The number of deaths is still a controversial issue, with estimates ranging from hundreds of thousands to as many as 2 million or more. News about the starving North Koreans was aired on CBS media in the United States in October 1997 and shocked the world. So begins the column in the Catholic News on the situation in the North by a priest member of the National Reconciliation Committee of the Bishops
The North Korean film 'Our Chairman' (1999) is set in 'The March of Suffering'. In the movie, the main character, the head of a province, a "worker" dedicates himself to the country and its people in crisis. Unlike the main character who tries to save the factory with raw materials from the country with heroic efforts, the vice-chairman tries to trade with the outside world since the raw materials are not properly supplied. He decided that it would be possible to overcome the crisis by exporting granite overseas.
However, the film criticizes the vice-chairman's actions to promote overseas exports as "playing with the tools of the imperialists". Accepting a foreign company's proposal is 'giving up a cow and receiving a pheasant. Claiming it's simply a matter of our dignity as a country, not just a matter of selling and buying. The protagonist, who delivers the film's theme while confronting the vice-chairman, insists, "Capitalism does not come in screaming, but creeps in like a mosquito to the weakened mind." In conclusion, the film emphasizes that in a crisis, only 'self-reliance' is the solution.
Recently, for the first time, North Korea officially made known the crisis caused by the COVID-19. The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA): "From the last of April until May 15, the total number of sick people nationwide was 1,213,550. North Korea, which emphasized self-reliance despite the global catastrophe of COVID-19, is facing a crisis difficult to avoid.
For the North Korean authorities to be able to make new choices beyond self-reliance, we and the international community must make sincere efforts to help. We believe that compassion for those who suffer can bring about miraculous change. The 'March of Suffering' that drove many of the weak to death should never be repeated.
