As North Korea slips into the most critical months yet of its food shortage, church leaders are hoping the appointment of a special liaison officer there will help increase aid donations.
Erich Weingartner, a Canadian and former World Council of Churches (WCC) official, will work through the offices of the United Nations' World Food Program in North Korea on an initial one-year assignment.
He was recommended by Action By Churches Together (ACT), the collaborative relief effort by the WCC and Lutheran World Federation that includes participation by the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) and Church World Service (CWS), the relief agency of the National Council of Churches.
According to Victor Hsu, director of the CWS East Asia and Pacific Office, Weingartner will report on each aid shipment received from church-related and other non-governmental organizations. It is hoped that his presence will "assuage fears" about not receiving accurate accounts of how food is distributed, he said.
North Korea's isolation and political ideology, along with the economic sanctions imposed against it, have hampered response to what one World Food Program official called a "slow-motion famine."
Funding for Weingartner -- who was to leave for North Korea the weekend of May 24 -- comes mainly from CWS and other church- related groups, Hsu added.
The timing for the estimated 24 million North Koreans facing starvation is crucial. According to the World Food Program, which has appealed to world governments for assistance, a critical deterioration of the country's food supply will occur between July and September, if additional aid does not arrive before that period.
The U.N. agency reported it was conducting a crop and food supply assessment May 17-24, particularly in the northern regions, where people are said to be eating nonfood items such as pine tree bark and ground corn stalks just to stay alive.
United Methodist Bishop Melvin Talbert of the San Francisco Area, who led a delegation to North Korea last January in his role as NCC president, noted that "it is gratifying for me to hear that others are confirming what we discovered: that the famine is for real."
However, he added, the response from the world community "is far less than it should be for what is needed. I still believe that mass starvation is close at hand."
As a denomination, United Methodists continue to respond to the need for famine relief. Most recently, UMCOR contributed $100,000 to an ACT shipment of 2,000 tons or rice, according to the Rev. S. Michael Hahm, an executive with the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries. The shipment arrived April 21 in North Korea and was distributed at eight different locations.
UMCOR's contribution came from $150,000 raised by United Methodist Korean-American congregations. Their participation has been heightened because of involvement with the reunification issue, Hahm said. "I think we were harvesting some results out of that," he explained.
Hahm is still receiving checks daily from local congregations and has been promoting special offerings by preaching about the famine. Recently, he preached May 11 at a Boston church and on May 18 in Atlanta.
The Rev. Paul Kim, a United Methodist pastor in Ridgefield Park, N.J., and director of the Korean-American Peace Institute, said that even more conservative Korean-Americans have started raising funds for famine relief now that such efforts have been sanctioned by authorities in South Korea. "There is a lot of interest right now in the local churches," he added.
However, aid shipments by nongovernmental organizations and the United Nations alone will not be enough to cover North Korea's food shortage.
In a renewed appeal on April 28, Catherine Bertini, the World Food Program's executive director, warned that an overall food shortfall of 1.1 metric tons still existed and said it could only realistically be made up by large-scale government-to-government aid.
Interaction, a coalition of more than 150 nonprofit relief agencies -- including UMCOR and CWS -- has been lobbying the U.S. government not to make participation in four-way talks among North and South Korea, China and the United States a requirement for additional food assistance.
May 23, 1997
Please give to UMCOR Advance #226435, North Korea Emergency. Give through your local United Methodist church or send financial contributions to: UMCOR, 475 Riverside Dr., Room 330, New York, NY 10115. Call 1-800-554-8583 to make a credit card donation. One hundred percent of your gift goes to relief efforts in North Korea. United Methodists' generous giving to the One Great Hour of Sharing, part of their ongoing contribution to mission around the world, supplements the cost of Advance gifts.
Produced by United Methodist News Service, official news agency of the United Methodist Church.
United Methodist Committee on Relief
Room 330, 475 Riverside Drive, New York, NY 10115
Voice Phone: 212-870-3816; FAX: 212-749-2641
Email: umcor@gbgm-umc.org
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