wfn.org | Church World Service Ups North Korea Relief;

[PCUSA.NEWS@pcusa.org]

14-November-1997 
97437 
 
    Church World Service Ups North Korea Relief; 
    Delegation Says Situation "Stabilized But Not Solved" 
 
    by Jerry L. Van Marter 
 
LOUISVILLE, Ky.--On Nov. 7, with winter approaching, Church World Service 
(CWS), the National Council of Churches ecumenical relief agency through 
which the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) channels much of its international 
relief, contributed $200,000 worth of blankets to beleaguered North Korea. 
 
    The blankets are the latest in a series of contributions by CWS to 
North Korea this year that now total more than $2.5 million.  Previous 
shipments to the famine-wracked country included barley seed, seed corn, 
food and medicine.  Funds for the blankets were contributed by 
congregations around the country that participate in CWS' Blanket Program. 
 
    Meanwhile, four CWS representatives who participated in a 10-person 
delegation to North Korea Nov. 4-8 reported upon their return that the 
hunger situation there "has been stabilized but not solved." 
 
    Bishop Howard E. Wennes, a board member of Lutheran World Relief, said, 
"We came away convinced that this is a nation desperately in need of 
continued and increased aid, including partnerships to address the 
development challenges that will outlast droughts and floods." 
 
    North Korea has suffered from two years of floods and one year of 
drought that have destroyed most of the nation's crops and completely 
eliminated its food reserves. 
 
    "There is no question that without international humanitarian 
assistance, conditions would be far, far worse," said Victor Hsu, East Asia 
Office director for CWS.  "But I think that one must continually underline 
that this is short-term.  Humanitarian assistance is providing an 
absolutely bare minimum of food subsistence -- probably only enough to last 
through the winter.  The long-term problems for North Korea are structural 
in nature and must be addressed if it is to be productive again." 
 
    Rabbi Alexander Schindler, past president of the Union of the American 
Hebrew Congregations and a board member of the American Jewish Joint 
Distribution Committee, described the delegation's visit to "a hospital 
whose corridors were chillingly cold.  There were no blankets on the beds, 
no soap to wash hands, no unpolluted water to quench the thirst of the 
fevered patients.  The pharmacy shelves were devoid of bare necessities." 
 
    In spite of this adversity, "we were much moved by the Koreans' hard 
work and determination to care for and feed their own against impossible 
odds," Wennes said.  "We saw whole communities -- from school children to 
the elderly -- harvesting cabbage, the last precious crop of a bad year and 
before a third tough winter." 
 
    Said Kenneth Hackett, executive director of Catholic Relief Services: 
"We found people working together with a great deal of love." 
 
    Hsu said significant changes have taken place over the last several 
months in the way aid is handled in North Korea.  "The system of aid 
distribution has been decentralized," he noted.  "The aid can now go to 
various outlets."  Some critics of North Korean aid have argued that the 
government there has redirected humanitarian aid to the army. 
 
    But "we cannot allow our religious and humanitarian obligations to be 
fixed by the boundaries of a single nation, continent or even religion," 
said Schindler.  "I can report that there is not a single Jew in North 
Korea," he joked, but added, "The fact that there are no Jews there does 
not lessen our determination to reach out and help.  When a five-year-old 
girl is shivering and starving, it is of little concern to us which 
spiritual path she and her parents choose." 
 
    Bishop Wennes concluded, "One of our colleagues on the trip described 
this struggle as `the last battle of the Cold War.' Might it be possible to 
win this one for both sides -- with bread, not bombs, with medicines 
instead of landmines?  We say `yes' because we are people who share a faith 
memory.  Hope says it has happened before.  Love says it can happen again." 
 
(Information for this story furnished by Carol Fouke and Wendy McDowell, 
NCC) 

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