North Korean Economy Watch

According to Reuters:

Countries appear even less willing to give following North Korea’s second nuclear test in May, Torben Due, the U.N. World Food Programme representative in North Korea, told a news conference in Beijing.

“It’s a very sensitive area. I understand to a certain extent why donors are questioning,” he said. “But my angle is as a humanitarian. Being a humanitarian organisation you should look at the needs of the people. WFP does not engage in the political part of it.”

Due said no new donations had been received following that second test.

An appeal for more than $500 million in food aid has been just 15 percent met, meaning a planned relief operation to reach 6.2 million people has been scaled back to target 2 million.

Due, who lives in Pyongyang and was passing through the Chinese capital, told of the human toll of the state’s struggling economy and international seclusion, with mothers and children stunted by starvation.

“We are now in the middle of the lean season in North Korea, where food supplies are low and it’s a very difficult situation for many people in the country,” he said.

“But more importantly it should be noted that we have a situation where a very large part of the population has been undernourished for 15 or 20 years.”

In some parts of North Korea, some women weigh just 45 kg (99 lb) when they give birth, he added, citing a medical survey.

“The children that survive these conditions will be born with compromised immune systems … and that will contribute to their stunting,” Due said. “It’s a problem which goes from one generation to the next.”

Given the DPRK’s prerogatives, however, the US is not inclined to send food aid.  According to the Associated Press:

The United States said Wednesday it is “very concerned” about the North Korean people but cannot send needed food aid without assurances from their Stalinist government that it will reach them.

“We currently have no plans to provide additional food aid to North Korea and any additional food would have to have assurances that it would be appropriately used,” Kelly told reporters.

“We remain very concerned about the well-being of the North Korean people,” the spokesman said.

“But we are very concerned because we need to have an adequate program management in place, monitoring and access provisions and we don’t have that right now,” he added.

He recalled that in March North Korea expelled non-governmental organization (NGO) monitors in line with its decision to reject US food aid.

“At that time we had about 22,000 metric tonnes in storage there. We’ve learned that the DPRK (North Korean) has distributed this food,” Kelly said. 

I have not seen any food prices from North Korean markets in a while.  If anyone has come across any, please send them to me. 

Recent defectors offer a more nuanced account:

The food supply in the North may have improved slightly in the past two years due to better weather, but Jo said food still is hard to come by. “Even last year, we had a campaign in Kangwon province of getting by with two meals a day. Soldiers sometimes would just get three potatoes a day.”

There is a thriving market economy in North Korea at the local level where the average person buys food staples and consumer goods often made in China. Private plots of land are increasingly used for providing food for one’s family, said Cho Myungchul, a researcher who was an economist in the North before defecting to the South 15 years ago. (Reuters)

Read more here:
U.N. says North Korea food aid has dried up
Reuters
Ben Blanchard
7/1/2009

US cannot send food aid to NKorea despites its concerns
AFP
6/1/2009

Life in North Korea: lies, potatoes and cable TV
Reuters
Jack Kim
7/1/2009

On January 21, the day after the Obama administration took office, the White House approved certain trade sanctions–initiated by the Bush administration–to be printed in the Federal Register.  These sanctions targeted specific Chinese, Iranian, and North Korean companies that the US believes were/are violating arms export regulations governing missile technology and other proliferation activities.  [Read more, including Federal Register text, here]

After North Korea conducted a long-range missile test in April, the US pushed the UN Security Council to adopt a presidential statement which blacklists several additional North Korean firms. [Read more here].

After North Korea conducted a second nuclear test, in violation of UNSC resolution, the UNSC adopted a resolution which tightened sanctions on the DPRK. [Read more here]

In June, the South Korean government imposed sanctions on these DPRK companies for the first time [Read more here]

The US followed up the UNSC resolution by announcing an inter-agency team that will focus exclusively on enforcing DPRK sanctions [Read more here] 

Today, the US Treasury Department announced it was targeting Hong Kong Electronics (Kish Island, Iran) [from where a former FBI agent is still missing] for supporting the balcklisted North Korean organizations.  According to Market Watch:

The Treasury Department said Tuesday that it has targeted another player in North Korea’s missile proliferation network. The agency designated Hong Kong Electronics, located in Kish Island, Iran, for providing support to North Korea’s Tanchon Commercial Bank and Korea Mining Development Trading Corp. Those two firms have been targeted by the U.S. and the United Nations as part of North Korea’s nuclear proliferation network. “Today’s action is a part of our overall effort to prevent North Korea from misusing the international financial system to advance its nuclear and missile programs and to sell dangerous technology around the world,” said Stuart Levy, Treasury under-secretary for terrorism.

What does this mean? It means that any bank accounts or other financial assets found in the United States belonging to the company must be frozen. Americans also are forbidden from doing business with the firm. This probably does not amount to much economically, but is probably intended to discourage banks outside of the US from doing business with these firms.

UPDATE 1: It looks like the State Departmet is also going after a North Korean company believe to be involved in weapons proliferation today.  According to a statement by the Treasury Department:

The U.S. Department of the Treasury today targeted North Korea’s missile proliferation network by designating Hong Kong Electronics under Executive Order 13382.  E.O. 13382 freezes the assets of designated proliferators of weapons of mass destruction and their supporters and prohibits U.S. persons from engaging in any transactions with them, thereby isolating them from the U.S. financial and commercial systems.  Hong Kong Electronics, located in Kish Island, Iran, has been designated for providing support to North Korea’s Tanchon Commercial Bank (Tanchon) and Korea Mining Development Trading Corporation (KOMID).

Tanchon and KOMID have also been designated by the United States under E.O. 13382 and the UN Security Council under Resolution 1718. The Department of State also today targeted North Korea’s nuclear proliferation network by designating Namchongang Trading Corporation (NCG), a North Korean nuclear-related company in Pyongyang, under E.O. 13382. 

“North Korea uses front companies like Hong Kong Electronics and a range of other deceptive practices to obscure the true nature of its financial dealings, making it nearly impossible for responsible banks and governments to distinguish legitimate from illegitimate North Korean transactions,” said Stuart Levey, Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence. “Today’s action is a part of our overall effort to prevent North Korea from misusing the international financial system to advance its nuclear and missile programs and to sell dangerous technology around the world.”

Since 2007, Hong Kong Electronics has transferred millions of dollars of proliferation- related funds on behalf of Tanchon and KOMID. Hong Kong Electronics has also facilitated the movement of money from Iran to North Korea on behalf of KOMID. Tanchon, a commercial bank based in Pyongyang, North Korea, is the financial arm for KOMID - North Korea’s premier arms dealer and main exporter of goods and equipment related to ballistic missiles and conventional weapons.

Tanchon plays a key role in financing the sales of ballistic missiles for KOMID. Tanchon has also been involved in financing ballistic missile sales from KOMID to Iran’s Shahid Hemmat Industrial Group (SHIG), which is the Iranian organization responsible for developing liquid-fueled missiles. SHIG has been designated under E.O. 13382 and sanctioned by the United Nations under UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1737. Since 2005, Tanchon has maintained an active relationship with various branches of Iran’s Bank Sepah, an entity designated under E.O. 13382 and sanctioned by the United Nations under UNSCR 1747, for providing financial services to Iran’s missile program. The U.S. has reason to believe that the Tanchon-Bank Sepah relationship has been used for North Korea-Iran proliferation-related transactions.

Here is the press release by the State Department:

The U.S. Department of State today targeted North Korea’s nuclear proliferation network by designating Namchongang Trading Corporation (NCG) under Executive Order 13382. E.O. 13382 is an authority aimed at freezing the assets of proliferators of weapons of mass destruction and their supporters, and at isolating them from the U.S. financial and commercial systems. Entities designated under E.O. 13382 are prohibited from engaging in all transactions with any U.S. person and are subject to a U.S. asset freeze.

NCG is a North Korean nuclear-related company in Pyongyang. It has been involved in the purchase of aluminum tubes and other equipment specifically suitable for a uranium enrichment program since the late 1990s.

The Department of the Treasury also today designated Hong Kong Electronics, located in Kish Island, Iran, for providing support to North Korea’s Tanchon Commercial Bank (Tanchon) and Korea Mining Development Trading Corporation (KOMID). Tanchon and KOMID were designated by the United States under E.O. 13382 on June 28, 2005 and the UN Security Council under Resolution 1718 on April 24, 2009.

North Korea’s April 5, 2009 launch of a Taepo Dong-2 (TD-2) missile and May 25, 2009 nuclear test demonstrate a need for continued vigilance with respect to North Korea’s activities of proliferation concern. The designations add to continuing U.S. efforts to prevent North Korean entities of proliferation concern from accessing financial and commercial markets that could aid the regime’s efforts to develop nuclear weapons and the missiles capable of delivering them.

McClatchy has more here.

According to the Washington Post:

The White House is ramping up its efforts to enforce sanctions against North Korea by forming a new interagency team to coordinate U.S. actions with other nations, senior administration officials said today.

The new team will be led by former ambassador to Bolivia Philip S. Goldberg, who is slated to leave for China in the near future as the U.S seeks concerted action to stop the North Korean regime from developing nuclear weapons.

“There is a broad consensus about the need to have a focused and engaged effort to see that these sanctions are implemented … and that we’re sharing information with each other,” one official said, speaking on background.

U.S. officials described the new group as a way to focus the administration more squarely on implementation of the latest sanctions, which were approved by the United Nations in the wake of North Korea’s nuclear test last month.

The officials said they are hoping the group — with representatives from the State Department, the White House, the National Security Agency, Treasury and others — will help “shine a spotlight” on the actions of the regime.

“We wanted somebody who woke up every morning and thought about nothing but sanctions implementation,” one official said. “It’s a huge difference when you have somebody who isn’t worried about any of the other aspects of this.”

The White House also announced a renewed effort to use the authority of the U.N. resolution to take financial actions against the North Korean regime in an effort to choke off the money flowing from small arms trade and other activity.

Treasury officials have issued a public memorandum to private financial institutions reminding them of the global condemnation and other risks of doing business with the North Korean regime.

The letter warns that North Korean banks and institutions often use deceptive techniques to engage in financial transactions that could place legitimate financial firms at risk.

“Financial institutions should apply enhanced scrutiny to any such correspondent accounts they maintain, including with respect to transaction monitoring,” the letter states.

One senior official said the U.S. is confident that the financial sanctions will over time help to further isolate North Korea and pressure its leaders to abandon its nuclear program.

“It’s going to take time to have a bite,” he conceded. “But we’re trying to get out of the box quickly.”

The Bush administration also had a sustained effort to implement United Nations sanctions after North Korea first tested a nuclear weapon in 2006.

The Counterproliferation Directorate of the White House National Security Council coordinated the effort, while the State Department and Treasury also co-chaired an interagency effort to examine specific cases that eventually worked their way up the chain for approval.

A team of senior officials, led by the undersecretary of State for arms control, traveled to Asia to work closely with allies. But the effort was dropped after Bush shifted course and decided to pursue diplomacy with North Korea.

Their first stops: China then Malaysia.

Citations:
New North Korea Sanctions Team Formed
Washington Post
Michael D. Shear and Glenn Kessler
6/26/2009

U.S. North Korea sanctions team to visit Malaysia
Reuters UK
7/2/2009

UPDATE 6/23/09 (24 in Korea): Ling and Lee met with the Swedish Ambasador to Pyongyang today. No other detials were provided.

UPDATE: KCNA has issued their most detailed statement yet of the Lee/Ling situation:

KCNA Detailed Report on Truth about Crimes Committed by American Journalists
 
Pyongyang, June 16 (KCNA) — The Korean Central News Agency on Tuesday released a detailed report laying bare the facts about the crimes committed by the American journalists who were arrested for having illegally trespassed into the border of the DPRK and committed hostile acts against it for which they were tried.

According to it, at dawn of March 17 unidentified two men and two women covertly crossed the River Tuman to intrude into its bank of the DPRK side in Kangan-ri, Onsong County, North Hamgyong Province. The two women were arrested on the spot.

The arrestees were confirmed to be Chinese-American Laura Ling, 32, correspondent of the Current TV, and south Korean-American Seung-Un Lee, 36, editor of the Current TV.

The investigation proved that the intruders crossed the border and committed the crime for the purpose of making animation files to be used for an anti-DPRK smear campaign over its human rights issue.

The preliminary investigation proved that they had a confab on producing and broadcasting a documentary slandering the DPRK with Mitch Koss, executive producer of programming of the Current TV, David Neuman, president of programming, and David Harleston, head of the Legal Department of Current TV, and other men in Los Angeles, U.S. in January.

A trial of the accused was held at the Pyongyang City Court from June 4 to 8.

At the trial the accused admitted that what they did were criminal acts committed, prompted by the political motive to isolate and stifle the socialist system of the DPRK by faking up moving images aimed at falsifying its human rights performance and hurling slanders and calumnies at it.

In the name of the DPRK the Central Court determined ten years of hard labor according to Provision 69 of the Criminal Code and four years of hard labor according to Provision 233 of the Criminal Code for the accused Laura Ling and Seung-Un Lee and sentenced them to 12 years of hard labor according to Provision 44 of the Criminal Code.

The prison term is counted from March 22, 2009, when the accused were detained and it was pronounced that the judgment is unappealable.

The criminals admitted and accepted the judgment.

We are following with a high degree of vigilance the attitude of the U.S. which spawned the criminal act against the DPRK.

ORIGINAL POST: Euna Lee and Laura Ling have been sentenced to 12 years of ”reform through labor.”  According to the Los Angeles Times:

Two American television journalists today were convicted of a “grave crime” against North Korea and sentenced to 12 years of hard labor, a move that increased mounting tensions between the U.S. and the reclusive Asian state.

The state-run Korean Central News Agency reported that the court “sentenced each of them to 12 years of reform through labor” but gave no further details.

Because the pair were tried by the nation’s highest court, there can be no appeal.

The women’s trial was not open to the public.

“The North Koreans are not in a hurry to release them. They see them as valuable pawns,” said an aide official who works in Pyongyang, speaking on condition of anonymity a few days before the trial began.

Both women are married and Lee, who is Korean American, has a 4-year-old daughter. In recent days, their plight has drawn worldwide attention.

Read more here:
North Korea sentences 2 U.S. reporters to prison
Los Angeles Times
John M. Glionna and Barbara Demick
6/8/2009

The official KCNA statement can be read here

Read previous posts about this story below:

(more…)

DPRK citizens forbidden from entering Google offices?
According to this article in Britain’s Daily Mail:

When you visit the shiny headquarters of Google UK, just a stone’s throw from Victoria Station in London, the receptionist asks you to log-in on a computer with a touch screen.

How else would you sign in? This is one of the centres of the cyber universe.

And then something strange happens. Before you can be issued a pass, the computer asks you to enter into a ‘ nondisclosure agreement’ with Google Inc., a 499-word document.

You must agree not to disclose any confidential information that you might stumble upon while in the building.

In particular, the Participant (that’s you) ‘hereby certifies that he/she shall not  -  directly or indirectly  -  sell, export, re- export, transfer, divert, or otherwise dispose of any hardware, software, source code or technology . . . without obtaining prior authorisation from Google and the appropriate government authorities’.

In addition, you must even certify that you are not a citizen of Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan or Syria.

Some readers will recall a similar incident with LinkedIn a few weeks back (which has since been resolved).

Jackie Chan
Following Jackie Chan’s comments that he believed Chinese people “need to be controlled,”  some Hong Kong residents created a Facebook group dedicated to sending him to the DPRK.  If you are a member of Facebook, check out the group page here.

Great Photos
(Hat tip to David) The Boston Globe posted a great set of photos from North Korea’s boder with China.  I am not easily impressed with photos of the DPRK, but these are good.

(Addition Al Jazeera)
Last night Scott Snyder and Alejandro Cao de Benos were on Al Jazeera’s Riz Khan.  Part 1 here.  Part 2 here.

Anna Louise Strong (November 24, 1885 – March 29, 1970) was a twentieth-century American journalist and activist best known for her reporting on and support for communist movements in the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China.

In 1949 she wrote a pamphlet for Soviet Russia Today titled, “In North Korea: First Eye-Witness Report” (Many will be familiar with the DPRK equivalent, Korea Today, which has survived long enough to be published on the internet)

The text is relatively short, but since this is exam season, I will not get around to it for a couple of weeks.  Enjoy.

(hat tip Alina)

US Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) has introduced legislation which would require the the US governmet to add the DPRK back to its list of state sponsors of terror.  If passed by the legislature and signed by the president, this would reverse the decision by Republican President George W. Bush, who had the DPRK removed from the list in October of last year. 

The bill is S. 837.  It has been referred to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.  I am not a political insider, so I do not have any insight into how long it will remain there or if it has any chance of passing a committee vote.  Joshua will probably be following the bill closely will be actively seeking the bill’s passage, so we can expect updates at One Free Korea.

I cannot offer any analysis of the proposed legislation since the Government Printing Office has not yet published the bill’s text (so it is not on line at the moment). You can track the bill’s progress here.  Thomas has a list of cosponsors, etc.

UPDATE: Joshua has a link to a copy of the Senate bill as well as information on the corresponding House bill.

UPDATE:  According to the band (via Christian Post):

“Made many friends. We performed twice and were awarded for the performance of Lifesong,” he added Monday. “We also recorded the Korean song, White Dove, in their studio in Pyongyang.”

ORIGINAL POST: According to the Christian Post:

Contemporary Christian band Casting Crowns will again participate in North Korea’s annual Spring Friendship Arts Festival but this time won’t be the only U.S. Christian group there performing.

The Grammy Award-winning band will be joined by the Annie Moses Band (AMB), a five-sibling ensemble whose ages range from ten to 24.

“In early December we received an official invitation from the North Korean government to perform in the Spring Friendship Arts Festival,” AMB lead vocalist and violinist Annie Wolaver told The Christian Post on Friday.

“We have been praying for many years that the Lord would open doors for us to tour overseas. We had some grand visions of playing Celtic jigs in the Scottish highlands, but instead He opened a door that was entirely unexpected,” she reported.

Two years ago, Casting Crowns was invited to perform at the 25th Annual April Spring Arts Festival with help from Global Resource Services (GRS), which has worked in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea - the official name of North Korea - for more than a decade.

The annual Spring Arts Festival reportedly emphasizes artistic exchange and promotes peace and good will.

According to GRS, the band was well received and even drew praise from the vice chairman of the festival, Jang Chol-sun, who expressed his hope that groups like GRS, Casting Crowns and the people of North Korea can work together to bring unity and peace.

Here is a web page by Jason Carter who performed in this show some years ago.

Read the full article here:
Casting Crowns to Return to North Korea for ‘Friendship’ Festival
By Josh Kimball
Christian Post
4/10/2009

Over the last few years, the European Union has pursued an engagement policy with North Korea.   MEP Glyn Ford makes regular trips to Pyongyang to facilitate diplomatic progress; the German Freidrich Naumann Foundation runs economic education courses; European donors founded the Pyongyang Business School; and a small group of European ex-pat businessmen formed a de facto chamber of commerce, the European Business Association in Pyongyang.  Although European companies have experienced mixed success in the DPRK they continue to look for new opportunities. 

This morning, however, Felix Abt, a Swiss director of the PyongSu Pharmaceutical Joint Venture Co. in Pyongyang informs me that his life insurance policy (purchased from a European company) has been cancelled. 

“A European life insurance company cancelled my life insurance because I am a dangerous person living in a dangerous country. Credit card organisations cancel credit cards for such persons in such countries, health insurance companies come up with other reservations and limitations and the latest organisation that has just expelled me is LinkedIn with a very curious explanation.”

I am unsure how the cancellation of life insurance policies could impact other Europen investments in the DPRK, but the marginal effect cannot be positive.  Mr. Abt has been a resident of Pyongyang for years where he manufactures Western-quality pharmaceuticals.  Needless to say, the DPRK is very much in need of his services, so it is a shame that after all this time he is now considered a liability by his insurer.

Mr. Abt also forwarded his rejection from the business networking site LinkedIn, which is posted below:
 

Apparently LinkedIn’s legal department considers logging into the server as “receiving goods of US origin” (the software I presume), and so it prohibits account holders, or even logging in, from Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan and Syria—even if they are Swiss.

Below are excerpts from the Financial Times:

Pyongyang has told Washington that United Nations World Food Programme [WFP] staff will be barred from distributing food aid after March. The Stalinist regime has also told US non-governmental organisations to leave this month, and rescinded permission for other humanitarian groups to visit, the Financial Times has learned.

In an agreement last year, the US agreed to provide North Korea with 500,000 tonnes of food. The WFP was responsible for distributing 400,000 tonnes, with a consortium of NGOs led by MercyCorps in charge of the remainder.

…

In recent months, however, after North Korea refused to allow sufficient numbers of Korean speakers to join the WFP team, Washington halted food supplies.

Pyongyang has responded by barring food aid workers from operating in the country. So far, the US has supplied 100,000 tonnes to the WFP, and another 70,000 tonnes to the NGOs, which has not been completely distributed.

A US State Department official said that while the US was satisfied with the number of Korean speakers who were allowed to join the NGOs, it was unhappy that the same situation was not true for the WFP, which is responsible for distributing 80 per cent of the food. In addition to MercyCorps, the other NGOs are World Vision, Global Resource Services, Christian Friends of Korea and Samaritan’s Purse.

The official said the US was also responding to North Korea blocking aid workers from conducting a nutritional survey, which was included in the agreement.

“US aid workers have enjoyed tremendous co-operation in the countryside from North Koreans and we hope the DPRK government in Pyongyang will allow them to continue to feed the hungry,” said a Senate aide involved in North Korean issues. “Food aid should be separated from politics.”

Even before the North Korean threat, WFP had been forced to scale back operations because of the break in US funding. The WFP has only received 4.5 per cent of its $504m budget for North Korean operations. A WFP spokesperson said 4.5m of the 6.2m North Koreans targeted under the programme were not receiving assistance as of December.

“WFP hopes that the US will review the humanitarian situation and that food shipments will resume soon,” the spokesperson added.

North Korea recently informed the US that Eugene Bell, World Care and Kirk Humanitarian – three other US NGOs operating in North Korea – would not be allowed to make visits that were already approved. Pyongyang told the US that the planned visits were being cancelled because of “recent developments”.

Nancy Lindborg, president of MercyCorps, said North Korea sometimes temporarily blocked NGOs from visiting. However, she added that she was “hopeful and confident” that the visits would resume. She said her consortium had a “good working relationship” with its North Korean partners.

Read the full article here:
N Korea-US distrust halts food aid
Financial Times
Demetri Sevastopulo
3/17/2009

Below: State Department Briefing, Mercy Corps Press Release
US State Dept press briefing
Robert Wood, Acting Department Spokesman
March 17, 2009

QUESTION: Do you have anything to say or to confirm about North Korea cutting off or saying it does not want U.S. food aid –
MR. WOOD: Yeah.
QUESTION: — and kicking out U.S. NGOs over an accelerated timeline?
MR. WOOD: Yeah, yeah. North Korea has informed the United States that it does not wish to receive additional U.S. food assistance at this time. And we will work with U.S. NGOs and their North Korean counterparts to ensure that food that’s already been delivered – excuse me, food that’s already in North Korea is distributed to the intended recipients. And one of the things I also want to mention is that we have aimed to implement the U.S.-DPRK food aid program according to the terms agreed to by the United States and the North Korean Government in May 2008.
And I will give you just a breakdown in terms of the amount of food aid that we have provided. The U.S. has delivered 169,000 metric tons of U.S. food to North Korea in 2008 and 2009. The last shipment of U.S. food aid, which was nearly 5,000 metric tons of vegetable oil and soy blend, arrived in North Korea in late January and is being distributed by U.S. NGOs.
QUESTION: (Inaudible) of that?
MR. WOOD: Of which one, the 5,000 metric tons? Yeah, I am sorry. I don’t have any – any value here. We can try and get that to you in the Press Office.
QUESTION: Could you say when you were notified of this and how you were notified?
MR. WOOD: I don’t know, but it was obviously communicated to us by the North Koreans. I don’t know how that was done, whether it was done through the New York channel or some –
QUESTION: (Inaudible)?
MR. WOOD: Yeah, I just – I don’t know.
QUESTION: Last week maybe?
QUESTION: Just a clarification?
MR. WOOD: Yeah.
QUESTION: You said it’s being distributed by U.S. NGOs or UN NGOs?
MR. WOOD: U.S.
QUESTION: U.S.
QUESTION: Of the (inaudible) metric tons, what is it of? Is it grain? Is it – what is it?
MR. WOOD: Well, I’ll have to get the specifics on it, but I refer to our last shipment of U.S. food, which was, you know –
QUESTION: Oil and soy blend.
MR. WOOD: That’s right. I don’t have that breakdown. We can certainly try and get that for you, Sue.
QUESTION: Okay. .
QUESTION: (Inaudible), are you disappointed in this?
MR. WOOD: Of course. Absolutely. I mean, this was a program intended to try to help get food to needy North Koreans, and we’re obviously disappointed in that. This, you know, does not help us implement this agreement that we reached with the North back in 2008, so –
QUESTION: Well, not only does it not help you implement it, it kind of – I mean, are they abrogating the agreement?
MR. WOOD: Well, I don’t have the actual text of the agreement, so I can’t say with absolute specificity that they’re in violation of it. But we have an agreement to try to deliver, you know, this food assistance, and now the North is saying they do not want to receive any more assistance. So you know, we’re concerned about it.
But the food that is there right now in North Korea, we’re going to work with U.S. NGOs, with their North Korean counterparts, to make sure that this assistance gets to the people who –
QUESTION: Can you be a little bit more explicit about why you’re concerned about it, why you’re disappointed?
MR. WOOD: Well, I mean, clearly this is food assistance that the North Korean people need. That’s why we’re concerned. You know, this humanitarian assistance that we provide to the North has nothing to do with the Six-Party Talks. This is about our true humanitarian concern for these people. And as you know, the food situation in North Korea is not a good one, and so we’re very concerned about it.
QUESTION: Did they give you any explanation why they won’t – they didn’t want any more?
MR. WOOD: They have just said that they do not want to receive any additional food assistance at this time. That’s about as far as they went.
QUESTION: But no reason was provided at all? Just a one-sentence note you got?
MR. WOOD: I mean, it’s – I don’t know if it was one sentence that was given to us, but you know, that was the bottom line. And that’s the most important part of this.
QUESTION: And when did they inform you?
MR. WOOD: It was, I think, over the last couple of days, I believe.
QUESTION: Robert, do you know what the accelerated timeline for the withdrawal of the NGOs will be?
MR. WOOD: I don’t know.
QUESTION: It was supposed to be the end of May.
MR. WOOD: Yeah, I don’t know. Again, probably the best folks to address that are the North Koreans.

Press Release by relief organizations:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

March 19, 2008                                                                     

STATEMENT OF NGO PARTNERS ON CESSATION OF FOOD AID PROGRAM IN THE DEMOCRATIC PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF KOREA (DPRK)

Contacts:  Joy Portella, +1.206.437.7885, jportella@sea.mercycorps.org

March 19, 2009—The following is a statement issued by the NGO Partners that have been distributing food aid in the DPRK through a program supported by the U.S. Agency fro International Development (USAID). The NGO Partnership is led by Mercy Corps, co-led by World Vision, and includes Christian Friends of Korea, Global Resource Services and Samaritan’s Purse:

This week, North Korean authorities have asked us to close the USAID-supported food assistance program that we have been operating since June 2008. Our joint team, dedicated to this program, will leave the DPRK by the end of March.
 
We are saddened by this decision, but are very proud of what the program has accomplished.  Working closely with our North Korean partner, we have ensured that food reached almost one million vulnerable children, pregnant and nursing mothers and the elderly.
 
Each of our organizations has worked in the DPRK for more than a decade. We remain committed to assistance in that country, and our individual, on-going programs focused on health, water, sanitation and agriculture will continue as before.
 
The NGO Food Assistance program is part of a larger 500,000 metric ton initiative supported by USAID in which the World Food Program was to distribute 400,000 metric tons of food and the NGO Partners were to distribute 100,000 metric tons.  In the ten months of this program, 169,000 metric tons of food has been delivered to the DPRK, of which the U.S. NGOs have brought in 71,000 metric tons of food.  This food from NGOs has benefitted more than 900,000 people in the two north west provinces of Chagang and North Pyongan.
 
This has been a model program with unparalleled monitoring cooperation to ensure that food gets to those most in need. Our in-country staff of 16 people has worked closely with our North Korean partners.
 
The NGO food assistance program was scheduled to run until the end of May 2009. Until the end of the month, we will work with our North Korean partners to ensure a proper close-out.
 
We remain committed to helping the people of the DPRK to overcome hunger and improve their lives. The food program resulted from the tremendous humanitarian need in the DPRK. We will continue to work—as individual agencies and in cooperative partnerships—to address these needs. We hope the success of this program will serve as a model for the future.