hankyoreh

NGOs and aid organizations gather at the Seoul Global Center to demand the relaxation of UN sanctions on North Korea on Jan. 14.

In Shakespeare’s comedy “The Merchant of Venice,” the merchant Antonio takes out a massive loan from Shylock, a Jewish moneylender. Antonio promises Shylock that, if he’s unable to repay the loan, Shylock can have the flesh that is nearest his heart. Though Antonio’s unexpected bankruptcy leaves him unable to pay back his loan, a judge frees him from his predicament by ruling that Shylock can cut out the flesh, provided that he doesn’t spill any blood.

The court’s judgment against Shylock is analogous to the international community’s regulations on humanitarian aid to North Korea, according to South Korean aid organizations. The international community has declared that sanctions against North Korea don’t apply to humanitarian aid, and the UN Security Council’s Sanctions Committee on North Korea recently granted the International Committee of the Red Cross and other international aid groups an exemption from those sanctions. Some have regarded this as the US sending a conciliatory message to North Korea leading up to the two countries’ second summit.

But these trends are belied by the actual experience of NGOs trying to provide humanitarian aid to North Korea. According to aid groups who spoke with the Hankyoreh on Feb. 6, strict sanctions against the North are making it basically impossible to deliver emergency aid supplies to North Korean children, as well as to the general public.

Only plastic sheeting allowed to build greenhouses

“The North Korean reforestation project, for example, is categorized as a ‘noncommercial public infrastructure project,’ which qualifies it for an exemption from sanctions on North Korea. In order to kickstart reforestation in North Korea, we need to make a lot of nurseries to grow seedlings. To build the greenhouses, we need to take plastic sheeting and metal frames with us into North Korea, but we aren’t allowed to bring metal frames since they’re subject to sanctions. But we can’t build greenhouses with plastic sheeting alone,” one aid worker said.

The judge’s ruling that Shylock can take his pound of flesh, but not shed a drop of blood, may bring catharsis to the reader, but sanctions on North Korea that assume greenhouses can be built with plastic sheeting but no metal frames are blocking humanitarian aid to the North.

The same thing is happening with a project to supply Tamiflu, a flu medication, to North Korea this winter in order to prevent the spread of the flu. On Dec. 21, 2018, the South Korea-US working group promised to cooperate on humanitarian aid to North Korea, and Seoul agreed to have 50,000 quick flu diagnosis kits donated by NGOs and 200,000 doses of Tamiflu sent to North Korea. But as of Feb. 6, the medicine had still not been delivered. Tamiflu kits were supplied to the North even when inter-Korean relations were at a nadir in 2009, but the aid is being stymied now, even though inter-Korean dialogue is flourishing.

The apparent reason that the Tamiflu shipment to North Korea has been delayed is because the trucks that are needed to ship it have run afoul of sanctions. “We’ve been told that the problem is trucks entering North Korea. I’m starting to think we should ship the Tamiflu to the military demarcation line, stack it up on the border, and then tell the North Koreans go down and pick it up. The Tamiflu doses have to be delivered before the end of winter,” one frustrated aid worker said.

On Jan. 14, the Korean NGO Council for Cooperation with North Korea, an umbrella organization bringing together some 60 groups providing humanitarian aid to the North, held a demonstration calling for the relaxation of UN sanctions against North Korea during its regular meeting at the Seoul Global Center. Demonstrators held up placards bearing messages such as “pesticide without sprayers” and “syringes without needles.”

“The sick and elderly people of North Korea still need our help, but a range of sanctions on the North are making it impossible to deliver the emergency aid supplies,” demonstrators said.

“While we’re technically allowed to take humanitarian aid supplies into North Korea, those supplies also have to be approved for an exemption from sanctions on the North. The process for gaining an exemption for transportation and purchases is so complicated and onerous that, practically speaking, we’re not even able to apply for exemptions. Since banks and other companies refuse to engage in financial transactions or provide shipping without UN approval for an exemption, humanitarian aid is basically on lockdown,” the council explained.

The international community’s position that humanitarian aid is exempt from sanctions on North Korea, the council alleges, sounds nice in theory but means little in practice. The council argues that NGOs that have received approval from their home government to provide humanitarian aid to the North should be given a blanket waiver from sanctions for their aid work.

By Kwon Hyuk-chul, senior staff writer

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