North Korea's intense secrecy about its population has inflamed suspicions about how Pyongyang is using its aid. Some diplomats privately wonder where North Korea found the money to finance new arms purchases intended to strengthen its military. Chinese customs data shows that North Korean spent US$16.9 million (about HK$130 million) on weapons in 1999, compared with US$1.9 million in 1998. It also acquired fighter planes from Kazakhstan.
Some of the hard currency may be coming from tourist revenue from South Korean visitors, South Korean aid or the sale of the North's missile technology, but doubts about Pyongyang's trustworthiness are making it harder for the United Nations to raise donations. Based on a new North Korean government figure of 22.55 million people, the UN calculated that for 1999/2000, North Korea needed 1.29 million tonnes of cereal from outside the country. The country is also short of two-thirds of the chemical fertiliser it needs.
Last October a report drawn up for the US' House of Representatives Committee on International Relations said the World Food Programme (WFP) could not be sure that significant diversions of this food aid were not occurring. Since 1995 the WFP has only been able to monitor 10 per cent of all food distributed, it said.
The US contributes 87 per cent of all the food distributed, which since 1995 has been worth about US$365 million, and has been feeding 30 per cent of the population.
Refugees interviewed in China have repeatedly alleged that most of the food delivered to North Korea goes directly to feed the Communist Party leaders and the army. While in any famine, some food aid always ends in the marketplace, damaging allegations continue to be made.
The Osaka-based group, Rescue the North Korean People, has produced videotapes of bags of Red Cross food being sold in North Korean markets. And one Western aid worker claims WFP supplies have been found being resold in Russian markets.