When political turmoil is high within an already unstable environment, general populations are often at high risk for becoming victims to decisions from above. North Korea is no exception. According to the U.N. World Food Programme, over a third of the population of North Korea is currently in need of food aid. Amidst North’s Korea affirmation of a refusal to abandon its nuclear weapons program, Lynn Pascoe, U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, emphasized the need to genuinely address food needs within the reclusive country, regardless of other agendas. He spoke to CNN on the matter:
“These are human beings that need the food. It’s not the political system. This shouldn’t be argued in a political way.”
Lynn Pascoe, U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs
Despite Mr. Pascoe’s good intentions, there are obvious obstacles to realizing greater international attention to such humanitarian needs. Many other individuals, nations, and organizations can still be inclined to link the provisions of aid with a bargaining away of nuclear weapons. Furthermore, given the lack of transparency within North Korea, it could be extremely difficult to ensure that the aid ends up in the hands of the truly hungry people, and not in the hands of high-ranking government officials. But Pascoe asserted that the United Nations has such concerns under control:
“Our people believe they have a very clear idea of who’s using the food, where it’s going, and it’s really for the good of the people who need it most.”
Although the degree to which humanitarian aid can be isolated from political issues in this situation is debatable, it is clear that those who are hungry can benefit whenever their food needs are met.
It seems that China has just recently provided about 300,000 tons of food to North Korea last year to ease its chronic shortages.
China, the North’s sole major ally, has long been its chief energy and food supplier.
Unification Minister Hyun In-Taek gave the figure in a report Tuesday to a closed session of a parliamentary committee, his office said, adding the food was provided either on credit or as aid.
The ministry, which handles cross-border relations, gave no further details. The website of Chosun Ilbo newspaper estimated that 300,000 tons equals one month’s supply for the communist nation’s entire population of 24 million.
A bungled currency revaluation last November by the North has reportedly played havoc with distribution networks, aggravating food shortages and sparking inflation.
Hyun said the North was trying to ease the problems.
“North Korea has been suffering from problems in food supply and distribution since its currency reform and has been taking measures to deal with the situation,” he told legislators Tuesday.
China, the North’s sole major ally, has long been its chief energy and food supplier.
Liberty in North Korea (LINK), which is one of the most active and largest organizations helping North Korean refugees, is competing with 189 organizations for the grant from Pepsi and only the top 2 will be awarded $250k.
The poll ends on February 28th, and anyone can vote once a day, but can vote again daily every day. It’s currently in the 4th place, 2 more spots to go. Here is a message from Hannah Song, the president of LINK:
Here’s some information about our project idea: Liberty House. Since the passage of the North Korean Human Rights act in 2004, almost 100 North Korean refugees have resettled here in the US, all over the country.
LiNK has helped to resettle fifteen of these refugees and has sought to provide them with supplementary assistance (scholarships, financial aid, tutoring, mentoring, community, etc). With the launch of our recent campaign over the holidays, TheHundred, we anticipate many more refugees making it here to the US over the next year.
We have had the tremendous privilege to see refugees as young as 14 and as old as 65 settle down and begin new lives; a couple finally married after waiting years in the underground; two babies born here who are now American citizens; a young woman already in community college studying to be a counselor for other North Korean women who were also sexually trafficked. Although learning a new language and culture are difficult, they are resilient, hard-working and determined to take on this new opportunity.
Through our extensive research surveying refugees who have resettled both in the US and in Korea, and observing resettlement centers in South Korea (including Hanawon and other agencies), we realize that the assistance they receive from the government is often not enough.
We are taking those learnings to create a unique program here in the US to help refugees acculturate and succeed in their new lives. With this grant we will be able to launch a transitional home that will serve as a safe environment and community for these refugees as they learn English, American culture and history, how to use an ATM and sign-up for a grocery card, apply for their citizenship and find a job, and eventually gain independence to successfully live on their own. We have many of the partnerships already in place – but we lack the funding to move forward.
We are SO close and are very hopeful that we could win this! We need everyone’s vote once a day, every day, until February 28th. Pepsi will award the $250k to the top 2 groups. Signing up only takes a few minutes and voting takes 30 seconds! Please vote here and help us spread the word by tweeting, facebooking, emailing and asking your friends, family and networks.
The few reporters and toursits who get a chance to go to North Korea from the western world seldom venture far from the capital Pyongyang where the same circuit of buildings, monuments and museums only serve to falsify the life of the majority of the population.
But Nate Groth, Portsmouth, N.H., native has been where less than 3,000 other western tourists have ever ventured. s
A North Korean soldier stands in part of a 2½-mile buffer zone separating North and South Korea. The area is filled with mines and what Portsmouth native Nate Groth described as “Indiana Jones-like traps.”
A five-day tour of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea showed him a land where there is no electricity or hot water (except in the capital city), where the streets are so desolate people can play Frisbee on the highway, and where Kim Il Sung still reins, even in death, as the “Eternal President.”
“North Korea is probably the most reclusive and closed society in the world, which is why I wanted to go,” Groth said during a slideshow of his visit shown at the Buoy gallery in Kittery on Thursday night. “Entering their country is like entering their own little world.”
Groth’s stay took him to the capital city of Pyongyang, through the North Korean countryside and to the Demilitarized Zone, which leads to one of the most dangerous borders in the world.
Groth described a country where perception is everything. Even when many North Koreans go hungry, tourists enjoy all-you-can-eat buffets and stay in the same three hotels, complete with a spa, a revolving rooftop restaurant and a micro brewery.
It is mandatory that all tourists attend the Mass Games, North Korea’s response to the Olympics. Groth said the experience was a 90-minute non-stop spectacle, with up to 100,000 North Koreans on display performing daily from August to October.
“North Koreans are very proud of the games,” Groth said. “They have a different attitude. Nationalism is at the heart of it. Everything about the games brings glory to North Korea.”
JoongAng Daily’s article features a story of Ji-Eun, a North Korean defector who currently resides in Seoul. Her father died in North Korea when she was little and the family had a hard time carving out a living in the poverty stricken nation. In 2000, when she was 6 years old, her mother decided to escape North Korea with Ji-eun in a hope to find food and a better living.
After living anxiously in China for a while, they eventually ended up boarding on a plane heading to South Korea.
Ji-eun pictured a wonderful life in South Korea when she was on the plane. But after she arrived, she found that things were quite different than what she had imagined, recalled Ji-eun, who turned 15 this year.
“Why did you come to Korea, you beggar?” one person asked her. “Were you hungry?”
“Go back to your country because there’s nothing we can give you,” said another.
The rest of the article can be found here, and it needs some moment to think about what it means for N. Korean defectors to face not acceptance but isolation and discrimination by the society even after their life-risking escape out of North Korea. Ji-eun’s story is especially telling because it may well represent the sad story of hundreds of thousands of N.Korean defectors, and by all means, ourselves.
