SPEAKERS CONTENTS INSERTS Tables
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2002
NORTH KOREA: HUMANITARIAN AND HUMAN RIGHTS CONCERNS
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON EAST ASIA
AND THE PACIFIC
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
MAY 2, 2002
Serial No. 107–95
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Printed for the use of the Committee on International Relations
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.house.gov/international—relations
COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
HENRY J. HYDE, Illinois, Chairman
BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York
JAMES A. LEACH, Iowa
DOUG BEREUTER, Nebraska
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey
DAN BURTON, Indiana
ELTON GALLEGLY, California
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida
CASS BALLENGER, North Carolina
DANA ROHRABACHER, California
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California
PETER T. KING, New York
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio
AMO HOUGHTON, New York
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York
JOHN COOKSEY, Louisiana
THOMAS G. TANCREDO, Colorado
RON PAUL, Texas
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NICK SMITH, Michigan
JOSEPH R. PITTS, Pennsylvania
DARRELL E. ISSA, California
ERIC CANTOR, Virginia
JEFF FLAKE, Arizona
BRIAN D. KERNS, Indiana
JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia
MARK GREEN, Wisconsin
TOM LANTOS, California
HOWARD L. BERMAN, California
GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York
ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American Samoa
DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey
ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey
SHERROD BROWN, Ohio
CYNTHIA A. McKINNEY, Georgia
EARL F. HILLIARD, Alabama
BRAD SHERMAN, California
ROBERT WEXLER, Florida
JIM DAVIS, Florida
ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts
GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York
BARBARA LEE, California
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JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York
JOSEPH M. HOEFFEL, Pennsylvania
EARL BLUMENAUER, Oregon
SHELLEY BERKLEY, Nevada
GRACE NAPOLITANO, California
ADAM B. SCHIFF, California
DIANE E. WATSON, California
THOMAS E. MOONEY, SR., Staff Director/General Counsel
ROBERT R. KING, Democratic Staff Director
Subcommittee on East Asia and the Pacific
JAMES A. LEACH, Iowa, Chairman
DANA ROHRABACHER, California
BRIAN D. KERNS, Indiana
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio
DARRELL E. ISSA, California
JEFF FLAKE, Arizona
MARK GREEN, Wisconsin
ENI F. H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American Samoa
SHERROD BROWN, Ohio
JIM DAVIS, Florida
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EARL BLUMENAUER, Oregon
GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York
GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York
DIANE E. WATSON, California
JAMES W. MCCORMICK, Subcommittee Staff Director
ENERE LEVI, Democratic Professional Staff Member
DOUGLAS ANDERSON, Professional Staff Member & Counsel
TIERNEN MILLER, Staff Associate
C O N T E N T S
WITNESSES
Jasper Becker, former Beijing Bureau Chief, South China Morning Post
Sophie Delaunay, North Korean Project Representative, Médecins Sans Frontières
John Powell, Regional Director, World Food Program
Timothy A. Peters, Founder and Director, Helping Hands/Korea and Ton-a-Month Club
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Norbert Vollertsen, former Medical Doctor inside North Korea
Kim Sung Min, Defector and Director of North Korean Defectors' Volunteer Group, Committee to Help North Korean Refugees
Sun-ok Lee, former prison and camp survivor
Lee Young-Kook, former bodyguard of Kim Jong-II and prison camp survivor
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
The Honorable James A. Leach, a Representative in Congress from the State of Iowa, and Chairman, Subcommittee on East Asia and the Pacific: Prepared statement
The Honorable Eni F. H. Faleomavaega, a Representative in Congress from American Samoa: Prepared statement
Sophie Delaunay: Prepared statement
John Powell: Prepared statement
Timothy A. Peters: Prepared statement
Norbert Vollertsen: Prepared statement
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Kim Sung Min: Prepared statement
Sun-ok Lee: Prepared statement
Lee Young-Kook: Prepared statement
APPENDIX
The Honorable Henry J. Hyde, a Representative in Congress from the State of Illinois, and Chairman, Committee on International Relations: Prepared statement
The Honorable Earl Blumenauer, a Representative in Congress from the State of Oregon: Prepared statement
Article entitled ''Don't let North Korean softening obscure persistent hunger,'' The Christian Science Monitor, by Roberta Cohen
Excerpts from ''Minimum conditions for humanitarian action in the DPRK: a survey of humanitarian agency involvement and perspectives,'' by Dr. Hazel Smith, Senior Fellow, Jennings Randolph Fellowship Program, United States Institute of Peace
Article entitled ''DPR Korea: North Korean Refugees—An Escalating Crisis?'' by Aidan Foster-Carter, Hon. Senior Research Fellow in Sociology & Modern Korea, Leeds University, dated September 2001
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NORTH KOREA: HUMANITARIAN AND HUMAN RIGHTS CONCERNS
THURSDAY, MAY 2, 2002
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on East Asia and the Pacific,
Committee on International Relations,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:15 a.m. in Room 2172, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. James A. Leach [Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
Mr. LEACH. The Committee will come to order. On behalf of the Subcommittee, I would like to warmly welcome our distinguished witnesses, many of whom have traveled from as far as Beijing and Seoul to be with us here today. We're honored by your presence.
In this regard I would like to acknowledge the generous assistance of the Republic of Korea, the U.S. Embassy in Seoul, and the U.S. Committee for Human Rights North Korea in helping to make this hearing possible.
The leadership of two Members who have been instrumental in developing this hearing should also be singled out. Representative Ed Royce who chairs the U.S. South Korean Inter-Parliamentary Exchange and Representative Mark Kirk, who traveled to North Korea as a former staff member for this Committee and recently chaired a Congressional Human Rights Caucus briefing on North Korea.
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The purpose of today's hearing is to examine a trio of increasingly significant humanitarian and foreign policy issues that have arisen as a direct consequence of North Korea's inhumane and failed system of governance. All of which have important implications for the United States and the international community—refugees, acute food shortages, and human rights.
This hearing is particularly timely given the recent increase of North Korean asylum bids through western embassies in Beijing. It also takes place against the sensitive diplomatic backdrop of renewed North-South dialogue, tentative steps toward re-engagement between Tokyo and Pyongyang, and the planned resumption of high-level dialogue between the United States and the DPRK.
Congress hopes and expects that North Korea will seize this opportunity to demonstrate its sincerity through negotiations and begin to alleviate the concerns of the world community. As we've all come to understand, awareness of the plight of North Korean refugees is rising dramatically. A series of high-profile instances in China, including in the last week two North Korean refugees gaining entry into the United States Embassy and the arrest of three asylum seekers outside the South Korean Embassy, has brought unprecedented exposure to a searing human rights tragedy largely heretofore hidden from the West.
The basic facts are as follows—the refugee issue first surfaced in connection with the appalling condition of DPRK contract laborers in Siberia. By the mid-1990s, with economic collapse and natural disasters combining to create famine conditions in the North that may have claimed as many as 2 million lives, the focus shifted to China. Over the last several years, somewhere between 100,000 and 300,000 North Koreans have crossed into northeastern China, a region with a large and welcoming community of ethnic Koreans.
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Most of the North Koreans are in search of either food or work. Many have evidently criss-crossed the border several times. In recent years some refugees who have been repatriated to North Korea actually managed to escape and return to China. Of this group an unknown number have suffered harsh punishment at the hands of the secret police, causing them to turn against the DPRK regime and therefore giving rise to well-founded fear of persecution should they be forcibly returned by the PRC to North Korea.
The PRC's reaction to the influx of North Koreans appears to fluctuate between placid tolerance and violent bouts of repression. As a matter of principle, Beijing maintains that the North Koreans are economic migrants. In practice, however, local authorities have allowed NGOs to assist refugees in China and even turned a blind eye to NGO efforts to facilitate their asylum to South Korea through third countries, provided such activities remain low-profile.
But Beijing also orders periodic crackdowns against the refugees and those who assist them, and by some reports may even allow DPRK agents to conduct operations in northeastern China.
While the flow of refugees in north China may be more stable than in years past, the number of defectors arriving in Seoul, while small in absolute numbers, is growing at an impressive rate. The flow of North Korean asylum-seekers has surged from 149 in 1999, to 312 in 2000, to 583 last year, and this year defections are occurring in an accelerated rate. Because North Korea cannot feed itself, U.N. agencies have become responsible for feeding almost a third of the country's 23 million people.
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A compassionate and global response to U.N. appeals for food and medical donations will almost certainly be needed to help protect women, children, and others at risk.
Finally, as to human rights, it should be clear that the North Korean regime is an abomination. Its policy stands as an affront to the most basic standards of human decency. President Bush is precisely correct to note that North Korea is starving its people while developing weapons of mass destruction. Yet, he has been careful to observe that America has ''great sympathy and empathy for the North Korean people. We want them to have food.'' The President has noted strongly, ''We want them to have freedom.''
How the U.S. and the world community can most effectively express its sympathy and concern for the North Korean people, including refugees in China, is the single issue before us today. In this context we look forward to the testimony of our panelists, several of whom are outside experts, others survivors of some of the most challenging rigors of the human condition. Mr. Faleomavaega?
[The prepared statement of Mr. Leach follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE JAMES A. LEACH, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF IOWA, AND CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON EAST ASIA AND THE PACIFIC
On behalf of the Subcommittee, I would like to warmly welcome our distinguished witnesses, many of whom have traveled from as far as Beijing and Seoul to be with us here today. We are honored by your presence. In this regard, I would like to acknowledge the generous assistance of the Republic of Korea, the U.S. Embassy in Seoul, and U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea in helping to make this hearing possible. The leadership of two Members who have been instrumental in developing this hearing should also be singled out: Representative Ed Royce, who chairs the US-South Korean Inter-parliamentary Exchange, and Representative Mark Kirk, who traveled to North Korea as a former staff member for this Committee and recently chaired a Congressional Human Rights Caucus briefing on North Korea.
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The purpose of today's hearing is to examine a trio of increasingly significant humanitarian and foreign policy issues that have arisen as a direct consequence of North Korea's inhumane and failed system of governance, all of which have important implications for the U.S. and the international community: refugees, acute food shortages, and human rights.
This hearing is particularly timely given the recent increase of North Korean asylum bids through western embassies in Beijing. It also takes place against the sensitive diplomatic backdrop of renewed North-South dialogue, tentative steps toward re-engagement between Tokyo and Pyongyang, and the planned resumption of high-level dialogue between the U.S. and the DPRK. Congress hopes and expects that North Korea will seize this opportunity to demonstrate its sincerity through negotiations and begin to alleviate the concerns of the world community.
As we have all come to understand, awareness of the plight of North Korean refugees is rising dramatically. A series of high-profile incidents in China, including in the last week two North Korean refugees gaining entry to the U.S. Embassy and the arrest of three asylum seekers outside the South Korean Embassy, has brought unprecedented exposure to a searing human rights tragedy largely heretofore hidden from the West.
The basic facts are as follows. The refugee issue first surfaced in connection with the appalling condition of DPRK contract laborers in Siberia. By the mid-1990s, with economic collapse and natural disasters combining to create famine conditions in the North that may have claimed as many as two million lives, the focus shifted to China. Over the last several years, somewhere between 100,000 and 300,000 North Koreans have crossed into northeastern China, a region with a large and welcoming community of ethnic Koreans. Most of the North Koreans are in search of either food or work. Many have evidently criss-crossed the border several times. In recent years some refugees who have been repatriated to North Korea actually managed to escape and return to China. Of this group, an unknown number have suffered harsh punishment at the hands of the secret police, causing them to turn against the DPRK regime and therefore giving rise to a well-founded fear of persecution should they be forcibly returned by the PRC to North Korea.
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The PRC's reaction to the influx of North Koreans appears to fluctuate between placid tolerance and violent bouts of repression. As a matter of principle, Beijing maintains that the North Koreans are economic migrants. In practice, however, local authorities have allowed NGOs to assist refugees in China and even turned a blind eye to NGO efforts to facilitate their asylum to South Korea through third countries, provided such activities remain low-profile. But Beijing also orders periodic crackdowns against refugees and those who assist them, and by some reports may even allow DPRK agents to conduct operations in northeastern China.
While the flow of refugees into northern China may be more stable than in years past, the number of defectors arriving in Seoul—while small in absolute numbers—is growing at an impressive rate. The flow of North Korean asylum seekers has surged from148 in 1999, to 312 in 2000, to 583 last year. This year, defections are occurring at an accelerated rate.
Because North Korea cannot feed itself, UN agencies have become responsible for feeding almost one-third of the country's 23 million people. A compassionate global response to UN appeals for food and medical donations will almost certainly be needed to help protect women, children and others at risk.
Finally, as to human rights, it should be clear that the North Korean regime is an abomination. Its policies stand as an affront to the most basic standards of human decency. President Bush is precisely correct to note that North Korea is starving its people while developing weapons of mass destruction. Yet he has also been careful to observe that America has ''great sympathy and empathy for the North Korean people. We want them to have food . . . We want them to have freedom.''
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How the U.S. and the world community can most effectively express its sympathy and concern for the North Korean people, including refugees in China, is the signal issue before us today. In this context, we look forward to the testimony of our panelists, several of whom are outside experts, others survivors of some the most challenging rigors of the human condition.
Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to commend you for calling this hearing today to shed light on the tragic humanitarian plight of the North Korean people who labor under one of the repressive, totalitarian regimes in the world, the government of the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea.
I'd also like to extend a warm welcome to our distinguished panel of witnesses; especially, those who have traveled from overseas to share their personal experiences with the Members of our Committee.
Mr. Chairman, many have advocated that the people of North Korea are the least free people on earth. As over the past 4 decades, they have been denied the most basic of human rights. They have been isolated from one another and they have been cut off from the world by their government. Moreover, due to their government's disastrous agricultural and economic policies, which have been compounded by natural disaster, the North Korean people have suffered through a brutal famine that has killed well over a million, perhaps, up to 3 million of their own fellow citizens and left a generation of children physically and mentally stunted.
Mr. Chairman, the Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy and Human Rights and Labor, Lorne Craner, has recently testified that the North Korean government is among the most repressive regimes in the world. The closed nature of the North Korean regime makes it difficult to obtain information on the conditions inside that country. But the reports that make it out paint a shocking, often horrifying picture of brutality, opposition, injustice and depravation.
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In North Korea individual rights are considered subversive to the goals of the state and the party. There is no tolerance for criticism of the state or its leaders. And accordingly, no freedom of expression, assembly or belief. The regime uses extreme repression and a pervasive surveillance network to intimidate and instill fear in the population. It maintains control through terror, threat of severe punishment and the manipulation of privileges, including the privilege of food allotments.
Given these terrible conditions in North Korea, Mr. Chairman, it's not surprising that tens of thousands of refugees, many of them malnourished women and children, have fled their homeland for northeast China. It is estimated that well over 150,000 North Korean refugees currently live in China dreading forceful repatriation that would result in imprisonment, torture or execution.
On the issue of food aid, I'm proud of the World Food Program and resident NGOs that are continuing to provide humanitarian assistance on the ground in North Korea. Due in part to their efforts, the North Korean people are continuing a fragile recovery from the famine crisis of 1997. While better monitoring of food and aid distribution to prevent diversion still remains an important objective. Much of the aid provided over the years has no doubt been effective in significantly reducing the numbers of North Koreans starving to death; especially within the targeted populations of children and women.
Mr. Chairman, I'm proud that our nation has continued to play a major donor role in coming to the assistance of the long-suffering people of North Korea. This year alone the United States has contributed 155,000 metric tons of food to North Korea. On that point, the Administration should be commended for continuing to separate issues of humanitarian assistance from the conflicts with the government of North Korea over weapons of mass destruction, conventional military forces and other matters.
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Clearly, the innocent and powerless people of North Korea should not be condemned to starvation and made victims because of an unstable leadership they had no choice in choosing.
Concluding, Mr. Chairman, I'm heartened by the offer yesterday from Kim Jong-Il to re-engage with negotiations with Washington. And I'm hopeful that Ambassador Jack Pritchard will be able to travel soon to North Korea to start addressing the full range of complex issues our nation has with North Korea.
And with that Mr. Chairman, I look forward to the opportunity of hearing from our witnesses this morning. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Faleomavaega follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE ENI F. H. FALEOMAVAEGA, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM AMERICAN SAMOA
Mr. Chairman:
I commend you for calling this hearing today to shed light on the tragic humanitarian plight of the North Korean people, who labor under one of the most oppressive totalitarian regimes in the world, the Government of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).
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I would also extend a warm welcome to our distinguished panel of witnesses, especially to those who have traveled from overseas to share their personal experiences with our Committee.
Mr. Chairman, many have advocated that the people of North Korea are the least free people on earth, as over the past four decades they have been denied the most basic of human rights, they have been isolated from one another, and they have been cutoff from the world by their government. Moreover, due to their government's disastrous agricultural and economic policies, which have been compounded by natural disasters, the North Korean people have suffered through a brutal famine that has killed well over a million, perhaps up to three million, of their fellow citizens and left a generation of children physically and mentally stunted.
According to the 2001 State Department Human Rights Report on North Korea, ''The Government's human rights record remained poor, and it continued to commit numerous serious abuses. Citizens do not have the right to peacefully change their government. There continued to be reports of extrajudicial killings and disappearances. Citizens are detained arbitrarily, and many are held as political prisoners; prison conditions are harsh . . . The regime subjects its citizens to rigid controls. The leadership perceives most international norms of human rights, especially individual rights, as illegitimate, alien, and subversive . . . The Government prohibits freedom of speech, the press, assembly, and association . . . The Government restricts freedom of religion, citizen's movements, and worker rights.''
To this effect, the Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, Lorne Craner, has recently testified, ''The DPRK is among the most repressive regimes in the world. The closed nature of the North Korean regime makes it difficult to obtain information on the conditions inside the country. But the reports that make it out paint a shocking, often horrifying, picture of brutality, oppression, injustice and deprivation . . . In North Korea, individual rights are considered subversive to the goals of the State and Party . . . There is no tolerance for criticism of the State or its leader and accordingly no freedom of expression, assembly or belief . . . The regime uses extreme repression and a pervasive surveillance network to intimidate and instill fear in the population. It maintains control through terror, threat of severe punishment and the manipulation of privileges, including the 'privilege' of food allotments.''
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Given these terrible conditions in North Korea, Mr. Chairman, it is not surprising that tens of thousands of refugees—many of them malnourished women and children—have fled their homeland for northeast China. It is estimated that over 150,000 North Korean refugees currently live in China, dreading forcible repatriation that would result in imprisonment, torture or execution. It is reprehensible that China, a party to the U.N. Refugee Convention of 1951, continues to deny UNHCR access to the border areas and assists DPRK security agents in pursuing and forcibly returning North Korean refugees. I am particularly troubled by horror stories that some of the refugees returned have been led away like cattle, with wires forced through their noses and tied together.
On the issue of food aid, I applaud the World Food Program (WFP) and resident NGO's that are continuing to provide humanitarian assistance on the ground in North Korea. Due in part to their efforts, the North Korean people are continuing a fragile recovery from the famine crisis of 1997. While better monitoring of food aid distribution to prevent diversion still remains an important objective, much of the aid provided over the years has no doubt been effective in significantly reducing the numbers of North Koreans starving to death, especially with the targeted populations of children and women.
Mr. Chairman, I am proud that our Nation has continued to play a major donor role in coming to the assistance of the long-suffering people of North Korea. This year alone, the United States has contributed 155,000 metric tons of food to North Korea. On that point, the Administration should be commended for continuing to separate issues of humanitarian assistance from conflicts with the DPRK Government over weapons of mass destruction, conventional military forces and other matters. Clearly, the innocent and powerless people of North Korea should not be condemned to starvation and made victims because of an unstable leadership they had no voice in choosing.
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In concluding, I am heartened by the offer yesterday from Pyongyang to reengage in negotiations with Washington, and I am hopeful that Ambassador Jack Pritchard will be able to travel soon to the DPRK to start addressing the full range of complex issues our Nation has with North Korea.
Thank you Mr. Chairman for the opportunity to briefly comment and I look forward to the testimony of our distinguished witnesses.
Mr. LEACH. Well, thank you very much. Mr. Royce?
Mr. ROYCE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I wanted to commend you for holding this hearing. I guess it was several months ago——
Mr. LEACH. If you will yield, this was at your request and I'm delighted that you made that request.
Mr. ROYCE. Well, thank you.
Mr. LEACH. I appreciate very much the leadership you've shown.
Mr. ROYCE. Well, I thank you. I appreciated the meeting we had with Congressman Kirk where we discussed the plight of the North Korean refugees, and so you've made this hearing a reality. I think, as we'll hear today, the so-called Hermit Kingdom is one of the most brutal regimes that exists on this planet.
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As we have found out and as Congressman Kirk has found out, the elite there live in luxury while the people are starving. North Korea is, thus, one of the greatest humanitarian disasters that we face. And I want to thank all of the witnesses that are going to come here before us today on both panels because some of those witnesses endured great pain, great suffering, and they also demonstrated the greatest bravery.
This Subcommittee, I believe, is doing a great service by bringing attention to the nightmare that is North Korea for many, many people that are in that country that are starving as we speak.
Last year, along with Congressman Becerra, who co-Chairs the U.S.-Republic of Korea Inter-Parliamentary Exchange with me, and I introduced a resolution—House Concurrent Resolution 213, which addresses the plight of North Koreans, and especially, of the refugees of North Korea. This resolution came out of Exchange discussions that we had last summer with our South Korean colleagues. We each discussed the question of who is going to respond to this refugee crisis. What is the world going to do about this humanitarian obligation?
The resolution we developed calls on the Chinese government to honor its international obligations to honor the U.N. convention relating to the status of refugees of 1951 by providing asylum to North Korean refugees. It also calls on Beijing to cooperate with the UNHCR to resettle these refugees in third countries.
Unfortunately, as we'll surely hear today, China is cooperating at this moment instead with North Korean authorities as they hunt down these refugees and subject them to the most brutal treatment imaginable, and we'd like to bring some international pressure to bear to change that.
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While the Chinese government's actions I think come as no surprise, we should continue to bring all the attention that we can to the issue of these refugees, and we should continue to urge Chinese cooperation to bring these refugees to safe ground.
China is not immune to international pressure. So I would hope that this Committee would consider building on this hearing by moving this resolution, which is co-sponsored by several Members of the Committee, including Congressman Faleomavaega from American Samoa and Congressman Kirk of Chicago and myself.
So again, I thank you for this hearing in the interest of a very just humanitarian cause, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. LEACH. Thank you. Mr. Chabot, did you want to make any opening statement?
Mr. CHABOT. I'll be very brief, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank you also for calling this hearing. And I just coincidently happened over the last week just finish a book called the Aquariums of Pyongyang written by Kang Chol-Hwan, who spent 10 years, from the age of 9 until the age of 19 in one of the camps—Camp Yodok. I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing that correctly. It's Y–O–D–O–K, and it's called 10 Years in the North Korean Gulag.
The story he tells is shocking. The brutality is really unbelievable—the inhumanity, the absence of basic human rights. After being released from the camp, he subsequently escaped to the South and talks about it, but still has friends and family members and others and it's a shocking story that in the 21st Century that this sort of brutality is ongoing.
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Again, I just want to thank the Chairman for holding this hearing and look forward to doing whatever we can to one day hopefully make those lives, which far to often they just live in the most unspeakable brutality imaginable. But it's just totally inappropriate for human beings to be treated as those human beings were. I appreciate the Chairman holding this hearing and I look forward to hearing the testimony this morning.
Mr. LEACH. Well, thank you, Mr. Chabot. Mr. Kirk?
Mr. KIRK. Thank you Mr. Chairman, and thank you for the invitation for a non-Committee Member. I also want to thank Mr. Faleomavaega and Mr. Royce and my other colleagues.
As a staff member of this Committee, I spent quite a lot of time in North Korea, both in 1997 and '98. I visited six major regions of North Korea, about 50 counties, all the way from Hui Jong on the Chinese border to Songgwan, near the DMZ.
I also want to commend Doug Anderson of this Committee staff who just spent, 4 weeks ago, a trip along the Chinese border looking at these issues. Mr. Chairman, I believe that we have seen over the last 5 years a silent massacre in North Korea. I estimate that approximately 2 million people have starved to death in North Korea since U.S. food assistance was started to alleviate the suffering there.
The suffering there is confirmed, not just by my visits and those of others to North Korea, but also of refugees who come over the border to China. The faces of this famine are clear. I met a young girl, Koch Kim Chin, in Hui Jong City Hospital. She was 1 year old and weighed just 11 pounds. In the Hui Jong Hospital Number 1, the following year, I met Kim Hui Bong, age 11, and she weighed just 35 pounds.
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When we think of North Korea, we think of missiles and other military maneuvers, but the Korea that I saw was a Korea without any windshield glass for trucks. It was easy to see a North Korean truck driver because he would have bugs in his teeth. The DPRK government has blamed this famine on wind, on floods, on rain, but really it's the government policy there. Korea has never fed itself. It has always survived off of food traded for goods from other countries and in the autocratic policy of today, Korea cannot feed itself.
Despite President Bush's characterization of North Korea as one of the axis of evil, the United States remains the number one donor of food to North Korea. The U.S. is the number one donor of food to North Korea. We feed every child in North Korea under the age of 15, 21 million meals a day, and I think we need to enhance that program. We need to bring U.S. NGOs and U.S. NGO consortium back to Pyongyang to be partners with the world's food program.
We do all this under Ronald Reagan's theme articulated during the Ethiopian famine that a hungry child knows no politics. But I think we should do more. We should help out the refugees in China. They are sometimes called Ggotjaebi, black swallows. I met many of them. The refugee children in Yanji in the province which contains 2 million ethnic Koreans. It's there that those kids survive on scraps dropped from the marketplace stalls.
There are over 200,000 North Koreans in China. I've started my own effort with my neighbors in Chicagoland. We have formed the Korean-American Coalition of the Midwest. Recently, Kraft has agreed to join our effort in our own privately-funded assistance plan for North Korea. We will aid Korea in our own way, but we're also looking for something from the DPRK on non-proliferation, yes, but especially, on reunification.
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South Koreans are able to see their North Korean relatives in very limited numbers. But Korean Americans have been totally unable to see their North Korean relatives. We estimate that there are 500,000 American citizens who have relatives in North Korea.
I was very happy when Secretary Powell accepted their petition, now totalling 50,000 signatures to make sure that the reunification of Korean-Americans with their relatives in North Korea is accepted.
Mr. Chairman, I also think we need a new assistance project, and this is based on the suggestions of the Czech President, Vaclav Havel, who saw the powerful evidence by video cameras given to dissents within his country that recorded what happened. I think the United States and private sector parties should fund video cameras give to refugees in China to then take back into North Korea to document what is happening there. This will boost our assistance efforts and it will also boost our efforts to promote human rights in North Korea.
To everyone in the room, I say (Alionsayhow) and thank you for holding this hearing.
Mr. LEACH. Thank you, Mark. Mr. Green, did you want to make an opening statement?
Well, at this point, let me turn to our panelists. Let me introduce Mr. Jasper Becker, was until this Monday, the Beijing Bureau Chief for the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post newspaper. He is a journalist and the author of acclaimed books on China, including The Chinese and Hungry Ghosts, an account of the great Chinese famine of the last century.
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Ms. Sophie Delaunay is a regional coordinator for North Korea for Doctors without Borders, a respected humanitarian NGO.
Mr. John Powell is the regional director for the Asia region for the World Food Program. Mr. Powell recently returned from a 2-week mission inside North Korea.
Mr. Timothy Peters is the founder and director of both Helping Hands Korea and a Ton-a-Month Club, two Seoul-based humanitarian organizations that attempt to provide assistance to North Koreans living both outside and inside North Korea, respectively.
We'll begin with the order of introduction with Mr. Becker. And let me also ask if Mr. Young Lim, who is the translator for the witnesses that are here, if he could meet in the back of the room with staff. That would be appreciated. Thank you very much.
Mr. Becker, please proceed.
STATEMENT OF JASPER BECKER, FORMER BEIJING BUREAU CHIEF, SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
Mr. BECKER. Thank you very much for inviting me. I started writing about the North Korean famine just after I'd finished a book which looks at what happened in China during the great famine in the early '60s, and it became apparent from interviewing refugees inside China that this was an enormous famine because you had all the same signs that demonstrated the enormous scale of the famine China.
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The North Koreans invited the international community to help with the famine in 1995. But actually, it seemed that the famine started much earlier than that, and from the people that I'd spoken to, it seemed that famine began actually in the mid-1980s after collapse of some very big agricultural projects that the North Koreans had attempted after 1980. And food rations began to get shorter and short.
And already in the early '90s, I think they asked for a World Food Program team to come in because they were already then thinking of calling for international aid. This means that many of the people in North Korea have been on starvation rations really for over 12 years. And they've been living on food substitutes, much as people did in China during the early 1960s.
Even after 7 years of food aid, the World Food Program said that in March people were just being distributed 300 grams of food a day when people should be getting at least 500 grams. And you can see the evidence of the famine in the malnourished children who would come over the border and beg on the streets in Yanji and other parts of Chongjin province.
They look incredibly stunted. People who say they are age 19 or 20 look like they are 12. All the evidence suggests that these children who cross over are quite representative of the majority of children in North Korea who have grown up with long famine food shortages.
The big question as always in a famine is how many people have died, and there are very few statistics which are made available from the North Koreans, but it could be as high as 4 million people; perhaps, as much as a quarter of a population according to some sources.
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Not only is, therefore, the North Korean famine unique in terms of the impact on this population, but it's also unique in its duration. Most severe famines just last a couple of years, but this has now been going on now for, I would say, a decade.
The other question is which people have been most affected? Which are the people who have died in North Korea? According to the refugees, there are sort of different ways of looking at this, but one way is that most of the people who died first are those who belong to the classes which were considered less reliable, less politically loyal to the regime.
As you probably know, the North Korean population is divided up into classes according to their political loyalty. This determination—this labeling also meant that those who are labeled disloyal would be the last in line for food. So these people have been the most vulnerable.
Secondly, many of the refugees also say that the hardest hit areas have been those on the east coat, which have traditionally relied on surplus food being delivered from the area around Pyongyang on the west coast. There are also stories that the food is being deliberately withheld from some areas in order to punish these areas for staging anti-government protest or rebellions or even military uprisings. Again, this is very hard to verify.
The third peculiarity of the North Korean famine is that it's not been the rural areas, the poorer areas which have been hardest hit, but it's often been the urban residents who have been hardest hit because they haven't been getting food through the distribution system and because they haven't been able to function normally because of the economic collapse. So most of the factories were closed.
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This, in turn, has lead to another common phenomenon in a big famine, a big movement of population when people leave their homes in search of food. Many people have left the cities to go to the countryside to try and grow their own food. But also, a lot of people have been going to China during the last 7 or 8 years to beg for food or to borrow money from their relatives there.
The border, which I've been along many times, is quite open and is quite easy to cross. The fact that for the first time since the founding of North Korea, many people have been able to leave North Korea and to speak freely means that the refugees have provided a very unusual fund of knowledge and testimony about what actually goes on in North Korea. They have been able to explain the causes of the famine to demonstrate that the famine is not caused by natural processes. That the food distribution is somewhat different from that described by the World Food Program and many of the aid workers operating in North Korea.
They've also borne witness to the brutality of the regime. The violent punishments which have been introduced in order to keep the population under control—a desperate population under control. Although the Chinese government, the central government, has been launching these quite tough campaigns to round up people who have been living amongst the North Korean population in China, the local population—the ethnic Koreans have done a great deal to help their relatives and to help them escape and to keep, really, large numbers of people alive, even though, they, themselves, are extremely poor.
But the real sort of question mark that I think the refugees have raised is really what has gone with the aid relief effort. It's been one of the largest and longest ever undertaken by the international aid community. Their testimony has contradicted many of the statements by the World Food Program and its officials. They've often denied that they've seen this food aid distributed. They've said that it hasn't been going to the most vulnerable parts of the population and they continue to assert that the favorite members of the regime and the party—the army and the police and so on—have been the ones who are benefitting from this aid.
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This brings me to another point which I think is very relevant. The food aid has partly been a failure because it's being used as a bargaining chip to negotiate security issues with North Korea. It hasn't been used successfully to allow the humanitarian organizations—the NGOs, the WFP to do their job properly to go out and monitor that the food is going to the right people.
Secondly, the food aid has been a failure because its failed to be used to pushed the North Korean government into carrying out the essential economic reforms which would make the population self-sufficient in food and to revive the economy.
That leads one to the final conclusion that the international community is actually been failing the North Korea people. Although, many countries have been extremely generous, it hasn't actually led to an end to the famine, which I believe is still going on. And although the weakest part of the population has already died, I think a large number of people in North Korea are still extremely vulnerable and very short of food.
The final point I wanted to make is the relief effort and the international negotiations with the Korean government have failed and that leads one to a conclusion to ask whether the real solution to this problem is that the regime itself has to be replaced. And until that has happened, it is difficult to see how this famine is ever going to be resolved. Thank you very much.
Mr. LEACH. Thank you, Mr. Becker. And let me say, without objection, all of our statements will be fully placed in the record. So if you want to summarize, you are welcome to do that. Ms. Delaunay?
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STATEMENT OF SOPHIE DELAUNAY, NORTH KOREAN PROJECT REPRESENTATIVE, MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES
Ms. DELAUNAY. Thank you Mr. Chairman for giving me the opportunity to testify before you in the name of Medecins Sans Frontieres or what you know as Doctors Without Borders or MSF and share with you our experience and understanding of the crisis affecting the North Korean people.
As you know, MFS ran medical and nutrition programs inside North Korea from 1995 to 1998. Convinced that our aid was not reaching those most in need, MFS made the painful decision to withdraw from North Korea in September '98.
Since then, our organization has remained deeply concerned about the situation inside the country, and explored alternative ways to reach the most needy. So today, I would like to say that we share most of the opinions which have been expressed by Jasper Becker today regarding the humanitarian situation in North Korea.
I would like to address two fundamental concerns regarding this situation of the North Korean people. The first one is the lack of access of the most vulnerable population in North Korea to international aid. The second concern is the lack of protection and assistance for North Korean refugees.
Regarding the first point on the lack of access of the most vulnerable, to this date, the vast majority of refugees who MFS has interviewed say they have never received food aid. Anyone who has sat and talked with these refugees would find it really difficult to believe the assurance of the WFP, which is reporting that aid is saving millions of lives. That the have access to the people and that they know where the aid is going.
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According to the refugees, as Jasper mentioned, after a decade-long food shortage in the country, those who remain are the survivors and only the strongest have learned to cope. Even population groups, such as children, pregnant women and the elderly who are specifically targeted by the WFP for assistance are being denied food distribution.
In February 2002, an MSF team met with 12 North Korean children between the age of 6 and 15. These children had recently arrived in China. None of them had ever received food at primary school. According to them, pupils have to bring their own lunch from home. The same month a woman from Hyesan told us that, as a pregnant woman she was not entitled to any aid from the government. She was 1 month from delivery and was forced to cross the border at night in sub-zero temperatures to get some help. And in the same line several elderly people, who MFS interviewed, who belonged to the WFP target population, said they also did not benefit from any assistance.
For MSF, the testimonies of North Korean refugees raise serious questions about the way humanitarian assistance is delivered in North Korea. From our point of view, two major weaknesses in the relief programs favor the exclusion of vulnerable populations from the aid system. Those weaknesses are, first, the use of Public Distribution System or PDS to channel food aid; and the second is the quality of monitoring food aid.
As to the Public Distribution System, Jasper explained to you in North Korean society the three class labels, which are ''core,'' ''wavering,'' and ''hostile'' continue to be used to prioritize entitlement to items distributed to the PDS. Everyone in North Korea, with the exception of cooperative farmers, depends on the PDS for the basic food rations. Therefore, vulnerability and need have more to do with political and social standing than age and gender. Age and gender is the criteria which is used by aid organizations to define target beneficiaries.
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Since '98, MSF has denounced the fact that any assistance which was channeled through the PDS was discriminatory by nature. We still believe that by using the PDS as the distribution channel for assistance, organizations are collaborating in organized government discrimination against its own citizens.
As with regard to the PDS and its function, according to individuals we have interviewed ordinary urban residents cannot rely on the PDS for their survival, and they are forced to find alternative ways to obtain food. Erratic for years, the PDS came to a virtual standstill in the late '90s with meager distribution on major national holidays.
The second weakness that we would like to question is the quality of monitoring food aid. MFS believes that after 7 years of massive international assistance to North Korea, monitoring conditions remain unacceptable. North Korea still does not provide the complete list of beneficiary institutions and WFP teams are still barred from making spot checks. The transparency of field inspections can also be questioned. You can see in the testimonies at the end of these document that some refugees have witnessed U.N. visits and their testimonies raise questions over the way field inspections are organized, if not staged, by the North Korean partners.
From its experience and understanding of the North Korean system, MSF would like to reiterate that access by the population to the aid it needs can only be improved if there are independent needs assessments, independent distribution mechanisms, and independent monitoring by operating agencies.
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As with regard to the second concern we would like to address today, it's the lack of protection and assistance for North Korean refugees.
Once outside North Korea, challenges remaining for North Koreans seeking refuge outside. Most North Korean refugees don't even contemplate reaching the South. Instead, they cross the border into China in search of food for their families or for themselves or in search of a temporary job that will allow them to buy medicine or essential goods. These refugees live in a very precarious situation in China and they are in urgent need of assistance. Considered illegal migrants, they live in hiding and face the risk of being arrested at any time, then forcefully repatriated, and then subject to severe punishment in North Korea.
Fines and rewards discouraging Chinese citizens from assisting them and recent arrests of NGO workers illustrate how impossible it is to adequately provide effective humanitarian assistance there. Numerous discussions between the MSF and the UNHCR about the need for protection have not proved fruitful. July 2001 calls by MSF on the Chinese authorities to cease forced repatriations and allow humanitarian assistance for the refugees have not been answered. The ongoing repression of North Korean refugees and of those who assist them limits the scope of our humanitarian operation on the Sino-Korean border. You have to know that there may soon be no more refugees to tell you about North Korea.
As a conclusion, we would like to say the need for assistance to the North Korean people is acknowledged. However, the testimonies of North Korean refugees confirm that despite this international relief assistance going into the country, a significant segment of the population remains in a precarious food situation.
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These testimonies also suggest that humanitarian assistance is not primarily directed at, nor reaching the most vulnerable.
Medecins Sans Frontieres expresses it grave concern over the endless suffering of the North Korean people and urges aid agencies operating inside North Korean to improve their monitoring and be responsible for the population they are entrusted to assist.
A second concern addresses the dire plight of North Koreans seeking refuge in China. Medecins Sans Frontieres urges UNHCR and the Chinese government to open a dialogue leading to ensuring protection of North Korean refugees in China and to authorizing the provision of emergency assistance to the refugee population.
Thank you for your attention.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Delaunay follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF SOPHIE DELAUNAY, NORTH KOREAN PROJECT REPRESENTATIVE, MÉDECINS SANS FRONTIÈRES
Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to testify before you in the name of Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF), and share with you our experience and understanding of the crisis affecting North Koreans in need of food assistance inside the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) as well as of the plight of North Korean refugees in China.
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MSF operated inside North Korea from 1995 to 1998. During this time, MSF attempted to supply drugs and provide medical training for approximately 1100 health centers, and to run 60 therapeutic feeding centers for malnourished children in three provinces of the country. Convinced that, despite the best efforts of our field teams, our aid was not reaching those most in need of aid as intended, MSF made the painful decision to withdraw from North Korea in September 1998. Since then, MSF has remained deeply concerned about the situation inside North Korea and explored alternative ways to reach the most needy.
MSF derives its current understanding of the humanitarian situation in North Korea from the following sources:
North Korean refugees in China
North Korean refugees in third countries
Aid workers providing cross-border assistance
Today, I would like to address two fundamental concerns regarding the disastrous humanitarian situation of the North Korean people.
The lack of access of the most vulnerable populations in North Korea to international aid
The lack of protection and assistance for North Korean refugees
LACK OF ACCESS OF THE MOST VULNERABLE POPULATIONS INSIDE NORTH KOREA TO INTERNATIONAL AID
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In October 2001, I described to a 40 year-old North Korean refugee how MSF used to provide aid in North Korea. After listening to my explanation, he smiled at me and said, ''You cannot reach people like this . . . You can't reach the common people.''
His comment illustrates the striking discrepancy in information between aid agencies present in North Korea and aid workers assisting North Korean refugees about whether aid is reaching its intended targets. This has been a characteristic of the North Korean crisis for the past 7 years. MSF itself experienced such a divergence when in 1998, the extent of the famine described by the refugees that MSF met on the Chinese border could not be observed by its teams operating in the DPRK. This was due to the restrictions imposed by the North Korean government on the ability of aid organizations to independently assess humanitarian needs.
To this day, the vast majority of refugees who MSF has interviewed say they have never received food aid. This includes those belonging to the target beneficiaries of the United Nations program. Anyone who has sat and talked with these refugees would find it difficult to believe the assurances of the World Food Program (WFP), which is reporting that aid is saving millions of lives, and that they have access to monitor and know where the aid is going.
North Korea has been one of the largest recipients of food aid in the world for a number of years, yet it is still a great challenge for vulnerable populations to access food. Despite increased border controls, some North Koreans, mostly from the northern provinces, continue to cross into China in search of the means to survive. According to the refugees MSF has interviewed, the food situation remains critical for most of the ordinary people in North Korea. In their own words, after a decade-long food shortage in the country, those who remain are survivors and only the strongest have learned to cope.
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Even population groups such as children, pregnant women, and the elderly, who are specifically targeted by the WFP for assistance, are being denied food distribution. In February 2002, an MSF team met with 12 North Korean children between the ages of 6 and 15 who had recently arrived in China. None of them had ever received food at primary school. According to them, pupils have to bring their own lunch from home. Children are often unable to attend school because they are simply too weak or too busy providing for their own sustenance. The same month, a woman from Hyesan told us that, as a pregnant woman she was not entitled to any aid from the government. She was one month from delivery and was forced to cross the border at night in sub-zero temperatures to get some help. Several elderly people who MSF interviewed, who belonged to the WFP target population, said they also did not benefit from any assistance.
Testimonies from refugees and aid workers who are carrying out cross-border assistance largely deny that farmers are better off and can benefit from the crops they grow. A bad harvest combined with a required quota deducted by the government does not leave much for the rural populations to rely on. Despite the irregular functioning of the Public Distribution System in urban areas, it seems that cities offer survival alternatives that cannot be found in rural areas, including widespread black markets.
For MSF, the testimonies of North Korean refugees raise serious questions about the way humanitarian assistance is delivered in North Korea. From our point of view, two major weaknesses in the relief programs favor exclusion of vulnerable populations from the aid system. Those weaknesses are:
— The use of the Public Distribution System (PDS) to channel food aid; and,
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— The quality of monitoring food aid.
THE PUBLIC DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM
In North Korean society, the three class labels—''core,'' ''wavering,'' and ''hostile''—continue to be used to prioritize access to jobs, region of residence, and entitlement to items distributed through the Public Distribution System (PDS). Everyone in North Korea, with the exception of cooperative farmers, depends on the PDS for the basic food rations they require for survival. Therefore, vulnerability and need have more to do with political and social standing than age and gender, the criteria used by aid organizations to define target beneficiaries.
As early as 1998, MSF denounced the fact that any assistance channeled through the PDS was discriminatory by nature. By using the PDS as the distribution channel for assistance, organizations are collaborating in organized government discrimination of its own citizens based on politics instead of needs.
''Last time I received food from the PDS was in 1997, only once that year. I received according to my ration ticket. Everyone has different amounts,'' testified a 20 year-old man from Hoeryong city last October.
According to individuals we interviewed, ordinary urban residents cannot rely on the PDS for their survival and are forced to find alternative ways to obtain food. Erratic for years, the PDS came to a virtual standstill in the late 90's with meager distribution on major national holidays.
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THE QUALITY OF MONITORING FOOD AID
After 7 years of massive international assistance to North Korea, monitoring conditions remain unacceptable. North Korea still does not provide the complete list of beneficiary institutions and WFP teams are still barred from making spot checks.(see footnote 1) Random access for assessment purposes appears to be impossible, calling into question the transparency of field inspections. Some refugees have witnessed UN visits and their testimonies raise questions over the way field inspections are organized, if not staged, by the North Korean partners.
From its experience and understanding of the North Korean system, MSF would like to reiterate that access by the population to the aid it needs can only be improved if there are independent needs assessments, independent distribution mechanisms, and independent monitoring by operating agencies.
THE LACK OF PROTECTION AND ASSISTANCE FOR NORTH KOREAN REFUGEES
Once outside North Korea, challenges remain for North Koreans seeking refuge outside their country. Most North Korean refugees do not even contemplate reaching South Korea. Instead, they cross the border into China in search of food for their families, or a temporary job that will allow them to buy medicines or other essential goods needed at home. These refugees live in a precarious situation in China and are in urgent need of assistance. Considered illegal migrants by the Chinese authorities, they live in hiding and face the risk of being arrested at any time, forcefully repatriated, and subject to severe repercussions in North Korea. Border rules posted along the Tumen River in Chinese and Korean stipulate that, ''It is forbidden to financially help, allow to stay, harbor, or aid in the settlement of people from the neighboring country who have crossed the border illegally.''
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Fines and rewards(see footnote 2) discouraging Chinese citizens from assisting North Korean refugees and recent arrests of foreign NGO workers illustrate how impossible it is to adequately provide effective humanitarian assistance.(see footnote 3) Only a handful of refugees manage to reach a third country, where they continue to face the risk of being arrested anytime as illegal migrants during their 3-to-4-month screening process. Up to now, none of the 1988 North Korean defectors who have been resettled in South Korea have been granted refugee status.
5000 to 10000 Rmb for helping NK refugees.
Rewards :
30 RMB for denouncing shelter
50 Rmb for denouncing a refugee
100 Rmb for taking a refugee to the Chinese police station
*Information collected by an aid worker at the border in July 2001. (8Rmb = $1 USD)
Numerous discussions between MSF and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) about the need for protection have not proved fruitful. July 2001 calls by MSF on the Chinese authorities to cease forced repatriations and allow humanitarian assistance for the refugees have not been answered. The ongoing repression of North Korean refugees and of those who assist them limits the scope of any humanitarian operation on the Sino-Korean border. There may soon be no more refugees to tell you about North Korea.
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CONCLUSION
The need for assistance to the North Korean people is widely acknowledged. Testimonies of North Korean refugees confirm that despite massive international relief going into the country, a significant segment of the population remains in a precarious food situation. These testimonies also suggest that humanitarian assistance is not primarily directed at, nor reaching, the most vulnerable populations.
Médecins Sans Frontières expresses its grave concern over the endless suffering of the North Korean people and urges aid agencies operating inside North Korea to improve their monitoring and be responsible for the populations they are entrusted to assist. A second concern addresses the dire plight of North Koreans seeking refuge in China. Médecins Sans Frontières urges UNHCR and the Chinese government to open a dialogue leading to ensuring protection of North Korean refugees in China, and the provision of emergency assistance to the refugee population.
Thank you for your attention
APPENDIX
ADDITIONAL TESTIMONIES OF NORTH KOREAN REFUGEES
1. Statements regarding reasons for crossing the border
Man, 35, from Hoeryong city, North Hamkyong Province. Interview conducted in October 2001:
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''There are rich people in North Korea too. People who are poor, who just eat corn, come here [to China]. The rich, who have the rice, they don't need to come here. For them, we are bad, traitors.''
Boy, 18, from Sampong city, Musan county, North Hamkyong Province. Interview conducted in July 2001:
''I came to China in June 2001 because I had nothing to eat, my mother died and my father is sick.''
Peasant, 40, from Onsong county, North Hamkyong Province. Interview conducted in April 2001:
''Me and my wife came to China because we were starving.''
Women, 43, from Aoji coal mine, Eundok county, North Hamkyong Province. Interview conducted in April 2001:
''We have the choice between dying from starvation or dying in the hands of the police after being arrested. Anyhow we may die so we come to China, at least we can please our stomach there.''
''If somebody has a high position in North Korea, he does not have any problem. If I was in a high position, I would not need to come to China.''
2. Statements regarding pregnant women's access to aid
Pregnant women, 31, from Hyesan county, Ryanggang Province. Interview conducted in February 2002:
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''I am pregnant and I will deliver next month. As a pregnant woman I am not entitled to any aid from the government. No pregnant women ever receive any. Until the end of the 80s, pregnant women would receive food during their hospitalization.''
Women suffering from tuberculosis, 33, from Chongjin city, North Hamkyong Province. Interview conducted in February 2002:
''Pregnant women do not benefit from government care. Well so they say but . . . when the third child is born, a 300 g ration of food is distributed in his name. After that there is nothing for the child nor for the mother.''
3. Statements regarding elderly access to aid
Man, retired from the Workers Party, 50, from Aoji coal mine, Eundok county, North Hamkyong Province. Interview conducted in April 2001:
''After I retired, me and my wife have not got any income. We don't ask too much, not even rice. But even corn soup we cannot always have.''
Retired couple from the Workers Party, 60 & 61, from Obong city, Eundok county, North Hamkyong Province. Interview conducted in February 2001:
''When you're over 61 years old you're unable to work because of the age limit. But right now in North Korea, they write the [retirement] annuity on a piece of paper. With that you can get 600 g of rice for one day but it is only a piece of paper, and I never receive anything, and I cannot eat the paper, we are not goats. I never get any distribution nor any grant and I never receive a wage. If people in the coal mines don't receive any food, how can old people like us receive any?''
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4. Statements regarding food availability for farmers
Couple of farmers, 49 and 45, from Eundok county, North Hamkyong Province. Interview conducted in October 2001:
''We came to China because we were in difficulties so we came here to get some help. We had a bad harvest, no PDS, it's hard to get food, so we came here along.''
Peasant, 40, from Onsong county, North Hamkyong Province. Interview conducted in April 2001:
''Before we used to receive some distribution of crops, but nowadays there are not enough crops. Although we plant crops for the year it is not even enough for peasants. On the top of that we have to provide crops to the workers office. There are only 3 to 4 months a year when we have enough crops to eat. Most of the crops are provided to the army base.''
Farmer, 40, from Onsong county, North Hamkyong Province. Interview conducted in February 2001:
''Once they tax everything there is not much left for us to eat.''
Retired couple from the Worker's Party, 60 & 61, from Obong city, Eundok county, North Hamkyong Province. Interview conducted in February 2001:
''Right now farmers cannot even produce enough food for themselves. There are several reasons why; there isn't any fertilizer and farmers don't have energy to work because they don't have anything to eat.''
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Pregnant women, 31, from Hyesan county, Ryanggang Province. Interview conducted in February 2002:
''People living in the cities are always better off than those from the countryside. In the city, they can always manage to beg. In the countryside, there is nothing but the grass for the rabbits.''
5. Statements regarding the functioning of the PDS
Couple of farmers, 49 and 45, from Eundok county, North Hamkyong Province. Interview conducted in October 2001:
''The PDS stopped in 95–96 but we still have to keep working''
Man, 23, from Musan county, North Hamkyong Province. Interview conducted in July 2001:
''In North Korea the only source of food is PDS, if there is no food ration, there is no other source of food. But you know, since I began to have hair on my head, I have never seen food ration on a regular basis, so it was erratic already after my birth and PDS has always been a major problem for the people.''
Woman, 50, from Sampong district, Onsong county, North Hamkyong Province. Interview conducted in April 2001:
''The government does not supply any food to the population nowadays, and says to them that 'although we only have water and fresh air, we have to keep our ideology.' They just leave on corn soup in my hometown. They get the corn from merchants from Chongjin who make profit out of it.''
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Woman, 50, from Sampong district, Onsong county, North Hamkyong Province. Interview conducted in April 2001:
''In 1997, on April 15, Kim Il Sung's birthday, I received 3 kg of corn from the US. Every family also got 10 kg of potatoes from China on October 10th, 1998 for the Worker's Party foundation day. Besides those two cases, we did not get anymore from the PDS. And the government announced to citizens that no more food would be provided so they should not expect anything from the government and that everybody had to manage their life by themselves.''
Woman, 30, from Aoji, Eudok county, North Hamkyong Province. Interview conducted in April 2001:
''Since 1995 I have only received food from PDS once or twice a year for Kim Il Sung's and Kim Jung Il's birthdays.''
Retired couple from the Worker's Party, 60 & 61, from Obong city, Eundok county, North Hamkyong Province. Interview conducted in February 2001:
''We just receive food from PDS for anniversaries in January1, February 16, April 15, a ration for 3 days.''
Man, 35, from Aoji, Eundok county, North Hamkyong Province. Interview conducted in February 2001:
''I gave up my job in the 7.7 fertilizer factory because there wasn't any food distribution.''
Pregnant woman, 31, from Hyesan, Ryanggang Province. Interview conducted in February 2002:
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''In theory the PDS should distribute 800g/day/person. But since the 80's, the rations have officially been reduced to 4–5 months. Even though it is fixed like that, the PDS is corrupted and this quantity has not been provided. We receive much less than that. The decrease in rations is always justified by the need to help the army or because the agricultural program did not succeed.''
6. Statements regarding visits of UN inspectors
Man, 23, from Musan county, North Hamkyong Province. Interview conducted in July 2001:
''I have seen some foreign guys from the UN traveling around. I don't know what they are doing but when they are traveling, just around this time, government suddenly becomes very busy, you know, try to find those undernourished boys and children . . . They keep them away, you know, those undernourished children, at some place . . . Perhaps they were expecting that these UN guys visit welfare facilities inspection, so they want to be prepared for it.''
Man, 19, from Hamheung city, South Hamkyong Province. Interview conducted in February 2001:
''Last year I saw UN guys coming to Musan to assess flood damage. The government dug up the river and the streets to make it look more damaged, in order to get more rice. The UN investigators came back to Musan a number of times.''
7. Statements regarding forced repatriation and related punishment in North Korea
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Boy, 16, from North Pyongan Province. Interview conducted in July 2001:
''I was arrested a few month ago in China, put in jail, then sent to North Korea where I was kept in a childrens camp in Heoryong. I escaped again to come back to China.''
Man, 23, from Musan county, North Hamkyong Province. Interview conducted in July 2001:
''I was detained in a Chinese detention center in Hunchun in January 2000 then sent back to North Korea with another group of North Koreans. We were handcuffed until we reached Saepiol and then we were blindfolded and taken to a camp. I learned from my cellmates later on that we were in Chongjin. In the camp it was very hard and I have been tortured, but after I mentioned my aunt was working in the North Korean anti South Korean intelligence, I was released.''
Woman, 50, from Sampong district, Onsong county, North Hamkyong Province. Interview conducted in April 2001: ''My son was already arrested and repatriated 3 times from China, therefore he will stay in jail for 5 years. Citizens know that if they are caught leaving the country, the first time they have to stay in jail one year, the second time 3 years. I myself was arrested for leaving the country without permission last year in July. I was taken to Chongjin city jail where I only stayed one month because it was too crowded and there was not enough space in the jail. There were 120 males and 178 females there, all of them had been arrested for escaping the country.''
8. Statements regarding the manipulation of foreign aid
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Man, 23, from Musan county, North Hamkyong Province. Interview conducted in July 2001:
''The rice and corn in the market are in foreign packages, it is the food that arrives in Korea from good people like you. Then those bastards of senior party members are taking them into their home and their big bellies, but since they cannot sell the things themselves at the market, then they send their wife to do the job. I can precisely tell you that the things are from foreign countries because I often go to the port in Chongjin. A lot of cereals are being unloaded there. We saw all kinds of grains and foreign ships. And sometimes we see the American flag and the package label. So I can precisely say where the cereals we find in the market come from.''
Woman, 50, from Sampong district, Onsong county, North Hamkyong Province. Interview conducted in April 2001:
''Citizens know that a lot of relief supply is coming to North Korea from other countries. We have heard about it. But most of the time we never got any of those supplies, so we think that the government keeps for themselves.''
Man, 20, from Chongjin city, North Hamkyong Province. Interview conducted in April 2001:
''I have been to the black market recently, I have seen bags of corn there. It had a US flag on the top and it was written that it was a gift from the US.''
Mine worker, 46, from Saepiol county, North Hamkyong Province. Interview conducted in February 2001:
''We heard that soldiers in the army still eat 3 meals a day, 2 meals of rice and one meal of porridge. To the army, the food goes to the army. The rice is used to make oil and turned into gunpowder. From what I heard, the army base has about 80–90% go to the army and the rest is sent to the people. At the army factory they use glutinous rice powder to make gunpowder. Or the glutinous rice or corn or peas can be used to produce oil. Or candy powder can be used as well.''
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Man, 36, from Rason, Eundok county, North Hamkyong Province. Interview conducted in February 2001:
''If you listen to the [South Korean] radio it says how much rice is brought into the country from South Korea, Japan and America. 500,000 tons came into Nampo harbor and other places. But in reality the amount of our ration is one or two days worth, sometimes a week worth. After that there is no more. So I start to wonder if we really got that rice and if the South Korean radio is lying. I think about that sometimes: if the rice came in, why is no one giving it to the people?''
Mr. LEACH. Well, thank you very much, Ms. Delaunay. Mr. Powell?
STATEMENT OF JOHN POWELL, REGIONAL DIRECTOR, WORLD FOOD PROGRAM
Mr. POWELL. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I would like to thank this congressional panel for invitation to speak with you about the food situation in North Korea. The timing of the hearing is opportune because I've recently returned from a 13-day mission to that country.
The purpose of that mission was to take stock of our emergency operation in North Korea. During the mission, I visited WFP sub-offices in Sinuiju, Hamhung, Chonqjin, Hyesan and Wonsan as well as Pyongyang. I saw WFP activities in each of these areas, visiting orphanages, nurseries, kindergartens, primary schools, pediatric hospitals and food for work activities. I spoke with pregnant women, nursing mothers and the elderly. I also met with government officials at national, provincial and county levels.
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Let me, if I may, Mr. Chairman, share with you a few snapshots of what we saw. Power—the lack of power is evident everywhere, especially in the industrial sector where factories lie idle, causing considerable unemployment and underemployment, particularly in the northeast of the country. Lack of power and other inputs means less fertilizer, less fertilizer means less food production.
Hillside and urban agriculture—we saw farmers preparing land for planting on slopes where it was quite impossible to stand erect. This land should be under forest cover, not under cultivation. In urban areas we saw land cultivated from the roadside to the very edge of apartment buildings. In rural areas, the few meters of land around the house are intensely cultivated, including on the roofs.
Children's nutrition—there was a visible improvement in the health status of children. We no longer saw evidence of the widespread, acute malnutrition seen in previous years. Children in kindergartens and primary schools were active and alert. A far cry form the reports of just a few years go when children were visibly lethargic and with the usual signs associated with the existence of famine—orange hair, skin discoloration and so on.
Primary schools—we spoke with a 70-year old principal of a primary school who said that school attendance had increased from 75 to 95 percent since the introduction of WFP biscuits. Primary school children, some 1.4 million of them make up the largest number people who receive WFP assistance.
So while great strides have been made in reducing levels of acute malnutrition, the kind most associated with famine, chronic malnutrition remains at unacceptably high levels. It is estimated that more than 40 percent of children under 5 are malnourished because even with full WFP rations the children may not be getting enough food.
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On the issue of the alleged diversion of WFP food assistance to the military, let me be direct. The army takes what it wants from the national harvest up front, in full. It takes it in the form of food Koreans prefer—Korean rice. The food that WFP provides is overwhelmingly maize or wheat, or in 2001, Japanese brown rice—commodities not preferred by those in power. They do not need to take WFP food, nor have we seen any evidence that they do.
As to monitoring, WFP has its' main office in Pyongyang and five sub-offices located throughout the country. We have some 50 international staff who together make between 300 to 400 monitoring visits every month of the year. They visit all types of institutions through which WFP food is distributed. Often it is nurseries, kindergartens, pediatric hospitals, schools—primary and secondary. They do all the things that I did, and they always speak with those who are receiving the food.
As a result, we have amassed a considerable amount of observable data during our 7 years in the country. And when we have concerns about food distribution, we do something about it. In 2000, for example, we cut out the general hospital feeding program because we were not sufficiently confident that the food was reaching those for whom it was intended. And, in 2001, we did not proceed with a 92,000 ton relief and recovery operation because we could not reach agreement with the authorities on the number of additional staff that WFP would need to properly monitor the operation.
So like in WFP operation anywhere in the world, we do not know where each and every bag of food is going, but we do have a reasonable degree of assurance that the food provided through WFP gets to those who need it.
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Yes, we still have a long way to go to lift our monitoring standards in North Korea to the same level as they are in most other countries. Let me explain the main reasons why we are not satisfied. We are not satisfied because we do not yet have access to all of the counties to assess needs and to provide food to those who need it. Our ''no access no food'' policy means, we think, that many people in genuine need of food assistance are not reached.
We are not satisfied because we are unable to make random spot checks. We are not satisfied because we are not permitted to bring Korean speakers into North Korea as WFP staff members. And we want to have access to farmers markets to have a better understanding of the relative price of food commodities bought, sold or barter. These are matters that we are taking up consistently and persistently with the authorities.
This being said, we have come a long way with the DPRK authorities over the past 4 years as some degree of trust and confidence has been built. Some of these milestones include the establishment of five WFP sub-offices throughout the country and 50 international staff, many of whom are located in those sub-offices.
WFP is the only agency to have access to so many counties—some 163 of 206. And to have staff permanently assigned outside of Pyongyang. The number of counties to which we have access has increased from 145 in 1998 to 163 in 2002. This means that we can now reach more people who need help, about 85 percent of the population.
Since 2000, WFP international staff have been able to take Korean language training lessons in Pyongyang. A few have a pretty fair grasp of the language and can at least detect when interpretation is not accurate.
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The government has agreed to a new nutrition survey to follow up the 1998 nutrition survey. This has been a longstanding issue on our agency and the government's agreement is a big step forward. A technical proposal for the conduct of the survey is now with the authorities. The government has reaffirmed its commitment given last year to provide WFP with the full list of institutions through which WFP food assistance is provided.
This arrangement will enable us to increase the randomness of our monitoring. It is, of course, not the same thing as random access, but it is progress. The authorities have informed us that this list is to be made available shortly.
The 1998 nutrition survey found that 62 percent of children under the age of 7 years were suffering from chronic malnutrition. The kind that arises from eating insufficient nutritious food day in, day out over a protracted period. That same survey showed that about 16 percent of children were acutely malnourished. The kind that is usually associated with the existence of famine.
WFP does not have the luxury of saying that it will leave because our minimum operational conditions are not met. We need to remain engaged and persevere and to work toward achieving those conditions. They will not be met if we all simply pull out. And the resultant suffering for the country's most vulnerable would verge toward the unimaginable.
We remain optimistic that with persistent principled negotiation, and the support of the international community, much more progress can be made. And no gain achieved has been later taken back.
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As to resources, WFP will run out of food in July or August this year unless new pledges are made urgently. The urgency aries because it takes 2 to 4 months to translate a pledge from a donor to food into the stomach of child in North Korea. Beginning this month, we're having to eliminate the distribution of food to some 675,000 secondary school children. Some 350,000 of the elderly will not receive food rations through WFP. Care givers in institutions, 144,000 of them, mainly women, will not receive WFP rations. And food-for-work will be sharply cut back, therefore, reaching far fewer urban underemployed in the northeast; perhaps, affecting a half a million people. Some 1.5 million people will not get the food because of the shortfall.
Doing this will stretch the reach of our support to pregnant women, nursing mothers and young children for a few more months. It will not be enough to meet their requirements for the year. And those recipients of WFP food assistance will therefore have to rely on a public distribution system that cannot cope.
That system will provide her with perhaps 200 to 250 grams of cereal a day or about half the ration of a refugee in a camp in any country in the world. Without that food, the prospects are chilling. Those who rely on WFP assistance are looking down the barrel of the food crisis.
Before closing, on behalf of WFP I would like to thank the people of the United States for their unstinting generosity for the most vulnerable people in North Korea—their women and children. The United States has already contributed some 155,000 metric tons of food to our emergency operation for 2002. Without this food, the situation would be much more serious; and it would have become so much earlier. It has been a major contributor to our emergency operations over all the years of our work in North Korea.
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The United States has also been a strong and clear voice in support of the kinds of measures that we would like to see to further improve the operational performance of our work; and in improving the working conditions of our staff. And perhaps, most importantly, the United States has consistently shown the commitment to separate its political agenda from humanitarian concerns, holding true to the principle spelled out by former President Reagan, ''A hungry child knows no politics.'' This is not always an easy principle to follow; and we admire you for being able to do so. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Powell follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF JOHN POWELL, REGIONAL DIRECTOR, WORLD FOOD PROGRAM
CONGRESSIONAL PANEL PRESENTATION
On behalf of the World Food Programme I would like to thank this Congressional Panel for the invitation to speak with you about the food situation in DPR (North) Korea. The timing of the hearing is opportune because I have recently returned from a 13 day Mission to North Korea. The purpose of the Mission was to take stock of our emergency operation in the country. During that Mission I visited WFP Sub-Offices in Sinuiju, Hamhung, Chonqjin, Hyesan and Wonsan; as well as Pyongyang. I saw WFP activities in each of these areas, visiting orphanages, nurseries, kindergartens, primary schools, pediatric hospitals and food for work activities. I spoke with pregnant women, nursing mothers and the elderly. I also met with Government Officials at National, Provincial and County level.
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Let me share with you a few snapshots of what we saw:
Power—the lack of power is evident everywhere, especially in the industrial sector where factories sit idle, causing considerable unemployment and underemployment, particularly in the Northeast of the country. Lack of power and other inputs also means less fertilizer, which means less food production. Lack of power means very little light, especially in the winter; and the hand-carrying of water, whether in rural settings or in apartment buildings in the urban areas. It is a huge problem for hospitals; and not much less for the citizens of the country. It also causes problems for our local food production where limited and erratic power supply means that often the factory equipment cannot function.
Hillside and urban agriculture—we saw farmers preparing land for planting on slopes where it was quite impossible to stand erect. This is land that should be under forest cover, not under cultivation. Yet a clear sign that any land on which food could be produced—however tenuously—would be used, despite the negative impact on the environment that this practice causes—including increased vulnerability to flooding. In urban areas we saw land cultivated from the roadside to the very edge of the apartment buildings. In rural areas, the few metres of land around the houses are intensely cultivated—including on the roofs.
Children's nutrition—there was a visible improvement in the health status of the children. We no longer saw evidence of the widespread acute malnutrition seen in the previous years. Children in kindergartens and primary schools were active and alert. A far cry from the reports of just a few years ago, when children were visibly lethargic and with the usual signs associated with the onset of famine—orange hair and skin discolorations.
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Primary schools—we spoke with a 70 year old Principal of a primary school who said that student attendance had increased from 75% to 95% since the introduction of WFP biscuits. And the schoolteachers, who also received the biscuits, were more regular in their attendance and more active with the children. Primary school children—some 1.4 million of them—make up the largest number of people who receive WFP food assistance.
So, while great strides have been made in reducing the levels of acute malnutrition, the kind most associated with famine, chronic malnutrition remains at unacceptably high levels. It is estimated that more than 40% of children under 5 remain malnourished because even with the full WFP rations the children may not be getting enough food.
On the issue of the alleged diversion of WFP food assistance to the military, let me be direct. The army takes what it wants from the national harvest up front, in full. And it takes it in the form of food Koreans prefer: Korean rice. The food that WFP provides is overwhelmingly maize or wheat (or, in 2001, Japanese ''brown rice''), commodities not preferred by those in power. They do no need to take WFP food. Nor have we any evidence that they do.
As to monitoring, WFP has its' main Office in Pyongyang and five Sub-Offices located throughout the country. We have some 50 international staff who together make between 300–400 monitoring visits every month of the year. They visit all of the types of institutions through which WFP food is distributed-orphanages, nurseries, kindergartens, pediatric hospitals and schools, both primary and secondary. They visit pregnant women and nursing mothers at home, as they do the elderly. They visit Food-for Work sites. And always they speak with those who are receiving the food.
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As a result we have amassed a considerable amount of observational data during our seven years in the country. And when we have concerns about the food distribution we do something about it. In 2000, for example, we cut out the general hospital feeding progamme because we were not sufficiently confident that the food was reaching those for whom it was intended. And, in 2001, we did not proceed with a 92,000 tonnes Relief and Recovery Operation because we could not reach agreement with the Authorities on the number of additional staff that WFP would need to properly monitor that Operation. So, like in any WFP operation anywhere in the world, we do not know where each and every bag of food is going but we do have a reasonable degree of assurance that the food provided through WFP gets to those who need it.
Yet we still have a long way to go to lift our monitoring standards in North Korea to the same level as they are in most other countries. Let me explain the main reasons why we are not satisfied. We are not satisfied because we do not yet have access to all of the counties to assess needs and to provide food to those who need it. Our ''no access no food'' policy means, we think, that many people in genuine need of food assistance are not reached. We are not satisfied because we are not able to make random spot checks. This diminishes the effectiveness of any set of monitoring arrangements. We are not satisfied because we are not permitted to bring Korean speakers into North Korea as WFP staff members, which means that we do not have the opportunity to interact directly with those who receive WFP food assistance. And we want to have access to farmers markets to have a better understanding of the relative price of the food commodities bought, sold or bartered. These are matters that are taken up consistently—and persistently—with the Authorities.
Other matters of special concern to us relate to the working conditions of WFP staff in the country, especially in the Sub-Offices. We do not yet have a medical evacuation procedure agreed with the Authorities, placing staff members—and their supervisors—in a very uncomfortable position. After the completion of the daily monitoring visits, our staff working in the Sub-Offices used to not have much freedom of movement outside of the grounds of the hotels in which they were accommodated without prior permission; and even then they were to be accompanied. This restriction has been somewhat relaxed over the last few months. Most recently in Hyesan, for example, our staff can walk now to a monument and back unaccompanied. Our staff are not allowed to have satellite phones or vehicle-to-vehicle communications or secure international communications arrangements. We are not allowed to have nationals of Japan or the Republic of (South) Korea on staff; and we have only one United States national in the country. (He is the Country Director.) Again, these are matters that we constantly raise with the Authorities.
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This being said, we have come a very long way with the DPRK Authorities over the past four years, as trust and confidence has been built. Some of these milestones include:
The establishment of five WFP Sub-Offices throughout the country; and 50 international staff, many of who are located in the Sub-Offices. A remarkable advance on the three staff members, all of who were located in Pyongyang, which was the situation in 1995.
WFP is the only agency to have access to so many counties, some 163 of 206; and have staff permanently assigned outside of Pyongyang. The number of counties to which we have access has increased from 145 in 1998 to 163 in 2002. This means that we can now reach more people who need help—about 85% of the population.
Since 2000, WFP international staff have been able to take Korean language training lessons in Pyongyang. A few have a pretty fair grasp of the language and can at least detect when interpretation is not accurate.
The Government has agreed to a new Nutrition Survey to follow up the 1998 Nutrition Survey. This has been a longstanding issue on our agenda; and the Government's agreement is a big step forward. A technical proposal for the conduct of the Survey is now with the authorities. The Survey is scheduled for the third quarter of this year, with the results being available before the end of the year. The Survey will be a joint UNICEF/WFP/DPRK undertaking, with technical support being provided through an international academic consortium. The results of the Survey will enable us to compare the situation in 2002 with that of 1998; to measure the progress of the nutritional status of children; and to improve the planning and targeting of interventions for their benefit.
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The Government has re-affirmed its commitment to give WFP a full list of the institutions though which WFP food assistance is provided. This arrangement will enable WFP to increase the randomness of its monitoring. It is, of course, not the same as random access. But it is progress. The Authorities informed us that this list is to be made available ''shortly.''
The 1998 Nutrition Survey found that about 62% of children under seven years of age were suffering chronic malnutrition; the kind that arises from eating insufficient nutritious food day in and day out over a protracted period. That same Survey showed that about 16% of children were acutely malnourished, the kind that is generally associated with the existence of famine. WFP does not have the luxury of saying that it will leave because our minimum operational conditions are not met. We need to remain engaged and persevere, and work towards achieving those conditions. They will not be met if we all simply pull out. And the resultant suffering for the country's most vulnerable would verge towards the unimaginable.
We remain optimistic that with persistent principled negotiation—and the support of the international community—much more progress can be made.
As to resources, WFP will run out of food in July or August this year unless new pledges are made urgently. The urgency arises because it takes from 2–4 months to translate a pledge from a donor to food into the stomach of a child in North Korea. Beginning this month we are having to eliminate the distribution of food to some 675,000 secondary school children; and some 350,000 of the elderly will not receive any food rations through WFP. Caregivers in institutions—some 144,000 of them, mainly women—will not receive WFP rations. And food-for Work must be sharply cut back, thereby reaching far fewer urban underemployed in the Northeast, affecting perhaps 500,000 people. Some 1.5 million people will not get food because of the shortfall.
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DPRK is a mountainous country with limited arable land and a short growing season. It cannot produce enough food to meet the basic requirements of its people. And it does not have the foreign exchange to import that food. For 2002, a ''normal bad year'', the gap between the quantity of food that is available (food production plus imports) and the needs of the North Korean people is about 1.5 million metric tons of cereals.
WFP does not seek to fill the national gap. We calculate the food needs of the most vulnerable groups—pregnant women, nursing mothers, children and a small percentage of the elderly and those most dependent on the Public Distribution System. Women and children comprise about 90% of those who receive WFP food. For some categories of beneficiary the food is provided year-round, for example pregnant women, nursing mothers and children in primary schools. For other categories of beneficiary such as secondary school children, the food is targeted geographically to those living in the urban areas of the most food insecure Provinces, mainly in the Northeast. For other categories, such as Food-for Work beneficiaries, the food assistance is provided only during certain times of the year, typically over the period April through August when these people must depend on a Public Distribution System that cannot cope.
WFP needs 611,000 metric tons of food for calendar year 2002 to meet the needs of the 6.4 million beneficiaries, most of who are women and children who live in the counties to which we have access. We have available about half of that amount. The United States, the Republic of Korea and Finland have given to this year's operation; and we are hopeful that other donors will step forward.
As I indicated earlier, we are having to cut back on our planned distributions. Doing this will stretch the reach of our support to pregnant women, nursing mothers and children aged from six months to 10 years for a few more months. It will not be enough to meet their requirements for the year. An erstwhile recipient of WFP food assistance will therefore have to rely on a Public Distribution System that will provide her with perhaps 200–250 grammes of cereal per day. Or about half of the ration of a refugee in a camp. There is no doubt that the people are hungry and need the food. Without that food, the prospects are chilling. Those who rely on WFP assistance are looking down the barrel of a food crisis.
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Before closing, on behalf of WFP I would like to thank the people of the United States for their unstinting generosity to the most vulnerable people in North Korea—their women and children. The United States has already contributed some 155,000 metric tones of food to the Emergency Operation for 2002. Without this food, the situation would be much more serious; and it would have become so much earlier. And it has been the major contributor to our Emergency Operations over the years of our work in that country. The United States has also been a strong and clear voice in support of the kind of measures that would further improve the operational performance of our work; and in improving the working conditions of our staff. And, perhaps most importantly, the United States has consistently shown the commitment to separate its political agenda from humanitarian concern, holding true to the principle spelled out by former president Reagan ''A hungry child knows no politics''. This is not always an easy principle to follow; and we admire you being able to do so.
We thank you.
Mr. LEACH. Thank you, Mr. Powell. Mr. Peters?
STATEMENT OF TIMOTHY A. PETERS, FOUNDER AND DIRECTOR, HELPING HANDS/KOREA AND TON-A-MONTH CLUB
Mr. PETERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for this privilege and honor to appear before the Subcommittee today. I am a spokesman and founder for two small, what I call grassroots initiatives. One, Helping Hands Korea, which is principally to aid North Korean refugees and was founded approximately 4 years ago. And, in fact, this was an outgrowth of our first initiative, which was Ton-a-Month Club, a tiny, as the name implies, a small initiative started in 1996 as more news reports surfaced about the famine in North Korea.
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I hope that in some ways that my testimony might represent the efforts of small, individual citizens who are concerned and do not have large resources, but nevertheless feel that action is imperative, even on an individual basis. I'm happy to say that despite the IMF crisis in Korea that began in December 1997, a recent checking of our records revealed that, quite amazingly, despite the fact that we are not a registered charity in South Korea, we were 10 years ahead of schedule of our Ton-a-Month Club—one ton per month donation. So it's a testimony, I believe, to the fact that it is possible for individuals to make a difference.
Naturally, using our own resources and small fundraisers, we wanted to be sure that our efforts and our donations were going where they were intended that the ''widows' mites'' that we were collecting, in fact, were going where they were intended. Factfinding missions to Northeast China showed us after perhaps 2 or 3 years, that there were troubling developments about transparency.
At the same time we came to learn of the refugee crisis during these factfinding missions. That was when Helping Hands Korea was born and we began to shift, although limited, a larger percentage of our collected donations to helping refugees.
In my opinion, and in my experience, this has a very distinct advantage in that you are continuing to help the North Koreans. However, you have eliminated the middle man. You have eliminated handing over the donation to the bureaucracy that is controlling the North Koreans within their own borders. Instead, you are entrusting your donations to tried and proven, very sacrificial aid workers in third countries—China, but other countries as well.
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As to the effects of the long-term famine, as Mr. Becker referred to, I wonder if, for a moment, we could put a face on this. If I could ask that one picture of a young boy be put on the monitor. The name of this boy is Yoo Chul Min. In fact, I first came in contact with this 10-year old boy last April in a combined aid trip to Northeast China. As well, I invited Dr. Vollertsen to join us, since he had been sent out of North Korea itself; I encouraged Dr. Vollertsen to come and help the refugees in Northeast China.
He very kindly came. As well we also brought some international journalists with us to see the refugee situation. During that visit, I had the pleasure of meeting this small North Korean boy who was taking refuge in a missionary's home. He, as you can see, this was actually the picture to be given to the South Korean Embassy in Ulan Bator when Mr. Yoo Chul Min would have crossed the border from China into Mongolia and then taken—escorted by activists to the capital of Mongolia for processing for a final—being brought to South Korea.
I'm using Chul Min because, despite the fact that 1 or 2 years of relatively good diet in China and his appearance to be a relatively healthy, pre-teen boy, the events that I will describe shows how mistaken these appearances are and the ravages of the long-term famine.
Chul Min was one of five members of a team that were gathered to make an attempt to cross under the nine high voltage fences that exist at the China-Mongolian frontier. Unfortunately, the leader who had been briefed—the leader of their small team who had been briefed the night before, several hours prior to the departure time, the leader was picked up by Chinese security officials and the remaining small team was leaderless.
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Given the crackdown as of roughly February of last year in Northeast China against the North Korean refugees, the team made a very sobering decision that they would go forward feeling that they could not go back to the area of Yenji and other Chinese towns near the Chinese-North Korean border with which they had some familiarity.
They went forward and perhaps, predictably, became lost. They were 26 hours without food and water. This does not seem life-threatening, even to a normal and healthy pre-teen boy. I'm very sad to say that this cannot be said for Chul Min. He perished in the frontier within those 26 hours, which I believe reveals simply that his young body, which had been ravaged by the long-term effects of malnutrition in his home town or his own particular situation in North Korea had weakened him to this point.
Because my time is quickly running out, I am going to ask that another picture be shown, if it is all right. This is my dear friend Chun Ki Won, and perhaps, one of the bravest men I have ever had the privilege of knowing. He is a Robin Hood in every sense of the word of helping the poor and helpless. In fact, this gentleman is now languishing in an Inner-Mongolian prison because he has helped in the underground railroad of assisting North Korean refugees to Mongolia and other areas.
He was caught on December 30th of 2001 attempting to take over a number of refugees after many successful attempts before. Unfortunately, this time it's very possible that among the handful of refugees was a possible informer who had informed the Chinese security in advance that they were coming and he was picked up. He remains in prison in Inner-Mongolia. He has been there for a few days beyond 4 months. He has been visited only once by a consular officer of his nationality in South Korea as far as we know, as of a week ago.
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And I can only act as a spokesman, a voice for, not only Mr. Chun, but many others whom I consider unsung heroes who have taken it upon themselves, not only their personal safety, but their personal resources. Some of whom have gone into debt for considerable amounts, which have strained their marriages and their own personal finances to bring North Koreans to safety.
I would like to suggest, therefore, that due consideration be given to allocating funds to help those who are literally risking their lives to help North Korean refugees in third countries. I would also like to suggest on the humanitarian aid side the possibility of a shotgun effect.
Instead of giving enormous amounts at one given time, and in state-to-state transfers, I would like to strongly suggest that smaller allocations of grants, et cetera, could be given so that the likelihood that more of the aid could get across the border in accepted channels. In channels that—I'm sorry, not DPRK accepted channels, but channels that have been already established as tried and proven through a strong relationship that has been formed with the ethnic Chinese-Korean community on the border and taken across.
I feel that due consideration should be given to portioning out smaller amounts of large grants, and giving that to aid organizations that, perhaps, could have an improved level of effectiveness. I thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Peters follows:]
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PREPARED STATEMENT OF TIMOTHY A. PETERS, FOUNDER AND DIRECTOR, HELPING HANDS/KOREA AND TON-A-MONTH CLUB
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your invitation to testify and this opportunity to address the House Committee on International Relations, Subcommittee on East Asia and the Pacific, on humanitarian and human rights concerns related to North Koreans. In this written statement I will briefly address the humanitarian aid aspect of our work, then give special emphasis to our efforts to ease the plight of North Korean refugees in China.
BACKGROUND OF OUR RELIEF EFFORTS
Helping Hands Korea is a Christian charitable initiative based in Seoul that was founded in 1990. In October of 1996, our organization significantly shifted its primary focus from activities within South Korea to the desperate needs of North Koreans. Our first project to help needy North Koreans was a grassroots initiative we named Ton-a-Month Club. Its genesis was a small prayer meeting around our kitchen table in the summer of 1996 and took as its goal providing humanitarian food aid to the most vulnerable victims of famine in the North. With a staff limited to my own family and a handful of volunteers with limited resources, our project has not gained official charitable status with the Republic of Korea government, so our fundraising has relied principally on rallying sacrificial donations from concerned South Koreans, expatriate residents in South Korea and several longstanding and faithful supporters in the U.S. to purchase one ton per month (or its equivalent value) of desperately needed foodstuffs to send as famine-relief to the North Korean civilian population. In the six years since its inception, Ton-a-Month Club has dispatched food aid to North Koreans through a number of channels: Korean National Red Cross, The Internet Campaign to Help North Korean Flood Victims, Good Friends, as well as a wide range of independent deliveries that have been arranged with the assistance of aid workers on the border of China and North Korea to bring rice, corn, wheat flour, and a mixture of goat and soy milk to individual villages and towns in the neediest areas of Hamkyoungpuk-to Province of North Korea.
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