RELIEF WORK IN KOREA

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 26967, 17 February 1953, Page 6

RELIEF WORK IN KOREA

N.Z. LEADER OF U.N. TEAM FOOD AND FARMING PROBLEMS (From a Reuter Correspondent.) TAEJON (Korea). Among the hills and valleys of West Central Korea a miniature United Nations Organisation is helping set a war-devastated province-back on its feet. They are members of a United Nations Civil Assistance Command team based at Taejon, 110 miles south of Seoul, responsible for the direction of aid in the province of Chungchong Namdo. The leader of the team is the executive officer, Mr Frank W. Voelcker, of Titirangi, Auckland, a farmer who was formerly New Zealand High Commissioner m Western Samoa. Mr Voelcker is also farming adviser. He encourages the use of modern farming methods and crops throughout the province. Among the team’s problems is getting proper food to people who otherwise must try to live on grass or by begging. The team is under American Army control, but includes seven civilian members who assist United States officers and enlisted men. The civilians, from New Zealand, British Guiana, Australia, Canada, France, and Denmark, are the basis of the civil reconstruction teams who will stay on in Korea if the fighting ends and the armies leave. Chungchong Namdo is a province roughly 60 miles long and 50 miles across. Before the war it had a population of 2,000,000, but refugees have swollen this by almost 350,000. Taejon, where the team is based, is the capital with nearly 200,000 people; while there is one other city with more than 50,000 people and four with between 25.000 and 30,000. Nearly all the province is directly dependent on farming. The farmers grown mainly barley and rice, normally harvesting a crop of each from the same field each yearj Advances and Retreats War swept through the province twice in successive United Nations and communist retreats and advances. The soldiers, following one of the cen-turies-old invasion routes of Korea, wrecked cities, roads and bridges, and, driven by the war, refugees poured into the province, filling unsanitary camps and bringing the danger of disastrous epidemics. A UNCACK team moved into Chungchong Namdo to meet this threat and also brought emergency relief to alleviate starvation. The team is still there, but since the war stabilised, its duties have turned more towards getting the province going again. However, starvation and the threat of disease are still present. One of the team’s main tasks is the distribution of direct relief—rice and grain for the starving and needy. It watches this distribution through Korean provincial and county officials, trying to make sure that the food gets to the right people. The Public Health Unit has to supervise the health and medical care for more than 2,000,000. Members of the unit cover hundreds of miles of rough country roads monthly visiting «their dispensaries through the province, checking that immunisation is being carried out to prevent epidemics. They also supervise hospitals, giving instruction to doctors and nurses, some of whom have only sketchy training. Prison Visits A nurse takes a special interest In women and children visiting orphanages and schools. A self-imposed task is visiting prisons where some women with babies are being held on charges of assisting guerrillas. The nurse gets them baby clothes and extra rations of powdered milk. However, at the age of 18 months, the babies are taken from the mothers and placed in orphanages. Other duties of the team, carried out mainly by American forces, are advice on civil government and supervision of prisons and institutions. The team meets many difficulties in doing its work. It finds constant supervision is necessary, for instance, to make sure th’at relief food and clothing gets through. UNCACK uses the existing Korean Government system of provinces, counties and districts to handle relief and the system, is open to abuses. Korean officials while enjoying special buying privileges are grossly underpaid—the Governor of Chungchong Namdo gets the equivalent of only 10 dollars a month —and the custom has always been that they make their living out of the money they handle and the influence they wield. This now extends to United Nations food and relief. " A generous estimate says that losses in distribution of rice amount to 10 per cent., but the probability is that it is often higher. This is a serious loss when relief allocations allow only enough for the destitute classes of refugees and the physically incapacitated to give them on an average a starvation ration of three bowls of grain a day for about a week in every month. The rest ©f the time these people have to eat grass or bark or depend on what they can get from struggling neighbours. Korean Favouritism Korean officials also show favouritism in making up relief lists. They are more likely to channel United Nations rice into the bowls of their relatives and friends or villagers whose political influence counts rather than to refugees. United Nations officials cannot check up on all the malpractice and corruption, but do their best with “enduser” tallies. They ask questions in remote villages to find out who got relief food and also examine receipts which each family signs before it receives its rations. Recently the Chungchong Namdo team became aware that some county officials were stealing rice while their people were starving. They brought it to the attention of the Governor of the province and advised that the malpractice must be corrected. The Governor did not do this, but instead announced that he would cut off all relief supplies to the counties. This seemed drastic to the United Nations officials, who protested, but they found that the publicised “cutting-off” meant a delay of only a week or so in the issuing of the ration. Korean language newspapers took the case up and the affair was widely discussed. The county officials, losing considerable prestige, resigned. The team commander “This is one case where we played along with the Korean way of doing things and it worked. We won’t have any trouble there for some time.” Team’s Achievements But in spite of many difficulties, the team has some notable achievements:. — 1. Settlement of refugees through the province so that they are becoming absorbed into the communities. Of nearly 400,000 refugees, only 10,000 are z now r in relief camps. 2. Bigger children have been taken off the streets of Taejon and placed in orphanages. 3. The team is giving Korean officials and people confidence in the sincerity of United Nations assistance. In itself, the team is a living example of co-operation. When they meet a problem, the members, army and civilan, discuss it together, drawing on a combined experience which has overcome difficulties all over the world.