02/27/2004

Six-nation talks on the North Korea nuclear issue began on February 25th in Beijing. The backdrop to the talks -- which involve North and South Korea, the United States, China, Japan, and Russia -- is the continued deprivation suffered by at least 6.5 million North Koreans, nearly 30% of the country’s total population of 23 million. In a press release that coincided with the start of the talks, the UN World Food Program (WFP) announced that due to lack of international donations it had been forced to borrow food from the North Korean government’s strategic stocks and other sources to maintain emergency food distributions to 2.7 million of its 4.2 million “core beneficiaries” for the next six weeks. At the beginning of February, WFP’s stocks were so low that only 85,000 women and children were able to receive food distributions. For 2004, WFP has appealed for 485,000 tons of commodities valued at $171 million. Of this amount, only 140,000 tons have been secured, and most of these supplies have yet to be delivered. Refugees International tried for more than a year in 2002 and 2003 to obtain permission to visit North Korea to assess the food situation. The North Korean government denied our visa requests on the grounds that RI is not an operational agency that planned to provide direct relief to the North Korean people. The North Korean authorities did not accept the argument that RI’s advocacy might leverage additional international food assistance Based on interviews with refugees in China conducted in June 2003, RI was able to obtain a very partial picture of the level of vulnerability for ordinary North Korean citizens. According to recent arrivals from North Hamgyong, one of the poorest provinces in the country, the public distribution system, which prior to 1994 assured the availability of basic food for the population, has collapsed. The North Korean Government’s economic reform instituted in July 2002 has resulted in rampant inflation. The price of rice and other basic commodities has skyrocketed, while wages – for coal miners, for example – have not kept pace. Children receive no food distributions at school, and many schools have stopped functioning while teachers and students search for means to survive. The current shortfall in donations to WFP reflects a number of factors. The North Korean government, one of the most restrictive and repressive in the world, has created a political system in which humanitarian issues, human rights, and politics are intertwined, a system in which humanitarianism of the “hungry child knows no politics” variety is difficult to practice. Donors have grown increasingly frustrated with government restrictions on international aid agencies; the authorities limit their access to certain regions, insist on one-week notice for monitoring visits, and prevent them from hiring staff who speak Korean. Further, as Amnesty International documented in its January 20, 2004 report, “Starved of Rights: Human Rights and the Food Crisis in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea,” the government has constructed a complex class system that favors “core” families, whose members have greater access to employment opportunities and food, while depriving members of so-called “hostile” families of their basic rights. The government places tight restrictions on movement, which prevents people from foraging or roaming the countryside to seek employment. Political issues also contribute to donor frustration. The Japanese, for example, have dramatically reduced their assistance to the North due to lack of progress in their negotiations to repatriate citizens captured and taken to North Korea by North Korean agents. While the United States denies linking the level of food assistance to the nuclear issue, its contributions to WFP have dropped by more than 50% since the revelations of North Korea’s non-compliance with the Agreed Framework. Nonetheless, with a 60,000-ton commitment to the WFP 2004 appeal, the U.S. is still the largest donor to the program. The issue of whether or not to maintain food aid programs in North Korea presents the donor community with an acute dilemma, one that cannot be easily resolved. Withholding food assistance given the level of deprivation in the country would be cruel, and would add to the suffering of vulnerable people. Yet the combination of government manipulation of the food supply for political reasons and its restrictions on independent monitoring by the humanitarian community casts doubts on the actual impact of the food assistance provided. Amnesty International, despite their strong condemnation of the North Korean government for violating the rights of its citizens, including the right to food, concludes its recent report by urging the international community to provide food aid to the North “to enable the North Korean government to fulfill its obligations to respect, protect, and fulfill the right to food.” RI endorses this position, while recognizing that ultimately only fundamental economic and political change can improve the lives of North Korea’s deprived majority. The current negotiations on North Korea’s nuclear program are critical, because a resolution satisfactory to all six parties might give the government the impetus to accelerate its glacial pace of economic reform. Joel R. Charny is Vice President for Policy with Refugees International.