I think people certainly see it as a purely government issue, but this requires a fundamental falsehood to be true: the idea that northern Koreans do not actually support their government. If the people of the DPRK support their system, and the actions of the government are actually fairly logical, then they have far more in common with other developing countries like Cuba than not. Narratives that depend on northern Koreans having no autonomy and purely being subject to the whims of the government trend more towards chauvanism than sympathy.