Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Seoul (Agenzia Fides) –Political tensions and winds of war must not be allowed to stop humanitarian aid from reaching our hungry brothers and sisters in North Korea: this appeal was made by the Catholic Church in Korea which, according to information collected by Fides Agency, fears “a humanitarian crisis like the one which struck North Korea in the 1990s. The principal victims of this present political crisis, which has had as a repercussion, the blocking of bilateral trade, “are civilians and the most vulnerable categories in the North”, Fides learned from Caritas Korea which runs programmes of solidarity and development for the people of the north suffering from acute food shortage and poverty.
The local Catholic community has mobilised and united in an appeal with other religious communities in Korea: “The flow of humanitarian aid to the North must resume immediately”, Korean religious leaders said at a public media conference, during which they called on the government of Seoul to unfreeze humanitarian missions.
A statement sent to Fides Agency, signed by 527 members of religious communities united in the Forum Religious Solidarity for Reconciliation and Peace of Korea, denounces the “alarming situation of poverty and dramatic shortage of food affecting millions of North Korean brothers and sisters”. Faced with this emergency, “humanitarian aid is fundamental and can further North - South reconciliation”, says the forum whose members include Catholics, other Christians and Buddhists .
The forum has called on the government to “stop the policy of non-cooperation”: since Lee Myung-bak became President of South Korea in 2008, the government has frozen many aid programmes organised by civil groups and religious institutions. All forms of trade and humanitarian aid were stopped following the crisis caused by the sinking of the South Korea war ship Cheonan, on 26 March, reportedly by the North Korean navy. Yesterday South Korean army leaders warned that Pyongyang has deployed some 180,000 troops on the border with the South and that this hostile act could lead to "total war”.
While acknowledging the unquestionable responsibilities of the government of Kim Jong-il, leader of North Korea, the religious Forum says “it is not right to act with the logic of an eye for an eye, ignoring millions of Koreans who are hungry ”.
The Forum of believers calls for dialogue and a summit meeting of the leaders of the two countries, to overcome the present situation of deadlock, before the peninsula plunges once again into a tragic wave of war and violence, with untold suffering for all Koreans. (PA) (Agenzia Fides 18/6/2010)
