North Korea tells United Nations to cut international aid staff: letter

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

WORLD NEWS SEPTEMBER 4, 2019 / 6:42 PM / UPDATED 3 HOURS AGO

North Korea tells United Nations to cut international aid staff: letter

Michelle Nichols
4 MIN READ

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - North Korea has told the United Nations to cut the number of international staff it deploys in the country because the world body’s programs have failed “due to the politicization of U.N. assistance by hostile forces,” according to a letter seen by Reuters on Wednesday.

The United Nations estimates 10.3 million people - almost half the country’s population - are in need and some 41 percent of North Koreans are undernourished, while Pyongyang said in February it was facing a food shortfall this year and had to halve rations, blaming drought, floods and sanctions.

“U.N. supported programs failed to bring the results as desired due to the politicization of U.N. assistance by hostile forces,” Kim Chang Min, secretary general for North Korea’s National Coordinating Committee for the United Nations, wrote to the top U.N. official posted in the country.

In the Aug. 21 letter, Kim said the number of international staff should be cut by the end of the year.

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Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-usa-un/north-korea-tells-united-nations-to-cut-international-aid-staff-letter-idUSKCN1VP322

[soryang]

1. It is simply misleading to allege that sanctions don't cause suffering

“This is coming at a time where both Russia and China are pushing a false narrative that sanctions are causing the humanitarian problems in North Korea and the only way to solve that is to give North Korea sanctions relief,” the diplomat said.

While sanctions are not the sole cause of widespread malnutrition and associated morbidity and mortality, the inability of North Korea to export valuable resources due to the sanctions regime prevents it from importing food. To be sure military priorities affect the allocation of very limited resources internally as well, because the country is still, in effect, in a state of war. Sanctions are part of an unrelenting hybrid war led by the US.