S Korea resumes humanitarian aid provision to N Korea

SEOUL, August 4 (Itar-Tass) - South Korea is resuming the provision of
aid to North Korea under the auspices of the government, the Seoul press
reported on Tuesday. The South Korean Unification Ministry announced the
factual completion of the drafting of the project for the provision of
humanitarian aid to the North. The project is designed to support 10
humanitarian organisations engaged in the provision of aid to the North.
According to the Yonhap news agency, South Korea authorised state
funding for 10 North Korea aid organisations Monday, resuming humanitarian
operations that had been frozen since the North conducted nuclear and
rocket tests. But the rare softening move toward Pyongyang drew mixed
reactions among aid organizations in Seoul, as 3.57 billion won (US$2.92
million) worth of funding will go to less than a quarter of 47 applicants.
Some called the selection "arbitrary" and vowed to boycott it.
"The government selected projects that are aimed at helping
disadvantaged groups like toddlers and infants, mothers and the disabled
on grounds that they contribute to the people's livelihoods, their urgency
and effects," the Unification Ministry said in a statement.
The funding shrank considerably from last year, when the ministry
spent more than 10 billion won for 40 aid groups. Spending cuts in other
North Korea projects were also evident, as South Korea executed only 2.8
percent of its yearly budget for economic and humanitarian aid to North
Korea during the first half of this year, or 42.42 billion won out of 1.5
trillion won. Seoul officials cite international sanctions over North
Korea's nuclear and missile activity and the protracted stalemate in
inter-Korean relations as reasons for the hardening aid policy, Yonhap
reported.
An umbrella group of 56 Seoul-based aid organisations, the Korea NGO
Council for Cooperation with North Korea, called an emergency meeting and
vowed not to accept the funding unless its selection criteria is fully
explained. Secretive selection only fuels internal rifts and rivalry, it
said.
"This decision will only drive our aid projects, which continued
cooperatively for nearly 10 years, to division and competition. I wonder
if this arbitrary selection is a way of taming non-governmental
organizations," Park Hyun-seok from Rose Club Korea, a Christian group
focused on medical aid, said in an emergency meeting between aid groups.
Rose Club lost its bid for funding.
But signs of a rift emerged, as some members cited the urgency of
their stalled missions in the North. Kang Young-shik of the Korean Sharing
Movement, which emerged as one of the major beneficiaries with 540 million
won in funding, said his organisation will accept the money, as the
umbrella organization has no binding force over its members. "It is for
each organisation to decide. And we believe this fund should be released
if there isn't more expected anytime soon," Kang said.
According to Yonhap, in a unanimous call, the aid groups urged the
government to lift a ban on humanitarian aid shipments and monitoring
visits to North Korea, put in place after the North's nuclear test in May.
The restrictions have prevented not only aid from state coffers but also
private donations from reaching North Koreans. Sue Kinsler, a
Korean-American and head of the Lighthouse Foundation, which helps orphans
and the disabled in the North, said the living conditions there have
notably deteriorated, with bread factories running short of flour and
children wearing the same clothes her organisation sent last year. "We
also wanted to bring underwear and some clothes for the children, but we
were told those items are not allowed," Kinsler, who visited North Korea
last week with 18 tonnes of flour, soybeans, sugar and vegetable oil,
said. "I saw with my eyes they are experiencing serious food shortages in
the midst of the international sanctions."
Kim Nam-sik, director general of the ministry's Inter-Korean Exchanges
and Cooperation Bureau who attended the aid groups' meeting, said the
government will consider expanding humanitarian aid and cross-border
visits, but its efforts are limited by larger international circumstances,
Yonhap reported. While UN financial and other sanctions are in place to
curb the communist state's nuclear and missile activity, the government
cannot go against the international trend, he said.
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