S. Korea to send food to North, opposition bristles
S. Korea to send food to North, opposition bristles
CHEJU, South Korea (Agencies): South Korea said on Thursday it would provide 600,000 tons of food to impoverished North Korea but the opposition blasted the Seoul government for offering more than it could afford.
The Unification Ministry said it would provide 300,000 tons of Thai rice and 200,000 tons of Chinese corn on credit to the famine-stricken North.
Another 100,000 tons of corn are to be donated through the United Nations World Food Program (WFP), the ministry said in a statement released on the sidelines of ministerial talks between the two Koreas.
In total, the food is worth about $100 million, it said.
The South Korean government has provided 260,000 tons of free food to the North since 1995, but never offered food assistance on credit, the ministry said.
"In reply to the North's urgent needs, we plan the first shipment of food on credit around October 5," it said.
A ministry spokesman said it planned to send 20,000 tons of Chinese corn to the North in the first shipment with a view to sending the remaining 480,000 tons of food on credit by the end of this year.
The ministry said North Korea would pay over 30 years, including a 10-year grace period, at an annual interest rate of one percent.
"North Korea, on average, falls short of about one million tons of food every year," Cho Myoung-gyon, a senior ministry official in charge of inter-Korean issues, told Reuters.
"But the famine-stricken country is expected to be in need of 2.4 million tons of food this year due to the recent devastating typhoons and prolonged droughts."
A recent White Paper on Human Rights in North Korea published by South Korea's Unification Ministry estimated the number of malnutrition-related death at 500,000-800,000 a year over the past two to three years.
The South Korean government last year said 2.5 million to 3 million people died of starvation and related diseases between 1995 and 1999, citing documents from North Korea's Social Security Ministry.
North Korean Senior Cabinet Counsellor Jon Kum-jin thanked the South for its food offer.
"We'd like to thank you for the food provision when we (the North) are suffering from a harsh food shortage," Jon told reporters. "Even before we were divided, we Koreans have had a good custom of helping each other in time of need."
Jon is in South Korea for two-day talks aimed at expanding ties between the two Koreas.
South Korea's main opposition party accused President Kim Dae- jung's government of pampering the communist regime in Pyongyang with massive food aid at a time of economic uncertainty at home.
Critics suspect the North of diverting outside food aid to its 1.1 million-strong military, which is arrayed in large part along the border with South Korea.
Meanwhile, high-level negotiators led by South Korean Unification Minister Park Jae-kyu and Jon met on Thursday to follow up on agreements reached at a historic inter-Korean summit in June. At the June summit, the leaders of the two Koreas pledged to pursue peace and reunification.
Topics expected to be discussed during the four-day talks ending Saturday included North Korean leader Kim Jong Il's planned visit to Seoul next spring. South Korean President Kim Dae-jung flew to Pyongyang for the June summit.
Under agreements reached in similar high-level talks in July and August, the two Koreas reopened border liaison offices and agreed to hold two more reunions this year for families separated 50 years ago. There is no regular means of cross-border travel or communication for Korean citizens.