Chapter 4
Box 4.3 ‘Outing and shouting’: NGO departures underscore problems

Several major NGOs have left DPRK since 1997, underscoring multifaceted problems faced by relief groups working there. The most notable, and controversial, departure was in September 1998 when Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) – which later went on to win the 1999 Nobel Peace Prize – pulled out. Others to leave include Médecins du Monde, Oxfam and Action contre la Faim (ACF).

The departures have intensified debate on the NGO role in DPRK, especially on how far they should go within the confines of humanitarian ideals. Most of those remaining opted for the quiet approach amid signs that their efforts are worthwhile.

ACF left in February 2000. Their director-general, Jean-Luc Bodin, said in a letter to DPRK’s Flood Disaster Rehabilitation Committee that the move was linked in part to “the humanitarian context in the country and the difficult operating conditions imposed on humanitarian agencies.”

But according to Eigil Sörensen, WHO’s coordinator in Pyongyang, “If you are going to work in DPRK you have to accept the framework for agencies. I understand why agencies take that decision [to leave]. On the other hand, we have to look at what we can achieve in both the short and long term.”

Announcing its decision to leave, MSF said that since June 1998 there had been a clear policy to further restrict and limit effective humanitarian aid and called on donor governments to review aid policies towards DPRK to ensure, among other things, free and impartial access and monitoring.

Commenting on MSF’s departure, North Korea’s KCNA news agency reported on 8 October 1998, that the NGO had been asked “to offer the pharmaceutical raw materials needed for increasing pharmaceutical production.”

But James Orbinski, MSF’s international president, told WDR: “According to our assessment, this was not the primary need at the time. The primary need was appropriate nutrition programmes for people who were suffering from malnutrition.” MSF had been running 64 therapeutic feeding centres for around 14,000 children in DPRK.

Asked if relief organizations in DPRK in some way might have been ‘used’ by outside countries, he said: “Western foreign policy and...largely American foreign policy, is in fact using humanitarian assistance as a form of political leverage. And, in so doing, is making humanitarian assistance conditional on political and not humanitarian objectives.”

Orbinski said humanitarian action “must be completely separated” from political objectives, both internal and external. “In the vast majority of situations where humanitarian need arises out of political turmoil there is, obviously, an inherently political context you have to operate in. This does not, however, mean you have to succumb to the desire of the various political forces to influence your choice and your delivery of humanitarian action,” he added.

Margareta Wahlström, an under-secretary general at the International Federation, said: “I think the MSF position here is more the democracy, advocacy side rather than the humanitarian side. They say it is more important for us to test this government’s willingness to let us go everywhere than to deliver to a very small group of people in the country.... It is their choice.”

Jon Bennett, in a paper on DPRK published by the ‘Relief and Rehabilitation Network’ in March 1999, said the country had been opened up to aid agencies in an unprecedented way, adding that it was “incomprehensible and unforgivable” that MSF should have publicly criticized its host “based on universalist notions and the tenets of self-proclaimed ‘advocacy’.”

Orbinski said: “I would say that we did not criticize our hosts. We simply stated the facts and we simply, honestly and honourably stated our experience in North Korea. We have, obviously, through our actions made it very clear what our perspective is. And if that runs counter to the herd, then so be it.”