North Korea
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The Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea has experienced suffering from food shortage since the 1990s. The end of the Cold War marked stoppage of assistance to North Korea from the Soviet Union in addition to natural disasters such as heavy rain in 1995 only made the situation detrimental. In 1994, country was shaken by severe hail storms that destroyed the harvest followed by the heavy rain destroyed its infrastructure, irrigation networks and wiped out 3 million tons of grain. The disaster also displaced citizens and as a result the famine killed 10% of North Koreas 23 million populations. DPRKs food shortage also began with poor economic management. Inability to import goods made North Koreas food shortage substantially worsened. DPRKs economic policy is driven by juche, meaning North Korean leader is “the singular driving force for independent action on which everyone else is dependent (Snyder, p.1)”. “Juche” is based on belief in sufficiency and independence by individual and the state. However, given its lack of natural resource and poor management, it is impossible for the regime to live by such philosophy. DPRK in 1995 was economically isolated with no support from other countries. The natural disaster left the country devastated. Even before the flooding of 1995, North Korean citizens were provided with scant food rationing of an average of 585 grams per day (Forde, 1998). People began to resort to eating grass, resulting massive starvation of the people. Children were heavily affected by the famine. They were malnourished and their growth stunted. Situation has not improved even now, as North Koreas famine index this year scored at 19, which used to be 15.7 in 1990. The famine index is scaled from 0-100; 0 meaning no starvation and 100 meaning the entire population is suffering from starvation. It is said that any score over 10 is serious (Chosun Media, 2012). The truth is North Korea wouldnt be able to support itself even if it reformed its agricultural policy. Achieving food security would have to be done by earning hard currency to buy food on the international markets. However, the export earnings by North Korea were small. Also, its stance on DPRK-U.S. talks on security issues and refusal to agree on non-proliferation agreement makes it hard for external investment to take place in North Korea still. Combining effects of decreasing food output, reduction in trade, depletion of its grain stock, no source of capital for imports and poor management of the economy has consequently has led the countrys situation deplorable. When the crisis hit in the 1990s, the DPRK government asked for assistance to the international community for the first time since it had isolated itself. Yet, the government still focused its food distribution to the military, political elites, and workers working in industries designed to rebuild the economy. This only made the external help hesitant.
Several NGOs and the international society have contributed in mitigating the food shortage, medical treatment, and agricultural development in North Korea since the 1990s. Some of the NGOs involved were Oxfam, the Red Cross, Caritas International, Medicines sans Frontiers, World Vision. Many of them left DPRK because of the constraint they faced from authorities prevented monitoring. Food aid also came from the international community. U.S. alone gave 1.8 million metric tons; valued at $591 million (Smith, 2002, p.9). The problems that NGOs faced in North Korea were different than in any other humanitarian assistance situations. Neither DPRK nor NGOs had experience working with each other prior to the famine of 1990s. NGOs had very little knowledge of DPRKs situation and the government of DPRK also had lack of knowledge and understanding of requirements for international humanitarian assistance. DPRK limited giving NGOs access to its people. NGOs were constrained in monitoring, assessment, and evaluation (Smith, 2002, p.7). NGOs such as the Red Cross and American Service Committee were under surveillance by North Korean authorities regarding how, where and when they could assist. NGOs had to be assisted to everywhere they went and couldnt deploy Korean speaking assistant from the aid agency. NGOs were facing dilemmas as the government restricted much of assistance work to assess how much of their aid actually reached its intended recipients. This was one of the biggest problems that NGOs faced as the DPRK government only provided information that it thought was necessary for NGOs to know. The government also imposed one week notification prior of site visits, and didnt allow agencies to conduct nutritional surveys to determine who needed the most aid. Major concern for NGOs was that the most vulnerable and needed population received any aid and even found out that aids were redirected to the military and the political elites of North Korea.
The Old humanitarianism is based on the principles of neutrality, impartiality, humanity and independence as the Red Cross Fundamental Principles states. These principles imply that humanitarian assistance is assessed without discrimination. In order to be impartial, humanitarian organizations have to be independent from religious, political, class and ethnic influence. The New Humanitarianism relates to humanitarian aid as more than juts delivering aid, and addressing the underlying problem of the human rights violations. Complexity of worlds conflicts brought new type of humanitarian assistance, addressing the underlying problem of human rights violations. NGOs began to take on development assistance and peacekeeping operation within conflicting states. There was realization that alleviating human suffering was insufficient and instead called for militarization of humanitarian assistance. More effort was needed to be made for human rights and stable and legitimate government. The New humanitarianism sees limits of sovereignty and supports political action to protect the neglected and abused citizens.
According to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies seven Fundamental Principles, humanity, impartiality, neutrality, and independence are the essential principles that should be upheld by the IFRC. Principle of the Old humanitarianism stands firm in working with North Korea. Because of political circumstances, the IFRC should raise money with non government affiliated organizations to send donation to North Korea. This is the only way North Korean government would let the aid distributed even if was distributed strictly under the government control. South Korea is one of the biggest donors to North Korea. The South Korean government alone gave about 450 million dollars and of the total amount of aid from the international community, South Korean aid accounts for 28.6% (from 1995-2001) (Relief