[Editorial] Humanitarian Aide Not Affected by South's Politics

The Red Cross General Hospital, North Korea's largest general care facility, reopened its general surgery center on October 14. It was put out of commission by a fire last year, but now since then the South's Ulchi Hospital and the Korean Sharing Movement gave donated equipment and materials so that they could turn it into a modern institution using Northern labor. It is satisfying just hearing that on the day the renovation was completed staff from both North and South treated three patients with serious disk problems and that their situations have greatly improved since. It is even more meaningful for having happened at a time when the South is experiencing political confusion.

Humanitarian exchange and cooperation with the North has long been influenced not only by the state of intra-Korean relations but also by the internal political situation in the South. The fact of the matter is that humanitarian assistance in the form of rice, fertilizer, and pharmaceuticals and also course private exchange and cooperation get stalled when there is intra-Korean discord because of the North Korean nuclear issue or if the South's different political factions are at war with each other, because there's no way you can ignore the attacks put on by certain politicians and media as they take issue with the "unilateral pouring of aide" on the North, suggest that aid is being diverted, or call for "reciprocity."

Private aid projects are already at the stage where they are beginning to go think about qualitative change. That's because tangible items such as rice and fertilizer are important, but fundamentally there desperately needs to be investment in basic facilities that would increase the ability of people living in North Korea to help themselves. One by one there are concrete examples of that happening. Last spring a private group used monetary donations as seed money for building a bread factory in Pyongyang that now supplies 10,000 pieces of "health bread" to day care centers and kindergartens. A factory in the city that can produce 5 million bottles of Ringers solution was completed in June and is now in operation. Both factories enjoy regular supplies because of the monthly donations of thousands of Southerners. In September the citizens of Ulsan began collecting donations to build a noodle factory in Pyongyang's Mangyongdae area. Such voluntary and mature aid and cooperation projects by civil society must not be thwarted for political reasons. On the occasion of the reopening of Pyongyang's Red Cross General Hospital, we hope to see the establishment of a firmly rooted tradition of unshaken humanitarian aid.

The Hankyoreh, 17 October 2005.

[Translations by Seoul Selection (PMS)]