Humanitarian groups lose aid amid sanctions
PYONGYANG, North Korea — New international sanctions aimed at thwarting North Korea’s nuclear weapons program are having unintended consequences. They’re halting money transfers by foreign humanitarian groups working to help those most in need.
At the same time, some restrictions are meant to sting the country’s elite by crippling the import of luxury goods, such as yachts, fancy cars and jewelry. But they do not appear to be stopping the well-heeled from living large in the capital Pyongyang.
Much of the aid group difficulties are linked to the state-run Bank of China’s decision earlier this month to follow Washington’s lead and sever ties with the North’s Foreign Trade Bank, the main money transfer route for most foreign organizations, U.N. agencies and embassies in Pyongyang. With that line cut, aid workers in North Korea say they are left with few other options to receive foreign currency for expenses including rent, bills and salaries for local staff.
The sanctions are not supposed to affect humanitarian aid. But six Pyongyang-based aid organizations based in Europe issued a communique earlier this month spelling out their frustrations and calling the difficulties in transferring money to North Korea a “big problem.” They warned that they may be forced to suspend their operations if they can’t find ways to access cash. A handful of American non-government organizations also work in North Korea, but they cycle in and out and do not maintain a permanent presence.
Gerhard Uhrmacher, program manager for German humanitarian aid organization Welthungerhilfe, said when recent bank transfers failed, he managed to keep projects running by routing $643,000 to Chinese or North Korean accounts in China to pay for building supplies and other goods.
He said Welthungerhilfe, which signed the communique and works on agriculture and rural development projects in North Korea, has some reserves in Pyongyang but must also resort to carrying cash into the country by hand.
“It doesn’t give a good impression. We’re trying to be transparent, to be open to all sides and now we’re more or less forced to do something that doesn’t really look very proper because people who carry a lot of cash are somehow suspect,” said Uhrmacher, who is based in Germany and has worked in North Korea for the past10 years.
“Whatever you’re doing, everybody looks at you very closely,” he said. “That’s why we don’t like it because bank accounts are proper. Everybody can have a look at it and everybody can control it. Now we are forced to do something else.”
Some analysts said that aid groups were simply “collateral damage” and that they will find a way to work around the sanctions as they have been forced to do in other countries.