I wrote a post a little while back where I noted the apparent rise in cases of cannibalism in the news. We’ve seen Siberian fishermen that were lost in the bleak wilderness and driven to chow down on their fellow man, then there was NY’s “Cannibal Cop” and a 68 year old man in California found cooking up his wife. All more than a little unnerving.
Stories have been coming out in the last couple of weeks about the long suffering, down trodden peoples of North Korea turning to cannibalism. Ruled by the selfish, red fist of Kim Jong Un, they are starving to death in droves, especially in the northern provinces. Some are resorting to eating their own; horrific but unsurprising in the face of all this poverty. These are desperate people who have had an unerringly crap time for a very, very long time and no one seems to be able to do anything about it.
So how did these farmers get into a famine state in the first place? Some intelligence says that their crops were stolen for use by the army and rich officials, basically shared out massively unfairly. They also endured floods which lead to a poor harvest in the first place, and had a particularly bitter winter. On top of that, their two biggest food sponsors – South Korea and America – weren’t prepared to donate food after the North sunk one of the South’s fancy big war boats and wouldn’t say sorry. In March 2011 a UN survey found that about six million people in North Korea needed food aid to avoid dying of hunger. That’s about a quarter of the total population. Nice one Kim.
I’m not saying we should wade in willy nilly, US of A style, but it is tragic to think that there’s literally thousands of people suffering famine and mass murder. All thanks to the regime of a fatty-boom-batty psychopath. Some reports coming from North and South Hwangae province estimate that 10,000 people died of hunger last year. A desperate man certainly isn’t a man that thinks straight. And a hungry, desperate man is liable to do some pretty dark acts. There have been reports of human flesh being sold as pork. One man last week was arrested and put to death via firing squad for killing and eating his own son and daughter. His wife had alerted officials when her husband offered her some meat, but her children were nowhere to be seen.
There’s another tale of a man digging up the grave of his grandson to make a meal of the rotting flesh. I know you have to be careful when reading stuff on the internet of course, some people can be prone to just a touch of exaggeration. These occurrences, however, have been brought to the public domain by Asia Press who are a very well respected news agency based in Japan, who are not so keen on peddling guff. So, unfortunately, you can be pretty sure there’s at least some truth in there. And even a tiny, tiny touch of truth is too much when you’re talking about necrophagy and infanticide. In addition to these details from Asia Press, there have been more than 200 North Korean defectors interviewed, some of which witnessed people being put to death for eating or selling human flesh.
All this news rising to the grubby surface whilst North Korea seemingly prepares for military battle with the US, it’s flimsy chest all puffed out with nuclear science. Some hoped that with the advent of a younger leader some of this terror might be averted but it seems that Kim Jong Un is just as much of a bollock headed bastard as his Dad. It’s a worrying time and I’m pretty sure it won’t end well. But what should we do? I hate the way western countries just barge in and meddle in poorer country’s business, what right do we have to tell them how to live? But on the other hand, thousands are being tortured to death by starvation. Morally we should get involved. But who does a war hurt the most? The poor, that’s who. Kim Jong isn’t going to be in the trenches dodging bullets is he? What to do…
