US embassy cable - 03ROME5705

UNCLAS ROME 005705 
 
SIPDIS 
 
 
FROM U.S. MISSION IN ROME 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
STATE FOR SECRETARY POWELL, D/S RARMITAGE, U/S MGROSSMAN, IO 
A/S KHOLMES, EAP A/S JKELLY, A/S PRM ADEWEY, EAP/CM, AND 
IO/EDA RBEHREND 
USDA/FAS FOR U/S JPENN AND MCHAMBLISS 
USAID FOR ADMINISTRATOR NATSIOS, JBRAUSE, AA/DCHA RWINTER, 
AND DCHA/FFP LLANDIS 
NSC FOR JDWORKEN, MGREEN 
 
E.O. 12958:  N/A 
TAGS: EAID, PREL, PREF, EAGR, ECON, KN, KS, UN 
SUBJECT: WFP plea for North Korea humanitarian food 
assistance - WFP Executive Director Jim Morris writes 
Secretary Powell from Beijing 
 
 
SIPDIS 
 
REF: (A) Rome 5625, (B) Rome 5222, (C) WFP Executive 
Director Morris letter to Secretary Powell on North Korea 
food aid dated December 2, 2003 
 
SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED - PLEASE PROTECT ACCORDINGLY. NOT 
SUITABLE FOR INTERNET POSTING. 
 
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SUMMARY 
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1. (SBU) WFP Executive Director Jim Morris has written his 
second letter this month to Secretary Powell (this one 
posted from Beijing) focusing attention on the continuing 
humanitarian crisis in the Democratic People's Republic of 
Korea (DPRK) and WFP's renewed request for a favorable 
decision on the remaining 60,000 tons of Secretary Powell's 
February tentative 2003 offer of 100,000 tons of food aid. 
The full text of Morris' letter is reproduced below. US 
Mission (Ref A) is fully supportive of this request. End 
Summary. 
 
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WFP Executive Director Jim Morris' letter dated December 18 
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2.(SBU)(Entire letter). Begin text of letter: 
 
"Mr. Colin Powell 
Secretary of State 
 
SIPDIS 
Department of State 
Washington, DC 
United States of America 
 
Dear Secretary Powell, 
 
I am writing to follow-up my letter to you of 2 December 
2003 on the subject of food aid to the Democratic People's 
Republic of Korea.  In that letter I described some of the 
important gains that the World Food Program had achieved in 
our operating conditions in the DPRK since the beginning of 
this year.  Now I would like to share with you WFP's 
assessment of why additional humanitarian food aid for the 
DPRK is of such importance at this crucial juncture. 
 
WFP conducts about 500 monitoring visits in the DPRK each 
month.  These visits give us unique, unprecedented daily 
access to our beneficiaries, mostly women and children, in 
their homes, kitchens, and schools throughout the country. 
It is regrettable that these visits are conducted in the 
presence of North Korean officials.  Such presence, however, 
does not prevent us from seeing and learning about the 
desperately harsh lives, marked especially by insufficient 
food, of our beneficiaries.  The extreme need of so many 
North Koreans is evident to any casual visitor (any society 
that uses wood burning stoves to power trucks and buses 
clearly is experiencing economic hardship).  The specific 
food assistance requirements of the poorest of the poor in 
the DPRK become readily discernible to WFP's Emergency 
Officers in the course of the thousands of monitoring visits 
they conduct. 
 
You will be aware that an extensive nutrition survey 
undertaken in the country late last year by WFP, UNICEF and 
the DPRK government showed significant reductions in 
malnutrition amongst young children since 1998.  In large 
part these gains are a direct result of the consistent and 
generous food assistance provided by the United States and 
others through WFP. 
SUBJECT: WFP plea for North Korea humanitarian food 
assistance - WFP Executive Director Jim Morris writes 
Secretary Powell from Beijing 
 
SIPDIS 
Despite the gains, insufficient food and poor diet are 
commonplace for millions of North Koreans.  About 30% of 
pregnant and nursing women are malnourished.  These pregnant 
women will give birth to low-birth weight children who will 
start life disadvantaged because their mothers did not have 
access to proper nutrition during pregnancy.  There also 
remains a high incidence of stunting in young children. 
More than 40% of the country's children are markedly too 
short for their age, a condition that is largely 
irreversible and has a terrible impact on mental growth that 
has yet to be measured.  Perhaps most worrying, there remain 
more than 70,000 North Korean children who suffer from 
severe malnutrition.  Once severely malnourished, many die 
as the ability of the country to provide adequate 
therapeutic treatment is grossly limited.  One of WFP's main 
objectives is to save children's lives by preventing them 
from ever falling into such a state.  We can only accomplish 
that objective with additional, timely assistance from our 
donors. 
 
While WFP continues to work to improve the nutritional 
status of our target beneficiaries, we are worried that 
further prolonged disruption in food assistance could 
quickly lead to the erosion of the hard won gains achieved 
in the nutrition of women and children over these past few 
years.  Our current program calls for the distribution of 
about 40,000 tons of cereals and other food commodities each 
month.  The large majority of this is intended for young 
children, and pregnant and nursing women.  Our immediate 
concern is that an imminent break in our distributions will 
eventually affect nearly 4 million of these most needy 
beneficiaries, as we are forced to cut more and more of them 
from our assistance.  Without immediate new donations, the 
break will be greater than any we have experienced since we 
began working in the country eight years ago. 
 
Faced with an alarming reduction in donor support over the 
past two years, the U.S. is once again in a unique position 
to help.  Historically the U.S. has not only given large 
amounts of cereals, but has also been, by far, the most 
generous contributor of those items needed to improve 
nutrition - beans, powdered milk, oil, sugar.  These 
commodities, used to produce enriched foods for especially 
vulnerable target groups, are now desperately needed. 
 
The concerns of the United States about monitoring and 
access in the DPRK are exactly the same as WFP's.  Indeed, 
we perhaps feel those concerns even more acutely because it 
is our reputation that is at stake.  We certainly remain 
dissatisfied with the current conditions.  We have worked 
hard to improve them, and have achieved some modest but 
nonetheless significant and steady progress in this 
direction since the beginning of 2003. 
 
Achieving further progress will remain a top priority for me 
and my staff.  Indeed, I am sending this letter from 
Beijing, where on Saturday I will meet Foreign Minister Li 
Zhaoxing, and will impress upon him the important 
contribution that China could make in convincing the North 
Koreans to move towards international standards for food aid 
monitoring.  I will share a similar message with the South 
Korean Government. 
 
I would also like to inform you that the DPRK government has 
accepted my nomination of Mr. Richard Ragan as the new WFP 
Country Director in North Korea.  Mr. Ragan is currently 
Country Director in Zambia, and previously served the United 
States Government in the National Security Council, the 
Defense Department and USAID.  I am assigning as Mr. Ragan's 
top priority the pursuit, with the full commitment and 
 
support of WFP's top management, further improvements to 
WFP's monitoring and access conditions in the DPRK.  WFP 
will continue to pursue this issue with determination. 
 
WFP is not satisfied with the monitoring situation.  But 
while we continue to make progress toward our goal of 
international standards, we are also saving the lives of the 
most vulnerable.  We know there are millions of hungry, 
needy North Korean women and children.  We know WFP food 
assistance is reaching many of them, and is making a 
difference.  We are confident in our operations.  We believe 
that for WFP to stand by and do nothing, while millions of 
innocent civilians go hungry, would be far worse than any 
risk associated with the current WFP operation. 
 
Mr. Secretary, this is a crucial moment and the United 
States is in a unique position.  The needs, in both scope 
and timing, are pressing.  The U.S. decision on the balance 
of the 100,000-ton pledge for 2003 is a bell weather.  A 
decision not to provide the remaining 60,000 tons will be 
seen as a vote of no confidence by the U.S. in the WFP 
operation, and other donors, I fear, will in turn be 
reluctant to give.  A positive decision, I believe, will 
have just the opposite effect.  The cumulative impact on the 
future of WFP's operation could make all the difference 
between a dwindling operation with progressively fewer staff 
and less capabilities, and a strong one with extensive 
access throughout the country, and able to achieve continued 
steady progress on monitoring. 
 
I again respectfully urge you, Mr. Secretary, and your 
government, to provide the World Food Program with the 
60,000 balance of your 2003 pledge to the DPRK.  With our 
donations rapidly running out, time is critical. 
Sincerely, WFP Executive Director James T. Morris." End of 
WFP letter. 
 
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Comment 
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3. (SBU) US Mission/Rome (as manifested Ref A) is fully 
supportive of Jim Morris' request. Hall 
 
 
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 2003ROME05705 - Classification: UNCLASSIFIED