wfn.org | North Korea Famine Relief

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"UNITED METHODIST DAILY NEWS 97" by SUSAN PEEK on April 15, 1997 at 14:24
Eastern, about DAILY NEWS RELEASES FROM UNITED METHODIST NEWS SERVICE (118
notes).

Note 116 by UMNS on May 27, 1997 at 15:53 Eastern (4843 characters).

Produced by United Methodist News Service, official news agency of
the United Methodist Church, with offices in Nashville, Tenn., New
York, and Washington.

CONTACT:  Linda Bloom                       304(10-21-33-71B){116}
          New York (212) 870-3803                     May 23, 1997

North Korea faces critical months ahead
as need for famine relief aid continues

               by United Methodist News Service

     As North Korea slips into the most critical months yet of its
food shortage, church leaders are hoping the appointment of a
special liaison officer there will help increase aid donations.
     Erich Weingartner, a Canadian and former World Council of
Churches (WCC) official, will work through the offices of the
United Nations' World Food Program in North Korea on an initial
one-year assignment. 
     He was recommended by Action By Churches Together (ACT), the
collaborative relief effort by the WCC and Lutheran World
Federation that includes participation by the United Methodist
Committee on Relief (UMCOR) and Church World Service (CWS), the
relief agency of the National Council of Churches.
     According to Victor Hsu, director of the CWS East Asia and
Pacific Office, Weingartner will report on each aid shipment
received from church-related and other non-governmental
organizations. It is hoped that his presence will "assuage fears"
about not receiving accurate accounts of how food is distributed,
he said.
     North Korea's isolation and political ideology, along with
the economic sanctions imposed against it, have hampered response
to what one World Food Program official called a "slow-motion
famine."
     Funding for Weingartner -- who was to leave for North Korea
the weekend of May 24 -- comes mainly from CWS and other church-
related groups, Hsu added.
     The timing for the estimated 24 million North Koreans facing
starvation is crucial. According to the World Food Program, which
has appealed to world governments for assistance, a critical
deterioration of the country's food supply will occur between July
and September, if additional aid does not arrive before that
period.
     The U.N. agency reported it was conducting a crop and food
supply assessment May 17-24, particularly in the northern regions,
where people are said to be eating nonfood items such as pine tree
bark and ground corn stalks just to stay alive.
     United Methodist Bishop Melvin Talbert of the San Francisco
Area, who led a delegation to North Korea last January in his role
as NCC president, noted that "it is gratifying for me to hear that
others are confirming what we discovered: that the famine is for
real."
     However, he added, the response from the world community "is
far less than it should be for what is needed. I still believe
that mass starvation is close at hand."
     As a denomination, United Methodists continue to respond to
the need for famine relief. Most recently, UMCOR contributed
$100,000 to an ACT shipment of 2,000 tons or rice, according to
the Rev. S. Michael Hahm, an executive with the United Methodist
Board of Global Ministries. The shipment arrived April 21 in North
Korea and was distributed at eight different locations.
     UMCOR's contribution came from $150,000 raised by United
Methodist Korean-American congregations. Their participation has
been heightened because of involvement with the reunification
issue, Hahm said. "I think we were harvesting some results out of
that," he explained.
     Hahm is still receiving checks daily from local congregations
and has been promoting special offerings by preaching about the
famine. Recently, he preached May 11 at a Boston church and on May
18 in Atlanta.
     The Rev. Paul Kim, a United Methodist pastor in Ridgefield
Park, N.J., and director of the Korean-American Peace Institute,
said that even more conservative Korean-Americans have started
raising funds for famine relief now that such efforts have been
sanctioned by authorities in South Korea. "There is a lot of
interest right now in the local churches," he added.
     However, aid shipments by nongovernmental organizations and
the United Nations alone will not be enough to cover North Korea's
food shortage.
     In a renewed appeal on April 28, Catherine Bertini, the World
Food Program's executive director, warned that an overall food
shortfall of 1.1 metric tons still existed and said it could only
realistically be made up by large-scale government-to-government
aid.
     Interaction, a coalition of more than 150 nonprofit relief
agencies -- including UMCOR and CWS -- has been lobbying the U.S.
government not to make participation in four-way talks among North
and South Korea, China and the United States a requirement for
additional food assistance.
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