Carina Gibson
March 18 2009
6:49 PM
North Korea has refused United States food assistance. No reason to this sudden refusal has been given. This worries humanitarian aid groups as high rates of malnutrition are predicted in the near future. North Korea has been relying on foreign aid in helping to feed its current 23 million people, after natural disasters (and mismanagement) killed over 2 million in the 1990s. The States Department spokesman, Richard Wood, stated “…this is food assistance that the North Korean people need.” The UN World Food Program is very worried because they know that North Korea needs this assistance, and refusing this will cause many deaths. The five aid groups working to distribute U.S. food have been asked to leave by the end of March. In response to North Korea’s food aid refusal, South Korean Unification Minister Hyun In-taek says it is “an answer” to the opposition to Pyongyang’s rocket launch and the US-South Korean military drills. Last May the United States stated that it would help provide 500,000 metric tons of food to North Korea. This year the U.S. had been scheduled to supply 400,000 metric tons of food, but this supply has now been cut off. It is predicted that about 9 million people (mostly children, women, and the elderly) will be affected by this upcoming food shortage. Previous food shipments have been stopped when disputes over distribution rights came up between the U.S. and North Korea. Wood says the nuclear weapon talks, aimed towards North Korea giving up its nuclear weapons, have nothing to do with the humanitarian aid refusals.
This blatant refusal of food aid and humanitarian assistance is completely baffling to me. I understand that if a significant problem had arisen and North Korea wanted to take a stand, it would be more comprehensible, but with no reason for their refusal, it is hard to understand why. This also puts many of their people’s lives at risk, which is unjustifiable in my opinion.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/03/18/washington/AP-US-NKorea.html?_r=1&ref=world
2 comments:
I completely agree with you. This does not make any sense to me!! If it is so obvious that this refusal will be putting lives in danger, it just does not seem worth it. I know they must have their reasons but I also think it was weird that they didn't publicize one.
This is very disturbing news coming out of a nation where this sort of thing has become normative. It's as if the leadership in North Korea is actually making an concerted effort to act as stubborn and backwards as possible, always at the expense of the country's people. This sort of behavior is consciously placing the country and it's people on a collision course with social upheaval and collapse. I'm willing to bet that at some point in the next decade all of the problems occurring in North Korea at present will come to head in some sort of bloody episode. Only time will tell.
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