North Korea’s Demand for ‘Development Aid’ Finding Few Takers

Today, in what seems to be a coordinated response, the Australians (via Andy Jackson at The Marmot’s Hole) and President Bush’s National Security Advisor have both gone on the record as saying that North Korea will not receive “economic aid” before it disarms.

Some translation is necessary here. Recall that the Bush Administration’s position is that it does not use food as a weapon, [corrected: I typoed “does use” before–sorry!] and the United States has long been the top donor of food aid to North Korea. Recently, however, the North Koreans announced that they would accept no more food aid, demanding “development aid” instead. The United States apparently sees this as economic aid in disguise, and mostly unmonitored economic aid at that.

One hopes that a concerted rejection of Pyongyang’s demands, along with vocal demands for the acceptance of monitored food aid, will get food into the bellies of the hungry before winter sets in.