With the end of 2005, the U.N.'s World Food Program is slated to shut down its decade-long food distribution effort in North Korea after Pyongyang told the organization that the aid was no longer needed. The program was the biggest multinational humanitarian program in the country and was instrumental in pulling North Korea out of a famine that killed up to 2.5 million people in the mid-1990s and drove many to flee the country.At the same time, the government announced it would revert to central control of all grain distribution, shutting down market-based experiments in grain sales that started in 2002. Then the military reportedly seized grain earmarked as incentives for growers, while promising increased rations across the board.
"If you give the food through the WFP, it is more likely to reach vulnerable people," said Noland. "If you give the food to the North Korean government, it will distribute according to its own preferences, which are basically political."
Since the regime's priority appears to be its own survival, experts say, it will naturally favor loyal military and political elite, rather than the most needy. The move to eject WFP may be a Faustian gamble for more help from its neighbors, said Robert Dujarric, a North Asia expert and visiting scholar at Japan's Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry. "They may be hoping that they can get enough aid from Korea and China, which comes with fewer strings attached."