Special to WorldTribune.com

Bill Gertz, Washington Free Beacon

SEOUL — North Korean soldiers, including elite special forces troops, are facing severe food shortages along with the rest of the population, according to a recent defector from the Korean People’s Army, the North’s communist army.

The officer, a career military officer in his 40s who escaped through China last fall, also disclosed that hoped-for improvements in living conditions in the communist state under new supreme leader Kim Jong-Un have not taken place.

“Kim Jong-un repeatedly states that he will improve the livelihood of ordinary people but nothing has really changed,” said the defector who spoke through an interpreter and uses a pseudonym, Kim Gil-Su. …

The soldier’s escape involved swimming across a river into China armed with a knife that he carried in his mouth. . . . Kim warned that instability is growing inside the reclusive state. …

The military uses a catch phrase to try to inspire soldiers and the population. The phrase is “if you are committed to death and work on that principle, nothing is impossible,” according to Kim. … The food shortages are so severe soldiers cannot live on the rations provided by the military and must go outside of bases and steal food to survive.

“They are in a very serious situation,” Kim said. “Those who are alert go out and steal some food, they eat it and they can survive. But those who are really conservative and diligent do not go out stealing, so they suffer from hunger, they got weak and they die. I buried seven people, my friends who starved to death,” he said.

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  Former North Korean soldier tells of extreme hunger in the ranks, hunger, LIFE, North Korea, WorldTribune.com