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North Korea Warns Its Citizens To Prepare For ‘Arduous March’ Of Famine And Hardships In The Wake Of U.N. Sanctions

By Pam Wright
Published on: 06:09 PST, Mar 30, 2016

North Korea is warning its citizens to prepare for an “arduous march” toward famine and hardships in the wake of recent U.N. sanctions.

The reclusive country’s state-run newspaper Rodong Sinmun warned in an editorial Monday that North Korea is facing new food shortages and even greater economic hardships than the country withstands already, Time magazine reports.

Harsh sanctions handed down by the United Nations Security Council last month came in the wake of North Korea’s refusal to discontinue its nuclear and missile programs and is prompting leaders to prepare its citizens for the fallout.

The sanctions, which target the nation’s elite and their assets, prohibit certain luxury items and ban the export of resources that are believed to be used to finance the country’s weapons arsenal.

The editorial references another four-year famine in the country that began in 1994, which resulted in approximately 3.5 million deaths from malnutrition in a country that has 22 million residents.

“We may have to go on an arduous march, during which we will have to chew the roots of plants once again. The road to revolution is long and arduous.”

The term “arduous march” was first coined by the North Korean leadership in 1993 as a metaphor for the four-year famine and, as the Telegraph reports, will likely strike fear in any resident who remembers those horrific days.

The 90s famine came as a result of economic mismanagement, several natural disasters, and the collapse of the Soviet bloc and with it a loss of aid to the regime. In addition, the regime’s insistence on continuing a life of luxury and feeding the military added to the hardships for the people.

After terms such like “famine” and “hunger” were banned during the 1990s famine, the regime began to use “arduous march” as a metaphor.

Monday’s editorial asked citizens to support “Supreme Leader” Kim Jong-un in a “70-day campaign of loyalty” by giving two pounds of rice each month to the state warehouses. This comes when each resident of Pyongyang already struggles to put food on the table.

Farmers are also being forced to “donate” portions of their crops to the military.

As of February, the Telegraph reports, North Korea has requested 440,000 tons of food aid but has only received 17,600 tons.

The Chosun Ilbo is reported that there are reports of North Koreans beginning to hoard out of fear of another famine. It also reports that the regime has started to crack down on open-air markets that serve as an important source of additional food for city-dwellers. While technically forbidden, they were tolerated in recent years.

Despite the horrific conditions of its citizens that have no electricity much of the time and very little medical supplies, the editorial calls for the country’s unwavering loyalty to its “great leader.”

“Even if we give up our lives, we should continue to show our loyalty to our leader, Kim Jong-un, until the end of our lives.”

North Korea is known for distributing propaganda through its government-controlled media, which portrays the administration in a positive light and creates false articles that seem to be legitimate news stories.

In the past, headlines have included false statements regarding the discovery of a unicorn lair and the alleged curing of AIDS, MERS, and Ebola.

[Photo by Gerald Bourke/WFP via Getty Images]

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