c. 1997 Religion news Service

UNDATED _ Few people know that starvation threatens more than 5 million North Koreans this summer.

But the Rev. Yung W. Koo does. Quietly, his Brecksville, Ohio, congregation of 350 has raised thousands of dollars in food aid this spring. Men sold flowers. Women sold food. All have bowed their heads and prayed _ in Korean and English _ for the deliverance of their kinfolk.

Similar campaigns across the country have petitioned God and raised money at other churches with Korean-American congregations.

“You can see the least of people sending money,” said Maria S. Kim, an accountant who worships at the St. Andrew Kim Catholic Church in Cleveland. “Our little children gave the coins from their piggy banks.”

Their efforts are none too soon. A United Nations team that entered North Korea in late May reports its food supply has deteriorated sharply since November.

“The emergence of pre-famine indicators suggest that starvation will ensue in segments of the population before the next harvest, unless remedial action is taken urgently,” the U.N. World Food Program team reported. “A few households visited reported deaths due to starvation, while a number of children and adults observed had symptoms of wasting.”

Livestock are gone. Bakeries have closed. Chinese traders who regularly cross the border say fear of cannibalism is now delaying North Korean burials. The traders report that women and girls stand beside the road to offer sex for food.

“What’s missing _ livestock, smoke from factory smokestacks _ is as telling as what you can see,” said Rep. Tony P. Hall, D-Ohio, who toured the region in April. “The suffering of parents and grandparents who went without food so their children would eat is hidden, too. The absence of children’s laughter and energy is something you notice. The absence of many of their grandparents is easy to miss.”

Also missing are the TV pictures that shocked the world into action in other food crises. The North Koreans, living under one of the most secretive regimes in the world, are kept from view. No intrusive cameras carry their suffering to viewers of the nightly news.

“North Korea is a proud country, and its people are among the most stoical I’ve ever seen,” Hall said. “When pressed, its people suffer silently, and its leaders hide behind the massive military that is at this point all they’ve got.”

The fact that North Korea wields a standing army of 1.2 million soldiers _ fifth largest in the world _ impedes aid. “We have heard rumors if we send rice it will go to the military,” said Koo, the minister. “We all know they are preparing for war against South Korea. So we send corn, which the soldiers don’t like so much.”

A large segment of the 1.5-million Korean-American community detests the repressive, Communist regime that rules their homeland above the 38th parallel.

“A lot of Korean-Americans experienced the Korean War and they hesitate to help North Koreans because they are afraid the food will go to the military,” said Kwangdong Jo, secretary general of the Korean-American Sharing Movement, a year-old Los Angeles-based charity set up to combat the famine.

“We have a debate in our community: The old people say don’t send them anything, but others believe the Korean officials, the military, won’t starve _ it’s the poorest, the underprivileged who will die.”

The tensions within the American-Korean community are exacerbated by the tensions between North and South Korea.

“The South wants to rub their (North Korean leaders) noses in it. Both sides put on a lot of unnecessary conditions from a humanitarian point of view,” said the Rev. Paul S. Kim, a United Methodist minister who directs the Korean-American Peace Institute in Ridgefield Park, N.J. “Those in power now, both North and South, need each other as enemies to maintain each other’s power. It’s been 50 years of Cold War confrontation.”

The United Nations estimates North Korea requires at least 1 million tons of food aid this year. The United States has pledged $25 million, about 10 percent of the amount needed. Critics charge this is a puny sum compared to the historic U.S. response to famine. But it’s too much for others who argue North Korea’s repressive government should get nothing.

Kim, of the Peace Institute, said the politics of the region may doom the starving.

“The United States usually has taken the lead in stopping other impending disasters,” he said. “There is a real hesitancy on the part of the Clinton administration. Many don’t like the government of North Korea and many feel North Korea must change its policies before massive aid is forthcoming.”

Even though the famine has not struck a chord with the American public, a number of faith-based U.S. relief agencies are involved in Korean relief.

In late May, Erich Weingartner, a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, went to Pyongyang as a liaison between the North Korean government and non-Korean aid groups such as the National Council of Churches’ Church World Service, Catholic Relief Services, World Vision, World Relief and other religious groups seeking to respond to the famine.

Church World Service, for example, has already provided $630,000 in assistance and has raised $150,000 of a $500,000 appeal.

The Southern Baptists have been on the ground for 18 months, helped by the goodwill created by former President Jimmy Carter and the Rev. Billy Graham. They provide one meal per day to 3,500 children in an orphanage and to 50,000 residents of one town.

“We see it as an opportunity to visibly express God’s love for all people,” said Bill Cashion, consultant to the International Board of Southern Baptists in Richmond, Va.

MJP END LONG