Unification Minister Chung Dong-young made no reference to human rights in the North when he returned from Pyongyang on Friday from a meeting with its leader Kim Jong-il. He said the only humanitarian issue the two discussed was the reunion of separated families.

The two meetings sum up the difference in perception between Washington and Seoul, which prioritizes relations with Kim Jong-il and his regime and domestic matters while largely sidelining the living conditions of North Koreans.

Observers say in the current circumstances even human rights are secondary to the more basic right to live in a country where many subsist on the brink of starvation, with political freedoms and democratic order an unimaginable luxury.

The former overseas trade chief with the North Korean Light Industry Ministry Kim Tae-san, who defected to South Korea in 2002, predicted earlier this year a “drastic” increase in the number of deaths from starvation in the impoverished country. His forecast is based on three factors: the hardship North Korean farmers face, dwindling food aid from abroad because of the nuclear dispute, and the fact that the grain stores are empty. "Five million died from starvation during the 1996-98 food crisis," he claimed.

"So many died at the time that there weren’t enough coffins for the corpses, so they used large steel pipes to hold dozens of bodies each and take them to the hills for burial. Once the bodies were unloaded they took the pipes back," Kim said. "In 1996 and 97, people were stepping on bodies in the streets. In train station squares on some winter mornings there were dead people on the benches. Many died on trains and their bodies were dumped at the stations." He said there were “no prospects” North Korea’s economy will recover because of the scarcity of raw materials and the extreme shortage of electricity.

An NGO head who frequently visits the North said, "The fertilizer we give to the North is no longer much use because the topsoil has become so acidic that crop yields even from newly fertilized land have shrunk to a third." The July 1 economic reform measures touted by Kim Jong-il are failing because they are designed not to reform the economy but only to improve management. As commodity prices and wages soared after incompetent party committees took over management and kicked the experienced executives out, factories were forced to stop production, according to the NGO head.

The North Korean economy has no hope of reviving while it relies on overseas aid and there are no serious attempts at structural reform. "Dogs that can roam around and eat the food they find here and there do not die. But if they are chained, they die within three days,” Kim Tae-san said. “If a father who can’t feed his children by begging locks up his house because he is ashamed, the whole family starve to death. The same goes for a state. Because the people are forbidden to travel freely, they simply die."

It is an indication of how serious the situation is that one defector asserts, "Even if the whole present generation is sacrificed because of the lack of food, there have to be fundamental changes in North Korea if future generations are to live."

The Republic of Korea is said to be the world’s 11th largest economy, yet its ethnic brothers just across the border subsist at the bottom of the economic scale. But there is no effort to provide them with substantial and structural help from South Korea for fear of incurring Pyongyang’s displeasure. South Korean leaders are moved to tears of gratitude if North Korean bigwigs deign to speak to them, all in the name of inter-Korean security and national reconciliation. It is high time the people stopped taking their lead from the government when it comes to dealing with North Korea.