Helpers' patience is exhausted

By Jutta Lietsch, Die Tageszeitung
Translated by Johanna Timm

       Several relief organizations including Cap Anamur have tried to alleviate the suffering of the people in impoverished North Korea. But instead of supporting these efforts, the Pyongyang government has tried to thwart effective work whenever it can.

The director of the relief organization Cap Anamur, Rupert Neudeck, did not hide his disappointment when returning from his last visit in North Korea at the beginning of this week. "It does not get better. The people don't have enough food, they are exhausted, and many children are physically and mentally scarred for life."

Members of Cap Anamur have been helping in North Korea since 1998. They are repairing hospitals, supplying them with food, heating materials, and drugs. The organization has so far spent a total of DEM 12.3 million in donation money. A relief transport valued at DEM 2.5 million is on its way.

Currently seven private international relief organizations and several UNO organisations are working in North Korea, a region that is rigorously cut off from the outside world. Most of these helpers arrived in the nineties, when the first reports about the lasting hunger crisis became public. The number of the victims is yet to be determined. According to official sources, more than 200,000 people have died from hunger and malnutrition. However, experts estimate that in the meantime, up to three million North Koreans have lost their lives.

For Rupert Neudeck, the most disturbing fact is the lack of support received from the N. Korean authorities for their efforts to alleviate their life and work. "They prevent us from working effectively," Neudeck complains.

Nothing happens without North Korean supervisors. Contact with the local population are strictly prohibited. The four German Cap Anamur members are not allowed to visit their project hospitals without a special permit. And this situation has not changed even after Berlin and Pyongyang entered into diplomatic relations, Neudeck explains.

While the helpers are allowed to drive without supervision within the capital, they need a permit to leave Pyongyang. But for the very first time it has been possible for a Cap Anamur physician to conduct training courses for his North Korean colleagues.

It is also considered a concession that German members are permitted to spend the night somewhere outside of the capital. In such cases they must stay in state-owned guest houses that charge fees amounting to $60.00 per person and night. They must not leave their hotels during their free time. Today Cap Anamur is working in two provinces in the south and the central area of Korea. In the next half year, the group plans to refurbish four additional hospitals in the north. But there are still insatiable demands: for years, houses and public buildings have been neglected, roofs and walls have deteriorated, physicians occasionally have to operate without using anesthesia, and patients are starving," states Neudeck.

Nevertheless, there are no indications of reforms. To the contrary, Kim Jong-il's government is playing a bizarre double game: On the one hand it professes to its own population to be quite unique and independent from other countries. On the other hand it is only able to cling to its power by accepting millions of tons of grain and other food, including donations from South Korea and the United States.

 For now, Neudeck and his fellow-workers do not plan to discontinue their support actions for North Korea. However, Neudeck admits that they "soon we will be at (their) wits' end." Therefore he urges the German government to at long last seriously demand better work conditions for the helpers in North Korea.