NOT the people.

[another_liberal]

5. So, should we . . .

So, should we just let a whole starving country eat its own children and do nothing to even try and help? There would very likely still be hunger in North Korea if the sanctions were lifted, however, it would not be this severe.

Our sanctions are not stopping the DPRK's missile program or its development of atomic bombs, they are not the answer to those problems. And consider for a moment how history is going to treat our country for being the direct cause of this horrendous, and probably preventable, human tragedy now gripping a weak and impoverished nation? Do you think the future will judge we were in any way justified for doing this?

[Le Taz Hot]

7. What is your solution?

If we lift the sanctions and send aid it goes to the military and the people starve. If we keep the sanctions in place, send no aid, the people starve. Please feel free to offer a solution, other than the population rising up against their oppressors, that would feed the populace.

[another_liberal]

10. We need to . . .

We need to quit pretending they are going to go away and Leave our ally, South Korea, as the only government on the Peninsula, recognize them as an equal sovereign State (something we have never done) finally end the Korean War (which, technically, is still going on) agree to negotiate our differences on a formal, one-to-one basis (something else we have never done) and, most importantly, send massive food aid to the people of the DPRK.

Yes, much of that food aid we send may be diverted to support their military, but much will reach the people as well. We will save money in the long run through reduced need for stationing troops in the South. We will also gain enormously increased good will and influence with not only Korean people but Chinese and Asian peoples in general.

[Le Taz Hot]

44. I'm sorry, dear, but you're just wrong.

When there were NO sanctions, aid meant for the people of North Korea went to the military. NONE of it went to the people. NONE. The people still starved. I'm not sure why you're choosing to completely ignore that fact.

[another_liberal]

45. You should read my posts . . .

Last edited Thu Jan 31, 2013, 11:55 PM - Edit history (1)

You should read my posts before you start to criticize. I have already addressed both your points.

#5 on this string: "There would very likely still be hunger in North Korea if the sanctions were lifted, however, it would not be this severe."


#10 on this string: "Yes, much of that food aid we send may be diverted to support their military, but much will reach the people as well."

Please refer to my other posts already on this string if you have additional questions or concerns.

[Warren DeMontague]

14. This is 100% the fault of the totalitarian shitheads running that hellhole.

No one else.

[another_liberal]

17. I respectfully disagree.

I respectfully disagree. We and our sanctions are quite a sizable part of the problem as well.

After all, there are certainly lots of "totalitarian shitheads" we support around the World. And we do so to the tune of billions of dollars in aid.

[TeamPooka]

19. Blaming the US for an enemy dictator oppressing their people is disingenuous or delusional

[another_liberal]

23. We are also . . .

Last edited Thu Jan 31, 2013, 08:17 PM - Edit history (1)

We are also doing a good deal of "oppressing" in this particular case. The United States is in a totally different weight class than they are. Frankly, we are acting much like a schoolyard bully.

[orpupilofnature57]

41. It's responsible, If there was oil there, they'd all be fed...

by US, just like we feed senators and congressman .

[another_liberal]

43. True . . .

True. We did forgive Vietnam all of its many dictatorial abuses, because they have off-shore oil deposits and because we need them as a buffer against China.

[Warren DeMontague]

21. North Korea is pretty much at the top of the shithead list.

Lame attempts at moral equivalence fail in this instance.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57556456/horrors-revealed-at-north-korean-prison-camp/

[another_liberal]

24. I'm not . . .

Last edited Thu Jan 31, 2013, 02:27 PM - Edit history (1)

I'm not completely sure about that, but it's a question for a different discussion anyway.

[RandiFan1290]

4. I remember the Katrina cannibals in New Orleans

Amazing what bullshit bovine America will fall for when the Government wants you to hate a certain group of people.

Are we going to see the Iranian finger chopping machine next?

[Starry Messenger]

6. +

[tjwash]

8. Remember "BABIES TORN FROM INCUBATORS!!!!!"?

[RandiFan1290]

9. and thrown on the floor

for extra propaganda flavour

[another_liberal]

12. And . . .

And if this story happens to be true?

Remember, not everyone lies like the Pentagon does.

[RandiFan1290]

18. Then we end the sanctions

and flood N Korea with food and medical aid.

If we did that in Iraq we could have had the entire country on our side without having to invade and kill thousands of them.

[another_liberal]

20. Agreed.

Well put.

[orpupilofnature57]

42. That's spreading Democracy !!!! K&R !!!

[Warren DeMontague]

22. You're suggesting that North Korea's not that bad?

...fucking seriously? It's a nightmare.

[tjwash]

25. yeah that's exactly what I am saying

That's why we need to bomb them, take their country over and convert everyone to Christianity. We will be greeted as liberators, and roses will be thrown at our soldiers feet. Spreading democracy...LETS ROLL!!

Jeebus-christmas guy...jump on the dehumanization bandwagon much?

They would be saying the same fucking thing about Iran if they thought for a second they could get away with it.

[RZM]

28. You're responding to an argument that nobody here is making

All the poster said was that North Korea sucks. Well, according to just about everybody on the planet, it does. The government is a totalitarian monstrosity and living standards are abysmal. You don't have to take my word for it either. The reports of numerous international monitoring organizations are a click away.

I've noticed that whenever the subject of a terrible regime comes up, some posters seem to interpret any criticism of that regime as an endorsement of Bush-style warmaking. I find it bizarre that people would take issue with arguing that North Koreans should have a decent government and enough food to eat.

My guess is that this hostility stems from the fact that basic humanitarian arguments can and have been used as justifications for war, including for our most recent wars. The problem here is concern for humanitarian issues is in reality much more of a liberal thing and is rarely if ever connected to a deeper desire for war. There probably isn't a single DUer who would support an invasion of North Korea, absent open North Korean aggression (and even then most would still oppose it).

You've got your bandwagons backwards. It's not liberals that are jumping on the conservative bandwagon here, but the other way around. Warmongers don't 'own' these arguments. Liberals do.

[Dreamer Tatum]

31. You're worried about people dehumanizing the North Korean regime?

You should reassess your worries.

[Warren DeMontague]

33. Right, that imminent war with North Korea.

Gonna happen any day now, which is why people are making shit up to defame their friendly egalitarian paradise.

[NoOneMan]

26. North Korea seems to suck

Are the people living there eating each other? Thats another matter. I'm not sure. How often do famines produce widespread cannibalism? I don't mean to generalize, but most often this seems to be borne out of emergencies or tradition/culture. Slow, elongated famines normally produce tired, spiritless shells that walk to their deaths from what I can discern. So its tough to not take it with a grain of salt.

I read some "journalism" yesterday insinuating all these unconfirmed reports mean that the government is really, really, super bad, but the people are just hungry (IOW, it was being used as a reason to spark anti-NK hatred). It just seems...fishy.

[another_liberal]

30. In the three year siege . . .

In the three year siege of Leningrad, during World War Two, food was often in such short supply that cannibals who preyed on the living as well as the dead became a real problem. Troops actually had to be taken from the front to do sweeps through partially deserted areas of the city, in order to hunt down their, pardon the expression, butcher shops.

[NoOneMan]

32. Very interesting

Thanks!

[another_liberal]

34. Other examples . . .

Other examples of the fact people will turn to cannibalism when they get hungry enough are equally well documented. Here are a few examples I have run across:

1. During the Grande Armee's retreat from Moscow in 1812 tens of thousands of French and allied troops were forced to go without rations of any kind for days on end in near zero temperatures. When the dead horses ran out, some turned to eating the corpses of their former comrades. This is attested to by several eye-witness accounts.

2. During the famous potato famine when Irish crops were ruined, in the 1840s, cannibalism is said to have been widespread. There grew up an entire genre of dark jokes concerning such things as burying caskets full of stones, so the bodies could be eaten.

3. In the first Winter of Hitler's war on the Soviet Union, Hermann Goering is quoted as having boasted that among the masses of Russian P.O.W.s then held by Germany (P.O.W.s who were held in the open and given next to no food): "They have already begun to eat each other!"

There are quite a few more such examples. It is naive to think human beings will not turn to cannibalism, when all else fails.

[NoOneMan]

35. I think No 2 is more alike to this situation

The war scenarios were kind of at a time when those men have been to hell and back already and were in a massive emergency. Life probably gets funny before the hunger started.

Anyway, it doesn't bode well with where the world is going and crops just beginning to decline around the globe. In 4 decades, we are predicted to be facing massive global food insecurity, even in developed nations.

[another_liberal]

36. Yes, the Irish famine is similar, with the English "Corn Laws" . . .

Yes, the Irish famine is similar, with the English "Corn Laws" standing in for the international sanctions which have been imposed on the DPRK.

[leftstreet]

15. +1

[Fire Walk With Me]

11. Was hoping this was The Onion. n/t

[another_liberal]

13. Oh yeah. Except . . .

Except "The Independent" is nothing like "The Onion."

[Fire Walk With Me]

16. Didn't want it to be real for the sake of those suffering, that's all :(

I have difficulty processing that such things can happen in the world. They certainly shouldn't have to.

[another_liberal]

27. I hear you.

It is singularly awful, in every sense.

[OldDem2012]

37. I'd be careful about stories like this because they are very difficult to independently verify....

...We, meaning the US Government, have a bad habit of demonizing countries we intend to attack sometime in the near future. This has all of the earmarks of a planted story in the foreign press designed for just such a purpose.

The story may or may not be true, but we've had sanctions against quite a few countries since the end of WWII and as far as I know, none of them have shown any evidence of cannibalism due to the severity of the sanctions.

[another_liberal]

39. Good advice.

That is certainly good advice, however, The Independent's article did state that, "The reports are considered credible." That publication is a reliable source, so I assumed it was very likely true. I would not have posted it here otherwise.

[SidDithers]

38. It's just like Baltimore...

(*note, this is not an opinion that I hold, but a reference to an odious opinion held by a banned-but-returned-with-a-new-name DUer in an epic DU2 thread)

Sid

[another_liberal]

40. Sorry, I do not . . .

Last edited Fri Feb 1, 2013, 01:00 AM - Edit history (1)

Sorry, I do not get your meaning?