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Food Aid Official Denies North Korea "Horror Stories"
From
PCUSA NEWS <pcusanews@pcusa80.pcusa.org>
Date
30 Jul 1998 12:23:06
Reply-To: pcusanews list <pcusanews@pcusa80.pcusa.org>
30-July-1998
98246
Food Aid Official Denies North Korea "Horror Stories"
by Chris Herlinger
Ecumenical News International
NEW YORK-North Korea is still facing a critical food shortage, but a
Western relief coordinator based there sees no evidence to justify media
reports of a "killer" famine claiming millions of lives and forcing people
into cannibalism.
"I just don't give any kind of credence to some of these horror
stories," said Erich Weingartner, who serves as a liaison officer for the
United Nations World Food Program in Pyongyang, North Korea, assisting
relief shipments from nongovernmental organizations. "I can only stick to
what I see, and that's already bad enough," he said. "There remains
long-term, pervasive need."
Speaking last week to journalists and church and relief agency
officials in New York and Washington, Weingartner said it was almost
impossible to determine the exact toll of a three-year food shortage caused
by drought and flooding. "We have to be extremely careful in extrapolating
these numbers," he said.
During an international "fasting day" in April to call attention to
North Korea's plight, the Buddhist Sharing Movement, based in South Korea,
said as many as 3.5 million North Koreans could have died. Other aid
agencies and media reported that two million people, roughly 10 percent of
the population, had died. But after visiting North Korea last month,
Jean-Jacques Graisse, a senior World Food Program official, said he doubted
reports of cannibalism and widespread famine.
In an interview with ENI, Weingartner said the high numbers were
apparently estimates based on accounts of those from areas where food
shortages had been particularly acute. "I know there are conditions in
which people have been deprived of food but I just don't see evidence of
numbers that large." If two million people had died, he said, "we'd see
more signs on the edges."
Weingartner said he and other aid agency officials working in North
Korea traveled widely and relatively freely, and no one had seen any
evidence of some of the more gruesome, unconfirmed rumors - such as mounds
of bodies stacked at railroad stations awaiting transport and burial.
"If we could confirm every rumor we hear, we would," he told ENI. "But
we have little time as it is, responding to the needs we know do exist."
Conditions were serious, he said. "What I have seen are people on the
verge of dying in hospitals." Diets of grass, tree bark and seaweed were
not uncommon. Those lucky enough to be able to plant vegetables were
doing so everywhere, even on railroad slopes. Diarrhea was a problem due
to a shortage of medicines and a breakdown in North Korea's water
purification system.
While in the U.S., Weingartner told church officials that food
shortages would mean that emergency aid and long-term development
assistance were still needed. A reduction in government food relief,
spurred in part by international "aid fatigue," would make it difficult to
make up for North Korea's 1998 food deficit, estimated at about 1.8 million
tons.
Besides offering food and development assistance, churches could,
according to Weingartner, serve as advocates by acting as a "bridge"
between communist North Korea and the West as North Korea's political and
economic isolation continued to ease and as attempts to unify North and
South Korea progressed.
Weingartner is a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada
and a former official of the World Council of Churches. His visit was
hosted by Church World Service, the relief and development agency of the
National Council of Churches in the U.S., which nominated Weingartner to
his post.
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