It Makes a Difference to the Sheep

FOOD AID AND NORTH KOREA. Kevin ("Big Hominid") has an extended post on the subject. He points to stories on a new DPRK propaganda offensive: Kim Jong Il eats gruel just like you. Snippet:

In new fiction, TV shows and in films like last year's "People of Chagang Province," Kim Jong Il is shown as keenly aware of chronic food shortages, and even as eating the same "gruel" as ordinary Koreans. He is often depicted as too busy conducting a "military first" policy, defending the nation from its enemies, to have the time to be fully engaged in agricultural oversight. There's even a strain of guilt injected in the message — that people don't work hard enough to feed the "Dear Leader."

For example, the elderly woman in the short story says to the incognito Kim, "Does not our General Kim go up and down steep mountain paths without a moment's rest in order to visit the People's Army troops? He's trying to keep watch over the homeland and over the fate of all of us. And he always insists on eating just what the people are eating, rice and gruel. Is this taking care of our General? Is it enough just to talk about taking care of him? We've got to dig a lot of coal, coal I tell you."

Of course there is some skepticism:

Circumstantial evidence suggests many North Koreans don't believe the propaganda. The idea that Kim eats gruel, apart from being discounted by a Russian diplomat who told of live seafood delivered to Kim's Moscow-bound train, seems hard for ordinary Koreans to believe when they see photos of the leader and his Panda-like paunch.

Kevin's post also includes numerous links to the controversy over the diversion (or lack thereof) of humanitarian aid. Worth a look.