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In an earlier blog post on the divisive issue of monitoring, we made reference to press coverage of a survey done by NKNET on the topic. We recently received a hard copy, and it is available on the web. Click Here to access the report.
The survey provides demographic information on the survey respondents. Nothing surprising in terms of residence (Hamkyung, North and South are heavily represented). Women account for over 85% of respondents, so occupation is a little skewed (171/500 housewives, with another 49 in education). One interesting feature is that nearly 300 of the respondents left since 2010, so the survey provides insight on conditions following the survey we did for Witness to Transformation. But there is a good mix of respondents going back to the immediate post-famine period as well.
Some headlines:
- Asked about when respondents thought the most “terrible time” was with respect to food, 75% cite the great famineof the mid-1990s. Nonetheless, fully 12% say that the situation has been most grave at some point since 2001. And when asked to compare the present situation to that of the late-1990s, over 40% report that the present situation is comparable to the late-1990s and 42% say it is worse.
- Half reported that there was no government food distribution prior to their defection.
- Some of the more interesting responses have to do with assessments of the causes of the crisis. Respondents were allowed to pick two responses, meaning that all responses total to 200%. 27% cited lack of agricultural inputs. But the vast majority of responses target the regime itself: excessive military expenditure (88%); irresponsibility and incompetence of the leadership (26%); agricultural policy (14%). Only 7% cited natural disasters. This comports with our findings that the regime’s narratives may be getting less traction than in the past (if they ever really did).
- 94% of respondents believed that the way to “fundamentally solve the food problem” was for North Korea to reform and open up; only 1.4% cited large-scale aid as a solution.
- A stunning set of responses had to do with food aid itself. 78% said that they had never received food aid, which as we note in Witness may or may not be true. But 27% said that they gave some of the food that they received from the PDS back to the government. NKNET claims that this occurred in areas where monitoring was going on. In short, food distribution was a classic Potemkin village set up, with aid distributed for the monitors and then taken back. In fairness, though, while 98 percent of the respondents said that they had never seen foreign monitors, 30 percent claimed that monitoring had at least some effect.
- With respect to who got food aid, respondents were allowed to check as many categories as they chose. The findings provide a nice weighting of the power structure:
- Military, 73%; party cadres, 69%; administrative organs, 49%, privileged classes 39%
- Children in vulnerable classes, 4%; general people, 0.2% adults in vulnerable classes, 0; pregnant women, 0.
- Defectors’ cynicism toward engagement was on display on several questions, including one about the North’s likely response were the South to resume food aid. 50% said it would not change its stance at all, and 45% said that it would make some gestures, but return to its hardline posture. Only 5% said that it would make North Korea more conciliatory. Not surprisingly, 75% said that the South should not provide aid, with another 16% indifferent.
