After the death of Kim Il Sung in July 1994, the government stopped giving daily food rations to the people. From 1996 through 1998, some two million men, women and children died of starvation. In the province where we live, thirty to fifty died daily in every village. Bodies of the dead were lying on the streets.

It became so bad that a group of people, mostly men, hid in the mountains. They stole women and food from the villages.

Much of this could be traced back to the mid-1980's when South Korea was devastated by one of the worst typhoons in its history... Kim Il Sung, who had been told by some of his officials that we had enough food stored away, said he would help the South Koreans. Unfortunately, he was either deceived or the officials were inept. A tremendous amount of food was given to South Korea... our people realized that there was not sufficient food for us... starvation became worse. But what could they do? If Kim Il Sung said a pussycat was a tiger, then it was a tiger... He promised that one day everyone would be living in mansions and eating beef soup, promises that never came true.

We were taught to fear him. Even though many of us felt he was wrong, we didn't dare to publicly share our opinions for fear of being executed.

In the 1980's, a working adult used to receive 650 grams of grain daily...

In the early 1990's, people received twenty days worth of rations for each thirty-day period. In 1993 and 1994, that was reduced to fifteen days of rations per month. By 1995, a year after the death of Kim Il Sung, monthly rations were cut to five days. Some months, nothing was provided.

Before Kim Jong-il was president, the ordinary people lived on corn rice. It wasn't enough to satisfy our hunger, but at least we didn't have to work on empty stomachs. Right after [Kim Jong-il] came to power, [he] invested more than ninety percent of the government's money to cover the expenses of the military-defense program...

According to Kim Jong-il, we had the finest defense technology and military force in the world. But what good was that when people, even soldiers, were starving to death every day? The soldiers were so hungry that they resorted to gulping down oil designated for the maintenance of their artillery and other weapons.

It wasn't just that there was little food. You have to understand that there are many black hands played in the food-distribution process. The government would allot food to, let's say, the First Batallion. The overall manager there would steal some for his own use. That would leave less for the First Batallion, whose food manager would also help himself. What was left for the soldiers was never enough.

The government did nothing to help. The soldiers were told they would have to find other ways to feed themselves, so they stole from farms and looted houses. Some have robbed and killed civilians for their food. As a result, there's great hatred between civilians and soldiers throughout the country. I've even heard people say that if a war breaks out, they'll kill our soldiers before the enemy can kill them.