WCC NEWS: North Korea: Ecumenical group calls for end to food blockade

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World Council of Churches - News

ECUMENICAL GROUP CALLS FOR END TO FOOD BLOCKADE OF NORTH KOREA

For immediate release: 27 June 2011

The silence of the international community to the plight of millions of
North Koreans facing starvation and severe malnutrition was of deep
concern to the members of an ecumenical forum for peace and reunification
of the Korean Peninsula, which met last week, 16 to 19 June, in Nanjing,
China.


The group, the steering committee of the Ecumenical Forum for Peace,
Reconciliation, Reunification and Development in the Korean Peninsula
(EFK), called on churches and the ecumenical community to advocate and
lobby governments, the United Nations and the European Union to end the
current strategy of using food as a political weapon to isolate the North
Korean government and cause its downfall.

Despite being the major donors of food aid to North Korea during the severe
food crises following the famine of the 1990s, the United States and South
Korea have both withdrawn their food aid to North Korea and imposed
sanctions in response to North Korea’s policy of developing nuclear
weapons and its recent military activities.
There was also concern among the EFK that the lack of the international
response to the food crisis in North Korea could threaten peace and
security on the peninsula.

“Christians in South Korea are firmly committed to support food aid to
our brothers and sisters in the North who are faced with starvation,”
said the Rev. Kim Young Ju, general secretary of the National Council of
Churches in Korea (NCCK). “The NCCK will mobilize financial resources to
extend more support to the starving people in North Korea”.

Recently the NCCK sent a shipment of 172 tons of food to North Korea with
the financial support of the EFK and South Korean churches, despite a
South Korean government order prohibiting any civil society and religious
organizations from supporting people in North Korea.

The EFK, which is coordinated by the Commission of the Churches on
International Affairs (CCIA) of the World Council of Churches (WCC), is
composed of representatives from WCC member churches, constituencies and
partners from Europe, North America and Asia. It also includes
representatives from churches in North and South Korea.

In a statement about the NCCK shipment, the South Korean government
criticized the NCCK saying, “it was not right for the church
organization to contact the North Koreans and go ahead with the aid
shipment without getting South Korean government approval, and the
government will take necessary measures.”

“Even though the South Korean government is prohibiting us from sending
food aid to North Korea, we will follow only the order of Jesus Christ,
who taught us to love our suffering neighbours,” said Ju.

“While some countries and policy makers see a food blockade as an
effective tool to discipline ‘recalcitrant countries’, in North Korean
it has become a weapon to punish poor and voiceless victims,” said Dr
Mathews George Chunakara, CCIA director and chair of the Ecumenical Forum
for Peace, Reconciliation and Reunification of the Korean Peninsula.

“Lifting the food blockade will be the best strategy for negotiating
towards a lasting peace on the Korean peninsula, and confrontation will
not be the ultimate solution to bring the DPRK to the negotiating
table,” he said.

In a written message, the Rev. Kang Yong Soap, chairman of the Korean
Christian Federation (KCF) of North Korea, expressed appreciation for the
efforts of support and solidarity by the ecumenical family members from
around the globe through the coordination of the WCC. The letter was
shared with the EFK by Ri Jong Ra, director of International Affairs for
the KCF.

“The NCC Korea will continue to arrange shipment of food to North Korea,
and the South Korean churches are committed to continue their support and
solidarity with the suffering North Korean people. This will also be our
prophetic witness,” Ju said.

WCC member churches in South Korea (Link:
http://www.oikoumene.org/index.php?RDCT=fbabd9548655dfd2ac60 )

WCC documents on Korea (Link:
http://www.oikoumene.org/index.php?RDCT=04d0f0be443e38c8c263
)


The World Council of Churches promotes Christian unity in faith, witness 
and service for a just and peaceful world. An ecumenical fellowship of 
churches founded in 1948, today the WCC brings together 349 Protestant, 
Orthodox, Anglican and other churches representing more than 560 million 
Christians in over 110 countries, and works cooperatively with the Roman 
Catholic Church. The WCC general secretary is Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, 
from the [Lutheran] Church of Norway. Headquarters: Geneva, Switzerland.



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