North Korean food crisis is no longer news, but this year it has made unusual public pleas for food aid. Should North Korea get food aid or not?

According to the reports from the U.S. NGOs and the United Nations agencies in February and March, an estimated 6.1 million North Koreans face critical food shortage, recommending 475,000 tons of food aid to be provided.

The U.S., the largest food donor and yet who suspended its food shipment to North Korea in 2009 after its monitors were expelled by the North Korean government, sent out its five-member delegation this week. Their reports after this week are likely to add to pressure the governments to urge to resume their food aid to the impoverished, hunger stricken communist country.

Some influential individuals such as former President Jimmy Carter recently accused the U.S. and South Korea of a human rights violation for deliberately withholding food aid to North Korea.

While we are well aware of such criticisms, South Korean government announced the suspension of its food aid after the deadly attacks from the North last year. However, the National Council of Churches in Korea (NCCK) sent 172 tons of flour, worth $87,000, to the North Korean Christian Federation on May 18, through the Amity Foundation in Nanjing, China.

Many South Koreans are furious with the NCCK’s violation of the law even as Free North Korea Radio, run by North Korean defectors, commented that the food sent secretly to North Koreans is not rice but poison.

Although there is no objection to the common perception that food aids are apolitical and purely humanitarian, the ruthless regime has failed to be proven worthy to receive aids from the international society.

While the easy answer to the heartrending stories of North Korean's plights may be unconditional food aids, there are more significant factors, complex and indispensable for the ultimate well-being of the North Koreans in the long run, to be considered.

Click on the slideshow to see the 10 valid reasons why one must be cautious of considering the bilateral food aids:

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April 15, 2012 marks the centennial of the birth of Kim Il Sung, known variously as the Eternal President and the Great Leader. Kim Jong Il’s regime has vowed that by 2012 North Korea will have become “a strong and prosperous nation” (Kangsungdaegook). Therefore for the next year the regime should give some gifts to their people, as the nation expects that a series of large-scale celebration events throughout the year, including food distribution. It is common practice in North Korea that on occasions such as the birthdays of Kim Jong Il and Kim Il Sung special public food rations take place. However, as it is begging for more food assistance, suspicions are shared by the critics of Kim Jong Il’s regime that it is secretly stockpiling food for 2012 celebrations.

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South Korean Unification Minister Hyun In Taek said on April 25 that North Korea’s current food shortages aren’t much worse than in previous years. As South Korean intelligence have also supported the idea, many liberal Korean medias raised questions that during the recent U.N.’s food shortage assessment visits North Korea has exaggerated the sites by strategically placing the most malnourished and most devastated scenes before their sight.

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Although North Korea saw about 2 million people starve during the 1990s famine, its centrally controlled government has not changed economic policies and management systems. What has changed is that free markets have aroused nationwide as civilians’ efforts to find means to survive. Indeed, the civilians have found a way to feed themselves through private markets, without the help of the government.

Though an assessment released two months ago by the U.N. said the North's public distribution system would run out of food between May and July, North Korean defectors reveal that it has been more than 10 years since civilians have not received any food from public distribution system, which has driven them to take initiatives to survive, such as through free markets.

There are reports about the free markets having enough food to sell and the prices have not yet soared recently. The food aids may risk the continued presence of the free markets as Kim Jong Il will use the aids to control the merchants economic activities. It may further hinder fundamental reform of the world’s most isolated and reclusive country.

The world's assistance to North Korea should be given in a way to encourage the free economic activities such as private markets, which will help the North Korean people change their stance towards the brutal regime. One should be concerned if the assistance discourages the private markets though the assistance should help North Korean exit the chronic poverty.

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Kim Jong Il has adopted a "military-first" policy since the collapse of the Soviet Union in order to strengthen its government and maintain his regime. As a result, it now is proud of being the world's most militarized nation, which has the fourth-largest army in the world, with a total of 9,495,000 active, reserve, and paramilitary personnel, according to the U.S. Department of State.

It is a widely known fact the food aid has been diverted to Kim Jong Il’s dear military, though difficult to quantify exact amount. Kim’s regime places absolute priority on the military over civilians. One may easily speculate that the aid that meant to be given to the civilians will be recouped by the military once monitors depart from the sites, which is what has actually happened in the past, according to multiple reports.

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The recent food plea of North Korea seems so desperate that the leadership assured that the aid would not be diverted to the military this time and the monitoring efforts would be supported by the government.

However, considering the past history, it is impossible to ensure that any aid would be delivered to the targeted groups of the country. North Korea has imposed restrictions on inspectors that hindered accurate monitoring and eventually evicted international aid groups after refusing to abide by monitoring agreements, which resulted in suspension of the aid by the U.S. in 2009. No matter how air-tight protocol may be, we know they will cheat as the regime’s transparency cannot be guaranteed.

The best approach may then be following not the past template, which is through its central government, but through market-based.

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Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea is undoubtedly the most important city as power supporters of Kim Jong Il. All his leadership and elites reside in the location.

Recently North Korea has received a great deal of the media's attention for its sale of gold to Thailand. North has an abundance of mineral wealth, especially gold, with which it ranks the 10th largest gold reserved nation in the world. And yet, it is shocking to find out that Kim’s family has used the revenues from gold sales to acquire luxury items such as Benz, cognac, delicacies of the world. Kim has reportedly given tons of gifts of the luxuries to his loyalists to help maintain his regime. Simply put, starving North Koreans do not get the food. Instead the food aid feeds the loyalists and funds the regime.

As other parts of North Korea are suffering from serious shortages not only in food but also water and electricity, Pyongyang residents are less affected. As Pyongyang is open to the international publicity, the government allows only so called clean and decent images to be shown to the outsiders. It has reportedly killed disabled newborns and expelled criminals, especially those related political issues, to outside of Pyongyang.

Under the current circumstances it is evident that the majority of benefits of outside food aid will fall into the residents in Pyongyang, especially elites, not the rest of 6 million starving ‘nobody’ outside of the capital city.

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A 53-year-old South Korean tourist, an unarmed civilian, was shot dead by North Korean soldiers in the Kumgangsan tourism zone in 2008. After the incident, the Ministry of Unification has suspended tourism operations in Geumgangsan until the North Koreans explain what exactly happened. However, no clear explanations have made so far.

Moreover tensions remain high on the Korean peninsula after the two unprovoked, deadly military attacks on South Korea last year, which left at least 50 people died. North Korea denies their attacks and has not given any apology till now.

South Korean government has concluded that massive cyber terror attacks against its government agencies and banking systems in 2009 and this year were also conducted by North Korea. These attacks, known as "DDoS", are a basic tool in the cyber warfare. Though it is a very different kind of warfare which does not involve human deaths, it has caused enormous inconvenience for a large number of people and plenty of economic damage.

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We must not bypass the series of Pyongyang’s violations of U.N. Resolutions such as 2009 missile, nuclear tests in 2009, disclosure of a uranium enrichment facility in 2010, and its continuous export of conventional arms.

Additionally, we cannot ignore the serious of threatens against the United States and Japan during past years. It sent special agents to assassinate a senior North Korean defector residing in South Korea.

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Talks on disarming North Korea’s nuclear programs have stalled for nearly two years. But the nation recently revealed it had developed a new means of generating fissile material that might be used for a nuclear bomb. If North Korea gets a large scale food aid, it will invest not on food but more on their nuclear program and the military.

“We must not give food aid to North Korea.” Doing so “is the same as providing funding for North Korea’s nuclear program,” according to statement made by a North Korean defector reported on Wall Street Journal in March.

Looking through the prism of this defector’s perspective, whatever amount of aid donors give to North Korea, it will support the brutal regime, not the starving people, to help maintain the controls over its people.

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Although no one objects to the idea of humanitarian assistance towards dying people, we cannot ignore North Korea’s actions. In the past 15 years it has been supported by various donors but the nation’s persistent resistance to take steps to reform economically, if not political, has frustrated international society to resume their aid.

North Korea repeatedly claims its food shortages are caused by natural disasters. The U.N. reports say that combination of factors, such as summer floods, a harsh winter, an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease on the livestock, and cuts in large scale food assistance since 2008 has aggravated the dire situations in North Korea. According to the information released at a news conference in New York Tuesday, the U.N. plans to decide whether to release emergency humanitarian funds for North Korea.

But those who have even a minimum knowledge of what is happening inside the society will know the problems are rather systemic, which makes the nation being a chronic beggar.

The time when the conditions are most dire is crisis for the starving nation but at the same time, it may be a decisive opportunity to break out of the current nation’s habitual beggar system for its people. The regime rather loosens up controls over private markets and free economic activities in the most clamorous times. When conditions elevate, the nation cracks down on markets, giving no chance for the free economy to flourish. After all, what they care is not the economic advancement of the nation, nor the well-being of the people, but control over the population to maintain its regime.

One may support the idea of supporting the most vulnerable members of the society such as children and pregnant women, which South Korean government is already doing so at the moment. Assistance should be provided but it should be wise assistance.

One needs to ask this question before reconsidering further food aid to North Korea: will it help the nation and the people in the long run? Or will it only help Kim's regime flourish and grow stronger?

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