1/3 of N. Koreans need food aid: U.N.

A top-level United Nations official stressed the need for more food aid to North Korea while the South Korean government remains reluctant to step forward unless there is progress in the North`s denuclearization or a settlement of the abductee issue.

More than a third of North Koreans are in need of food aid from the international community, said Lynn Pascoe, U.N. under-secretary-general for political affairs, who visited the impoverished state earlier this month.

"These are human beings that need the food. It`s not the political system. This shouldn`t be argued in a political way," Pascoe said in an interview with CNN.

He said the United Nations is giving nutritional supplements to as many as 1.3 million of North Korea`s 24 million people, but the U.N. World Food Program has estimated that more than a third of the population needs food aid.

Pascoe claimed the United Nations can be relied on for transparency of distribution.

"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," he said.

Pascoe was the first top-level U.N. official to visit North Korea in six years.

"There clearly is malnutrition at younger ages, so we`re trying to help them with fortified food and up through the schools so that they can eat. There also was a very large program on immunizations for the children," he said.



"Our problem is we don`t have enough money coming in now to sustain some of those programs. ... But the truth of the matter is we need to do more because these are people."

The South Korean government estimates that the North will be short of up to 1.1 million tons of grain this year due to poor harvests last year.

Seoul nevertheless has no plans to provide massive food aid to the North, according to Unification Minister Hyun In-taek.

"It is something to be determined in consideration of the North Korean nuclear situation and humanitarian issues between the South and North," Hyun said in a meeting of the parliamentary committee on foreign affairs, trade and unification on Tuesday.

"We will continue to support nongovernmental aid groups (that deliver food to the North), but we have no plans yet to provide large-scale food aid."

The state fund for inter-Korean cooperation currently amounts to 1.2 trillion won and up to 800 billion won of it can be appropriated for food aid, according to Hyun.

"This would be enough to provide up to 400,000 tons of rice or 300,000 tons of fertilizer," he said.

"China is believed to have provided 300,000 tons of food aid to the North last year."

North Korea is reportedly making efforts to secure more food imports this year as the recent currency denomination dealt a blow to domestic food supply and distribution.

Food imports from China increased after Wang Jiarui, head of the international department of the Communist Party of China, visited Pyongyang early this month, according to a group of North Korean defectors here.

Kim Jong-il ordered his government last month to normalize the state food supply within the first half of this year, and all North Korean trade units have been instructed to increase food imports, the NK Intellectuals Solidarity said, citing its sources in the North.

More food from China is entering border towns along the Tumen River such as Namyang and Hoeryong in North Hamgyeong Province, the group wrote on its website.

The incoming food, however, is distributed first to the military, state agencies of health, education and production plants, and little is left for ordinary citizens, keeping prices high.

A human rights group "Good Friends" said earlier this month that the central committee of the North Korean Workers` Party ordered law enforcement agencies to reopen all markets and not crack down on food transactions as an increasing number of people died of starvation.

(sophie@heraldm.com)



By Kim So-hyun