wfn.org | NCCCUSA Visit Reports on North Korea Food

[CAROL_FOUKE.parti@ecunet.org]

Shortages

National Council of the Churches of Christ in the 
U.S.A.
Contact: Carol J. Fouke, NCC, 212-870-2252
Internet: carolf@ncccusa.org

NCC2/3/97   FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NCC/CWS DELEGATION TO NORTH KOREA REPORTS ON FOOD 
SHORTAGES;
CWS RICE SHIPMENT ARRIVES; BARLEY SEED IS ON THE WAY

 NEW YORK, Feb. 3 ---- A National Council of 
Churches delegation to North Korea Jan. 21-28 came 
face-to-face with that nation's "grim" food shortage 
situation and appealed for a "massive response" from 
the world community to avert starvation.

"I am convinced after being there that the crisis 
is for real," said the delegation's leader, United 
Methodist Bishop Melvin Talbert of Sacramento, Calif., 
who is NCC President.  "The North Korean government is 
laying aside its pride and appealing to the world 
community to save its people."

 To help meet food and other basic needs, Church 
World Service, the NCC's humanitarian response arm, 
collected $410,932 in 1995-96 for aid for North Korea, 
which was used to purchase rice, beef, antibiotics, 
blankets and rehydration tablets.  On Jan. 27, the 
delegation witnessed the off-loading of the latest CWS 
aid shipment of nearly 670 metric tons of rice at 
Nampo Port.

 "The rice comes none too soon," reported the Rev. 
Dr. Rodney Page of New York City, CWS Executive 
Director and a Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) 
minister.  "North Korea's grain reserves have run 
out."  

Such chronic difficulties as a lack of foreign 
exchange for buying food, limited access to credit and 
a large international debt have been aggravated by 
widespread crop losses from hail and floods during the 
past three years, he explained.  Furthermore, 80 
percent of the land is mountainous and not very 
arable.

"Deaths from hunger already are being reported, 
and the nation is on the threshold of massive 
starvation, unless the world community comes forward 
with assistance," Dr. Page said.  "We were told that 
July may be the watershed."

 Church World Service in January issued a new 
$500,000 appeal for North Korea.  The nine-member NCC 
delegation had among its purposes to assess the needs 
and priorities of CWS emergency relief assistance in 
North Korea, and on Jan. 24 the delegation faxed back 
an urgent appeal that the first $150,000 be used for 
barley seed for planting in March.

 The seed will be used in a special "double 
cropping" experiment beginning this year in North 
Korea.  An early spring variety of barley seeds will 
be planted in March for harvest in June, after which 
rice will be planted.  

 By Feb. 3, NCC/CWS member denominations had 
pledged $90,000 toward the $150,000 goal: $15,000 from 
Christian Church (Disciples of Christ); $50,000 from 
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.); $5,000 from Reformed 
Church in America, and $20,000 from United Church of 
Christ.  In addition, the Church of the Brethren has 
designated $35,000 toward the appeal through Mercy 
Corps, an international non-governmental organization.

 The NCC delegation was hosted by the Korean 
Christians Federation and the Flood Damage 
Rehabilitation Committee.  (About one-fourth of North 
Korea's population has been affected by the flooding, 
and an estimated 500,000 are displaced.)  The 
delegation met with both church and government 
officials, including Mr. Kim Young Sun, Secretary of 
the Central Committee of the Workers Party and 
Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee of the 
Supreme People's Committee, who hosted a dinner for 
the delegation.

 North Korea also is suffering a severe energy 
crisis, a function of its isolation from the world 
community and its lack of fossil fuels.  An 
international agreement to equip North Korea with 
heavy fuel oil and nuclear power in exchange for that 
nation's dismantling its nuclear weapons capability 
remains to be fully implemented, said Victor W.C. Hsu, 
Director of the NCC/CWS East Asia and Pacific Office, 
New York, and a Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) member.

 Delegation members described seeing people 
"cutting trees for fuel" along the roadsides.  "We 
would see freshly cut trees, and people carrying wood 
or dragging away tree trunks," said the Rev. Melvin H. 
Luetchens, Director of the CWS Community Education an 
Fund Raising Program, Elkhart, Ind., a United 
Methodist.  "Of course, this 'trimming out' aggravates 
flooding."

 Temperatures were well below freezing during the 
delegation's visit.  The group ate with overcoats on 
at an unheated hotel in Kaisong, and was told that the 
lights go out in that town for days at a time.  Train 
travel can take three times longer than usual because 
of power outages.  

Many government offices and businesses are closed 
so that employees "can be out finding food and fuel or 
earning extra money to buy it at very high prices," 
Mr. Luetchens said.  "And even though there is a 
government food ration of 200 to 400 grams a day, many 
people haven't even been getting that."  It takes 450 
grams of food a day to maintain adequate nutrition, he 
said - more when it is extremely cold.

 Besides their own meetings for prayer each 
evening, delegation members joined in prayers at the 
38th Parallel (the dividing line between North and 
South Korea), an official state dinner, and in worship 
at the Bongsu Church, one of three church buildings in 
North Korea, all in Pyongyang.

 "We are here even though we are on different 
sides politically," Bishop Talbert said again and 
again during the visit.  "Because we don't identify 
with any one government, we can relate to both North 
and South.  We are here to reach out with humanitarian 
aid regardless of ideology or faith.  We come because 
our Christian faith admonishes us to come."  
Government officials understood that, affirmed Mr. 
Luetchens.

 The Bongsu Church choir sang "How Great Thou 
Art," including a verse in English.  Preaching was a 
delegation member, the Rev. Dr. Syngman Rhee, 
Associate Director of Ecumenical Partners in the 
Worldwide Ministries Division, Presbyterian Church 
(U.S.A.), Louisville, Ky., who fled his native North 
Korea at the beginning of the Korean War.  He is a 
former NCC President.

 "We ended the morning by presenting a gift to the 
church and joining hands in a circle all around the 
sanctuary singing, 'God Be With You Till We Meet 
Again,' each in our own language," Mr. Luetchens said.  
"It was a gripping experience.  The sanctuary had no 
heat and the temperature was well below freezing.  We 
could see our breaths when we sang.  But our hearts 
were warmed immensely."

 The group also visited the Chilgol Church 
(Protestant), where it prayed and sang with the 
pastors and a small group gathered to greet the 
delegation, and stopped by the Jangchung Catholic 
Church and the Buddhist temple just outside the city.  
An estimated 10,000 of North Korea's 23 million 
citizens are Christians.

 Among themes touched during the visit was the 
pain of the 40-year-old division of Korea into North 
and South that has separated an estimated 10 million 
family members.  That will be among topics at a March 
17-19 meeting in the United States (most likely New 
York City), hosted by the National Council of 
Churches.  The NCC will host representatives of the 
Korean Christians Federation (North Korea) and 
National Council of Churches in Korea (NCCK-South 
Korea) for discussions on the role of the churches in 
U.S.-Korea relations.

 Besides Bishop Talbert, Dr. Page, the Revs. Rhee 
and Luetchens and Mr. Hsu, the NCC delegation members 
were: Dr. Insik Kim, Coordinator for East Asia, and 
the Rev. Daniel Owen Rift, Associate Director for 
Worldwide Ministries, both with the Presbyterian 
Church (U.S.A.); Dr. Ching-fen Hsiao, Asia Pacific 
Executive Secretary for the United Church of 
Christ/Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), and the 
Rev. Linda Petrucelli, Secretary for Global Sharing of 
Resources, United Church of Christ.

-end-

Please Note: Contributions to the CWS humanitarian 
response in North Korea may be sent to: Church World 
Service, Attn. North Korea Program, P.O. Box 968, 
Elkhart, IN 46515.  Phone pledges or credit card 
donations: 1-800-762-0968.  Church World Service is on 
the World Wide Web at www.ncccusa.org - click on the 
CWS icon.
-0-