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VII. Recommendations

To the North Korean government

  • Allow international humanitarian agencies, including WFP, to resume necessary food supply operations and to properly monitor aid according to normal international protocols for transparency and accountability. These standards include having access to the entire country, being able to make unannounced visits, and being able to select interviewees at random.

  • Ensure its distribution system is both fair and adequately supplied, or permit citizens alternate means to get food, including access to markets and aid.

  • End discrimination in government distribution of food in favor of high-ranking Workers Party officials, military, intelligence and police officers, and against the “hostile” class deemed politically disloyal to the government and Party.

  • Assist young children, pregnant and nursing women, and the elderly as priority recipients of food aid.

  • Ensure that prisoners receive adequate levels of food, health care, and rest, and that their rights, including their right to be free from physical and mental abuse, are generally respected.

  • Work with relevant U.N. agencies to expand current food-for-work programs for the jobless. Develop programs to prioritize assisting vulnerable populations, such as directly providing food to those incapable of participating in food-for-work programs.

To the South Korean government

  • Encourage North Korea to accept WFP’s new proposal to assist 1.9 million of North Korea’s most vulnerable population, including a guarantee of adequate monitoring for aid distribution (details of WFP’s proposal are explained later in the report).

  • Publicly and privately urge North Korea to guarantee the right to food and other basic rights. Condemn politically motivated discrimination in the allocation of food rations and oppose ongoing restrictions on free expression in North Korea that limit public access to critical information on food supplies. Urge North Korean officials to allow alternatives to the Public Distribution System to improve chances that all North Koreans will have access to a reliable and adequate supply of grain.

  • Insist on using internationally acceptable standards when monitoring the distribution of food aid to North Korea. Such standards include granting monitors access to the entire country and allowing them to select interviewees at random and make unannounced visits.

To the Chinese government

  • Insist on using internationally acceptable standards, as summarized immediately above, when monitoring distribution of food aid to North Korea.

  • Allow humanitarian organizations to operate along North Korean border.

  • Allow people fleeing hunger sanctuary on Chinese soil.

  • As a state party to the Refugee Convention, honor international obligations to protect refugees and stop arresting and repatriating North Koreans to North Korea, where they could face persecution for the simple act of leaving the country without permission in search of food.

To the International Community

  • Continue to offer food aid to meet the needs of North Korea’s vulnerable population on a humanitarian basis.

  • Press North Korea to accept food assistance from the WFP and other aid organizations and to allow such organizations to apply internationally acceptable monitoring standards, including by granting them sufficient freedom of movement to carry out their work.

  • Press China to stop arresting and repatriating North Koreans, and to allow humanitarian NGOs to operate along its border with North Korea.



<<previous  |  index  |  next>>May 2006