wfn.org | Food Need Is Still Urgent, North Korean Officials Say

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11-May-1998 
98170 
 
    Food Need Is Still Urgent, North Korean Officials Say 
 
    by Wendy S. McDowell 
    National Council of Churches Office of News Services 
 
NEW YORK-Food supplies have run out in North Korea and food shortages will 
continue for at least three years, reported three North Korean officials 
who met with the National Council of Churches (NCC) May 1. 
 
    Ambassador Kim Su Man, An Song Nam and Ji Man Bok, three officials of 
the Flood Damage Rehabilitation Committee of the Democratic People's 
Republic of Korea, said the aim of their visit was to thank United States 
nongovernmental organizations for their relief aid as well as to report on 
the current situation in North Korea. 
 
    The visiting officials stressed that food is still the number-one 
priority, although medicines, livestock and agricultural equipment also are 
needed. 
 
    Victor Hsu, director of the NCC's East Asia and Pacific Office, who has 
been responsible for handling the humanitarian assistance to North Korea on 
behalf of Church World Service (the NCC's ecumenical relief agency through 
which the Presbyterian Church channels much of its international relief 
assistance), explained that even after the "crunch" time over the next four 
to five months, Koreans will face another food shortage very quickly 
because grain is consumed as it is harvested.  "There is insufficient 
supply to save for the future," he explained. 
 
    "We are a land-limited country," Kim said, "yet in the past we have 
been able to meet our food needs through our own production."  He said that 
if weather patterns remain stable, within three years' time North Korea 
hopes to "rehabilitate damaged agricultural facilities and dams to 
normalize agricultural production."  So far this year, the weather has been 
warmer than usual but with no threat of either flooding or drought, Hsu 
said. 
 
    Kim described the series of floods, tidal waves and drought that have 
occurred three years running - 1995-1997 - causing a severe food shortage. 
He explained that in 1997, North Koreans "produced less than half of what 
we need" and that stored food supplies from the 1997 harvest ran out at the 
end of March 1998, making international aid the only source of food until 
the early harvests in August 1998. 
 
    The United States government has pledged 200,000 tons of food to help 
alleviate what visitors to North Korea have called "the silent famine." 
Kim said that if food amounts promised by the U.S., South Korea, China and 
NGOs come in steadily over the next few months, famine will be averted. 
 
    Still, "there are cumulative effects of malnutrition and hunger in 
North Korea, including increased illness among the young and the elderly," 
Hsu said. 
 
    The North Korean visitors were reluctant to talk about political 
issues, saying that they came only to discuss humanitarian concerns. 
Noting that political talks are ongoing in other arenas, Kim said that "the 
relationship between our countries still has many barriers but that the 
kind of relationships and cooperation that have developed in the past few 
years "might improve the relations between our countries." 
 
    Hsu said, "North Korea's own willingness to look into various ways of 
seeking international assistance, including low-interest loans from the 
International Fund for Agricultural Development, a United Nations agency, 
was a significant adjustment in its basic ideology of self-reliance."  He 
also noted that the U.S. abstained rather than opposed a U.N. measure to 
assist North Korea.  "This is yet another clear sign that tensions between 
North Korea and the United States are easing somewhat." 
 
    Since 1995, Church World Service has sent nearly $2.4 million worth of 
rice, corn, barley, beef, antibiotics, blankets and clothing to help 
alleviate the famine-related suffering in North Korea.  The Presbyterian 
Church (U.S.A.), through Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, has sent an 
estimated $565,000 in food and relief supplies. 

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