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S Korea to keep aiding North

"Food aid is provided because food is vital and important ... for development of relations."

Unification Ministry minister Rhee Bong-jo

South Korea will keep sending food aid to the rival North despite the communist regime's demand that international donors halt emergency food shipments and provide development aid instead, an official said yesterday.

"Food aid is provided because food is vital and important ... for development of relations" between the two Koreas, said Vice Minister Rhee Bong-jo of the Unification Ministry.

In Geneva last week, North Korea's Deputy Foreign Minister Choe Su-hon said his country wanted international aid groups to stop all emergency humanitarian aid by the end of the year, and to start providing long-term development assistance. He didn't elaborate.

Some analysts, including Paik Hak-soon of Seoul's Sejong Institute, say Pyongyang is seeking to become less dependent on foreign help.

Others suggest its food shortages might have been eased by contributions from South Korea and China.

Rhee said "it is hard to accept" the claim that South Korean aid supplies are enough to compensate for the loss of foreign assistance.

"North Korea can't get out of chronic food shortages," Rhee said, citing a lack of fertilizer, and inefficient state-run collective farms. "The situation continues to be that humanitarian food assistance to the North is needed."

South Korea has periodically sent the North rice and fertilizer. This year it pledged 508,000 tonnes of rice and 355,600 tonnes of fertilizer, some of it already delivered.

Distribution of South Korean food aid -- made directly to the North rather than through international groups like the UN World Food Program (WFP) -- comes with less stringent monitoring requirements, raising concerns that it might be diverted to North Korea's 1 million-strong military or the country's elite.

Rhee stressed that South Korea's food donations were being delivered to ordinary citizens.

"We will continue exerting efforts on the issue of transparency," he said.

Despite being divided by the world's last Cold War frontier, the two Koreas have made strides toward reconciliation in recent years, especially after a June 2000 summit between their leaders.

Next month, the countries will open an office in North Korea's border city of Kaesong to handle inter-Korean economic projects.

Tomorrow, Pyongyang will host a seminar for South Korean firms wanting to invest in the North.

North Korea, with 22 million people, has relied heavily on foreign assistance since natural disasters and mismanagement caused its economy to collapse in the mid-1990s.

The Rome-based WFP, which provides assistance to about 6.5 million North Koreans, said it would end a decade of emergency food shipments by January and focus on development projects.

On Monday, a senior US official warned that they could no longer provide food to North Korea if it forbids UN monitors from overseeing distribution.

"Our program is dependent on the presence of WFP monitors," said Andrew Natsios, who heads the administration's foreign assistance office.

For the past 10 years, the US has provided over 2 million tonnes of food aid worth US$700 million, Natsios said. The most recent US contribution to North Korea, announced in recent weeks, was 50,800 tonnes.
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