Category: Humanitarian Aid and Relief

Lack of UN oversight of WFP support to North Korea

Posted on by

The United Nations’ World Food Program failed to carry out sufficient inspections of food distribution sites in North Korea to ensure that supplies went to the country’s suffering people rather than the dictatorial communist regime, according to the U.N. agency’s own internal watchdog.

The same audit says the WFP inflated the number of monitoring tours that it made, and could not provide documentation to back up the North Korean government’s rationale for sometimes blocking the inspection visits.

Further, North Korean government staffers seconded to WFP operations had a hand in operating U.N. computer networks and data-bases, a situation that the watchdog warned “may lead to errors, omissions and potentially, fraud not being detected and remedied on a timely basis.”

Moreover, even WFP’s knowledge of what aid supplies it has received from abroad are based on the say-so of a regime-run company that the watchdog says may be lying about the amount of work it does, overcharging the U.N. for the work—and in any case is doing it without a contract, which keeps the relationship legally invisible.

For its part, WFP maintains that the problems it faces are more the result of underfunding. In response to questions from Fox News, the agency declared that the lack of aid money “directly undermines our ability to fully staff our activities in country, including management and monitoring, according to plans approved in project documents”—not to mention the threat to “WFP’s ability to support the nutritional needs of young children and their mothers.”

[Fox]

U.S. envoy calls for break in North Korean information control

Posted on by

Robert King, the special U.S. envoy on North Korean human rights, has called for more efforts to bring the people of North Korea in contact with the wider world by weakening the regime’s information blockade.

In a lecture at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, King said, “We must work to break down North Korea’s government monopoly on the control of information and work together to increase North Koreans’ exposure to ideas, conditions and reality of the world beyond the borders of North Korea.”

Only some 15,000 people are allowed access to the Internet and need to obtain permission to visit different websites.

King cited a survey among North Korean defectors in South Korea and abroad, which revealed that 34 percent of people in North Korea regularly listen to foreign radio broadcasts.

He said he heard that a busy and rowdy restaurant in Pyongyang suddenly went silent when news of the execution of Jang Song-thaek came. With so much fear instilled in their minds, North Koreans are very “cautious about rising up and doing something” about their human right situations, he added.

[Chosun Ilbo]

South Korean proposal to North Korea to bolster humanitarian aid and bilateral exchanges

Posted on by

Uncertainty lingers as to whether South Korean President Park Geun-hye’s proposals to bolster humanitarian aid to North Korea and bilateral exchanges will lead to a turnaround in the strained ties, given high military tensions and mutual distrust.

Aimed at laying the groundwork for reunification, Park’s proposals for “humanity, co-prosperity and integration” included extending aid to mothers and their babies; building infrastructure in the North in return for rights to develop underground resources; and increasing bilateral exchanges in various sectors.

“At this point in time, Park’s proposals are likely to be perceived by Pyongyang as a ‘poisonous apple’ ― a package that ultimately seeks to achieve reunification by absorbing the North,” said Cheong Seong-jang, a senior research fellow at the think tank Sejong Institute.

Pyongyang maintains its bellicose stance toward Seoul. On Sunday it threatened to conduct a “new type” of nuclear test and continued its verbal criticism of President Park.

Amid annual South Korea-U.S. military drills, the North has fired off dozens of ballistic missiles and short-range rockets in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions.

[The Korea Herald]

A revival of North Korean Christianity

Posted on by
1

In 1988, North Korean authorities suddenly decided to build a Catholic and a Protestant church in Pyongyang. North Korean refugees say that many Pyongyangites were shocked one day when they saw a building in the neighborhood that looked remarkably like a church (from propaganda pictures), with a cross atop its spire. For decades, North Koreans had been told that such places could possibly be only dens of spies and sadistic butchers (their reaction was perhaps similar to the average D.C. resident if they found a big al-Qaeda recruiting center in their neighborhood, complete with a large neon sign).

At present, there are four officially tolerated churches in Pyongyang (two Protestant, one Catholic and one Orthodox). Opinions are divided on how authentic these activities are. In any case, these political shows in Pyongyang should not distract us from the real revival of North Korean Christianity, which quietly began in the late 1990s in the Sino-North Korean borderlands. In the late 1990s, many North Koreans fled to China trying to escape a disastrous famine in their country. In 1998-99, the number of such refugees peaked at around 200,000.

Most of them established good contacts with ethnic Koreans in China. By that time, many Korean-Chinese had been converted to Christianity – which is increasingly seen worldwide as the major religion of the Korean diaspora. Thus, refugees came into contact with South Korean missionaries and/or their ethnic Korean converts, and many of them were converted. It helped that Korean churches in China were perhaps the only institutions that were ready to provide the refugees with assistance and a modicum of protection. Experienced refugees told novices that in the most desperate situation, when all else fails, they should look for a church.

Churches were also very involved with a kind of underground railway that helped North Korean refugees in China to move South. Inside South Korea, church communities are the major institution that provides otherwise generally neglected North Korean refugees with support and protection. One should not therefore be surprised that a significant number of North Korean refugees convert to Christianity soon after their arrival to the South.

Meanwhile in China, from around 2000, many missionaries began to train refugees to spread Christianity in North Korea proper. Many converts were indeed willing to take the risk and go back to their native villages and towns with Korean-language Bibles and other literature. Thus, North Korea’s catacomb church was born.

The North Korean government does not look upon such developments favorably. If a returning refugee is known to be in contact with missionaries he/she will face far more severe punishment. For the average non-religious border crosser, the punishment is likely to be a few months of imprisonment, but known religious activist is likely to spend 10 years in prison.

Nonetheless, the risks do not deter either missionaries or converts.

[NKNews.org]

NGO to help disabled North Koreans

Posted on by

A Belgium-based NGO has plans to send over $1 million in aid this year to North Korea to help the disabled there.

The Belgium branch of Handicap International has earmarked $1.12 million for this year to support medical and rehabilitation facilities in North Korea to promote the health and wellbeing of the disabled there, according to reports from the Voice of America, citing an e-mail from the agency’s official Dominique Delvigne.

The budget is also to be spent for such projects as nurturing teachers in charge of special education for visually- and hearing-impaired people, and assisting the North Korean Federation for the Protection of the Disabled, the official added.

The NGO, established in 1982 to help disabled and vulnerable people began to help physically challenged people in North Korea in 1998 at the request of the KFPD.

According to the report on disability published by the World Health Organization in 2013, some 3.4 percent of the population in North Korea suffered from a disability as of 2007.

[Yonhap]

On referring North Korea to the International Criminal Court

Posted on by

There are an estimated 80,000 to 120,000 political prisoners in North Korea, a nation of 24 million people.

After the release of the report by the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in North Korea, many country representatives supported the call to refer North Korea to the International Criminal Court.

Hundreds of thousands of North Koreans are believed to have perished in the camps over the past half century, “gradually eliminated through deliberate starvation, forced labor, executions, torture,’’ the report said.

“The EU believes that it is imperative that there be no impunity for those responsible for human rights violations,’’ EU representative to the UN in Geneva, Mariangela Zappia, told the council. Along with Japan, the European Union is drafting a resolution on North Korea to be voted on by the council next week.

However, North Korea’s key ally China, which has a veto at the UN Security Council, reiterated on Monday that it rejects any referral of North Korean rights abuse cases to the ICC. The recent inclusion of China and Russia in the rotating membership of the Human Rights Council may even prevent the initial resolution needed to push the case to New York.

[News.com.au]

UN Human Rights Council in Geneva discusses North Korea

Posted on by

Earlier today in its 25th session in Geneva, the UN Human Rights Council reviewed the human rights record of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) and heard from the UN Commission of Inquiry (COI) disturbing, detailed evidence of past and ongoing human rights abuses in North Korea.

During the session, COI chair Michael Kirby announced the Commission’s conclusion that a wide array of human rights abuses and violations, including some that amount to crimes against humanity, have been committed pursuant to “policies established at the highest level” and continue to take place in the DPRK.

As U.S. Special Envoy for North Korean Human Rights Issues Robert King stated at the UN Human Rights Council session, “the United States commends the Commission of Inquiry’s excellent and comprehensive report to the Council, which documents the ‘systematic, widespread, and gross human rights violations’ in the DPRK, and strongly supports the Commission’s calls for accountability.”

[From a release by Robert R. King, U.S. Special Envoy for North Korean Human Rights]

United Nations: North Korean crimes as bad as the Nazis, Khmer Rouge

Posted on by
1

The crimes of North Korea’s regime are as chilling as those of the Nazis, South Africa’s apartheid regime or Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge and must be stopped, the head of a UN inquiry said Monday.

Michael Kirby told the UN Human Rights Council, “It is now your solemn duty to address the scourge of human rights violations and crimes against humanity in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.”

His comments followed a searing 400-page report, released last month, that documented a range of gross human rights abuses in the country, including the extermination of people, enslavement and sexual violence.

“The gravity, scale, duration and nature of the unspeakable atrocities committed in the country reveal a totalitarian state that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world. The country is a dark abyss where the human rights, the dignity and the humanity of the people are controlled, denied and ultimately annihilated,” Mr Kirby said.

The report insisted North Korea’s leaders should answer for a litany of crimes against humanity before an international court.

“The world has ignored the evidence for too long,’’ Mr Kirby insisted, adding: “There is no excuse, because now we know.”

“If this report does not give rise to action, it is difficult to imagine what will,” Mr Kirby said.

[News.com.au]

New South Korean film portrayal of Christian suffering in North Korea

Posted on by
3

Christians in North Korea face beatings, torture, arbitrary shooting and execution. It is difficult, though, to comprehend the true nature of the terror of the victims, the extent of the persecution, and the bravery of their struggle.

A new film, “The Apostle: He Was Anointed by God,” presents a fictionalized account based on stories culled by South Korean director Kim Jin-moo.

The plot revolves around Chul-ho who wants to lead villagers across the river to China and from there to South Korea. He, his family and friends, face varying degrees of terrorism by North Korean soldiers, some of them glad to accept bribes, others promising to get tough against dissidents in their midst.

The film introduces, on a highly personal level, the types of conflicts among all these people that we can only imagine – the aging father who just wants to pay off the authorities whenever expedient, the pregnant woman who hides away but also gets killed, the Christian who praises Kim Jong-il in a sermon in one of those phony authorized churches in Pyongyang, the young soldier who himself is a Christian and attends underground services while in uniform.

One of the more interesting studies in “The Apostle” is that of the North Korean squad leader who warns Christians of the troubles they face under a new, ambitious officer and then obeys the officer when expedient, as when villagers are shot and killed as they try to flee across the snow into China. The differences among North Koreans are essential to the credibility of the film since they portray characters who suffer not only from ideological fanaticism but also from opportunism and the need to survive under a brutal regime that will kill anyone who shows any sign of insubordination.

For those who worry about the fate of unknown tens of thousands of secret Christians in North Korea, this is a powerful film with a believable story. Chul-ho dies as a martyr to his faith. Peter Jung, founder of Justice for North Korea, presenting the film, complete with English subtitles, said his organization will show it on March 17 in Geneva during debate at the UN Council for Human rights on the report on human rights in North Korea by a commission authorized by the council.

A book by Jung and activist Kim Hi-tae, “The Persecuted Catacomb Christians of North Korea,” is quoted in the report. Copies of the book, in both English and Korean, were handed out after the screening of the film. It provides an astonishing glimpse into the history of Christianity in Korea, the suffering that Christians have endured historically and the brutality that exists today in North Korea.

[Forbes]

Testimony of a North Korean prison camp survivor

Posted on by

One witness at the public hearings of the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in North Korea said that young male inmates in North Korean prison camps became so desperate for food they would eat live worms or snakes caught in the field to feel something in their stomachs.

“Because we saw so many people die, we became so used to it,” one prison camp survivor told the commission. “I’m sorry to say that we became so used to it that we didn’t feel anything. In North Korea, sometimes people on the verge of dying would ask for something to eat. Or when somebody died we would strip them naked and we would wear the clothes. Those alive have to go on, those dead, I’m sorry, but they’re dead.”

Jee Heon A told the commission of her time in a North Korean prison. She was sent there after being repatriated from China. She befriended a young girl, named Kim Young Hee and became like a sister to her. While they were forced to work in the fields, they looked for a type of grass to eat, as their prison rations were not enough.

“We finished our work and we were about to pick up this grass or the plant that we knew we could eat,” Jee told the commission. “And then the guards saw us, and he came running and he stepped on our hands and then he brought us to this place and he told us to kneel.”

They were forced to eat the grass along with the root and the soil as punishment. Kim became increasingly sick with diarrhea after eating the soil.

“There was nothing I could do,” Jee said. “I could not give [Kim Young Hee] any medicine. And when she died, she couldn’t even close her eyes. She died with her eyes open. I cried my heart out.”

She wrapped Kim’s body in a plastic bag and the other prisoners buried her and about 20 other bodies from the prison on a hill.

[CNN]