UN Urgently Appeals For N Korea Food Aid

by Thalif Deen

N Korea public art imitates Soviet style

"This is just for the first quarter of the year," Charles Vincent of the World Food Program (WFP), the UN's food agency, told IPS.

The WFP's current stocks and anticipated donations amount only to about 35,000 tons leaving a shortfall of some 45,000 tons.

Without some "fast new contributions", the organization says it will not be able to resume food distributions to the North Koreans retained on its aid lists from last year.

The appeal comes at a time when at least two major donors -- the United States and Japan -- have suspended supplies to North Korea. Both countries have been accused of using food as a political weapon.

Washington continues to deny this, Karin Lee, a senior associate of the Washington-based East Asia Policy Education Project and a regular contributor to Korean Quarterly, told IPS.

"But its monitoring requirements have been raised far above current standards, in a diplomatic climate that currently precludes fruitful discussions. This is tantamount to withholding food aid," she added.

"If the United States wants to ensure that the most vulnerable in North Korea receive food, they must publicly separate the humanitarian track from other issues and offer separate unconditional dialogue on how to restart food aid quickly," Lee said.

The United States, which has blamed the WFP for faulty monitoring of food aid to North Korea, has also accused the North's government of diverting food to its million soldiers. The North Koreans have denied the charge.

Vincent said that the United States, the largest single contributor to the WFP, is considering a WFP request for food aid to North Korea. The delay may be bureaucratic, he added.

Asked if Washington was using food as a political weapon, he said that the WFP would "not get involved" with bilateral political problems between the countries.

But he pointed out that WFP has "no hard evidence" that food intended for starving North Koreans has ended up with the armed forces.

On Monday, The New York Times quoted an unnamed WFP official as saying, "We have relatively good confidence that the food is reaching the people who need it".

The spokesman also said that the suspension of food aid by the United States and Japan as well as "severe cutbacks" by South Korea would mean that the UN agency might miss its food distribution goals "by a wide margin."

"We're very concerned about it. We understand that there are political considerations. But this is a population that is suffering, with women and children the most vulnerable," he told the Times.

North Korea's total requirement for this year is about 512,000 tons of food aid compared with 611,000 tons last year. Nearly 96 percent of North Korea's needs were met in 2002, 30 percent of that coming from the United States.

Japan, which was also a key contributor until 2001, did not send any food aid to North Korea in 2002.

In a report released in October 1999, the Washington-based General Accounting Office, a watchdog body of the U.S. Congress, said the WFP was unable to track what happens to U.S. food aid to North Korea.

"U.S. policy is that no food aid will be provided to North Korea if it cannot be adequately monitored," the study said.

The GAO also said that 90 percent of North Korean institutions that receive food aid, including orphanages, schools and hospitals, have not been visited or monitored by the WFP.

The shortage of food in North Korea has been sparked by several famines and natural disasters over the last two years as well as the collapse of the Communist bloc a decade ago.

As a result, Pyongyang has been forced to seek aid to meet the urgent needs of about one-third of its 22 million people.

Meanwhile, North Korea's threat last week to resume its nuclear program in defiance of a 1994 bilateral agreement with the United States is also expected to toughen the American stand against Pyongyang.

The United States has hinted of possible UN economic sanctions against North Korea as punishment for Pyongyang's decision to revive the long-dormant programme and for pushing out two UN arms inspectors last week.

According to FAO, the right to food as a "basic human right" applies both in peacetime and during armed conflicts.

"In order to ensure that the civilian population is not prevented from having access to food in situations of war, humanitarian law limits the right of the parties to international and non-international armed conflicts to choose methods and means of warfare," it said.

"Therefore a state cannot attack, destroy, remove or render useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, such as foodstuffs, crops, drinking water installations, or make these objects the targets of reprisals."