NORTHEAST ASIA PEACE AND SECURITY NETWORK
***** SPECIAL REPORT *****
November 29, 2000

Stopping in Seoul, ROK, after a four day visit to the DPRK, US Representative Tony Hall gave the following speech calling for renewed international support for the famine stricken country. Hall visited the windpower site at Unhari Village and applauded the Nautilus Institute's work as a superb initiative that helped extend ties and promote engagement between the US and North Korea. 
* * * * *

"With all of the news about North Korea's diplomatic initiatives, it is easy to forget that people there are still struggling to survive a famine that has not ended.

"Sitting in a warm room, it's hard to imagine how bitterly cold it gets in places which go unheated 90 percent of the time. Driving along familiar streets, it seems strange to think of North Korean roads that pass homes shrouded in complete darkness except for the occasional candle.  And being no more than a few hours away from our last meal or our next one, it is impossible to comprehend the hunger that comes from day after day after day of getting no more than a few hundred calories of food, or none at all.

"The glimpses some recent visitors have gotten of Pyongyang need to be reconciled with the reality in the rest of the country. Visitors to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., would be wrong to imagine all American cities look like that.  Likewise, visitors to North Korea's capital need to remember that people who live in Pyongyang are even less representative of those in outlying communities.

"No matter what political changes come in the weeks and months ahead, the grim situation most people in North Korea face every day ought to be uppermost in our minds.  People can't live like this for long, and their basic human needs for food and warmth cannot wait for political solutions to decades-old issues.

"When I visited Hye San and Sariwon last August, I saw signs that the situation was improving.  In Chongjin two winters ago, people seemed miserable but not without hope.  I expected things to be better this year, but they are not.  They're worse.

"This sharp turn downward was most obvious in North Hamgyong Province, which has suffered typhoons and flooding that would have devastated any country in the world.  But North Koreans are paying a far higher price than other people would, because their country's troubles have outrun its ability to weather any storm.

"And the misery is hardly limited to people living where natural disasters struck. Hospitals I visited in Onchon and Pakchon Counties, less than 100 miles from Pyongyang, as well as in Chongjin, were cold, barren, dirty places filled with the stench of sickness.  Doctors seemed diligent and concerned, but they have little relief to offer their patients. Electricity ran for no more than two hours a day; patients were fed less than half the food a human being needs to survive; and medicines - from antibiotics, to anaesthetics, to painkillers, to aspirin - were
nowhere to be found.  Most diseases that send people to the hospital were caused by eating so-called 'alternative food': a little grain mixed with ground leaves, bark and other inedible vegetation that fills the stomach  - but then tears it apart.

"The continuing crisis is most telling in the lives of Korean children.  On paper, they are the best off because they get full rations from the United Nations' World Food Programme.  But in reality, nurseries are overflowing with orphans.  In one 'baby home' I visited near Chongjin, two of five children have lost both parents; the rest have been left in the home's care by families that can no longer look after them.  Everywhere I saw them, children seemed well cared for, but -- without soap, hot water, heat or medicine -- most were dirty, coughing and sniffling.  At lunch, they gulped their milk without taking a breath and came back hungrily for seconds.

"We are entering the sixth year of helping feed North Korea's people, and most who get aid are children under age eight.  I am proud that my own country has been steadfast in its commitment to help and has been the biggest contributor to famine-relief efforts.  I am very glad that South Korea and Japan recently have donated generously to the United Nations' efforts; President Kim and Prime Minister Mori deserve praise for their leadership and their determination to withstand misguided criticism of their generosity.

"I am convinced that North Korea's citizens will remember who helped them in this time of need, and that history will be a harsh judge of those who ignored one of the greatest famines of our time.

"While I hope international food aid will continue, though, it is time for the international community to rethink its 'Band-Aid' approach to this crisis.   As an aid worker told me, food aid alone is 'like applying a bandage over a gaping wound.'

"As any parent knows, mere food cannot ensure the survival of even one of the seven million children the WFP feeds each year. They all need heated homes, vaccinations against disease, medicines, and a future beyond the orphanage. They need much more, of course  - but these most basic humanitarian needs are ones that, I believe, the United States and other countries can help meet.

"The idea of providing fuel to a country whose military remains a threat is a controversial one, and I am not proposing the wholesale delivery of oil and gas to Pyongyang.  But it is past time to seriously consider projects like the one I saw in Unhari Village, where the U.S.-based Nautilus Institute is working with North Korean scientists to harness wind power. U.S.-designed wind turbines are now heating and lighting homes, purifying drinking water, and irrigating fields, and their success could be replicated in other communities.   The added advantage of projects like this is that they offer a way for foreigners to work together with local people and to extend the ties that are now being built among engaged countries' diplomats.

"Other superb initiatives have been proposed, and agreed to by North Korea; most have foundered for lack of support. The United Nations Development Programme has a broad array of agriculture reform projects; the International Fund for Agriculture Development is already working with individual micro-entrepreneurs in North Korea; and UNICEF has proven ways of helping the very young children who are every country's best hope
for a peaceful and prosperous future. I hope my country and others will take another look at these and other projects and support them.  I plan to sit down with the next U.S. administration as soon as possible to discuss resuming our aid to UNICEF's health and clean water projects, which was started in 1998 but stopped for no good reason.

"Obviously, North Korea's leaders also need to change their priorities and do much more to improve their people's situation. I urged officials there to cooperate more readily with aid workers and discussed with Vice Foreign Minister Kim Gye Gwan some of the United States' security concerns.  Based on what he said, and on my private discussion with President Clinton before I left, I am hopeful that we may still see a diplomatic
breakthrough in the coming weeks.

"But there is a real danger in focusing too narrowly.   In the past four years, I have seen the tremendous change humanitarian aid has triggered -- both in the millions of lives it has saved, and in government attitudes transformed by the international response to this crisis.

"The innocent people of North Korea are the reason why our countries are trying to improve our relationships with North Korea.   They, and not their government, give purpose to our diplomatic initiatives and their needs should be put first.  Too often, the long-term benefits that diplomatic progress promise have overshadowed Koreans' immediate needs.  Every missed meal, every missed vaccine, every frigid night spent battling the
freezing weather brings them another step closer to a diminished life, or to death.

"The innocent people I have seen during my visits cannot wait for diplomatic home runs; what they need most are the solid base hits that mark steady progress.  I hope this human reality doesn't get lost in the diplomatic hubbub of summits and politics."