The UN’s Latest North Korea Scandal

I’ve often criticized the UN World Food Program (WFP)  for the inadequate monitoring  of its food aid program in North Korea, but as it turns out, there was something I didn’t know then:  compared to the UN Development Program’s (UNDP)  operations there, the  WFP’s  were a paragon of accountability.  Ever since the days when the disgraced team of Maurice Strong  and Tongsun Park began advising and representing Kofi Annan on North Korea, the UNDP has been funneling millions of dollars — as much as $100 million — to the North Korean government as humanitarian development aid, with no audit trail and virtually no strings attached. 

The Wall Street Journal has two pieces on the  UNDP North Korea operations today, one by the editors and one by Melanie Kirkpatrick, who is becoming a new leading light, taking up the North Korea story where Claudia Rosett  left off (the important work of exposing Oil-for-Food became a full-time occupation for Ms. Rosett).  Both pieces are worth reading, but the perspective they add will be familiar to readers of this site.   The real gold is  evidence on which the reports are based  — a letter from a U.S. diplomat to the UNDP, expressing concern about the findings of a recent  independent U.S. review.  The U.S. government had to  exert strong pressure on the UNDP to let it inspect  its North Korea  books.  The UNDP finally allowed U.S. auditors to see some (but not all) of the annual reports, and still refuses to let the U.S. auditors keep any copies.  Yet even after this perfunctory inspection, Ambassador Mark Wallace, with the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, noted the following problems:

These concerns will look familiar to those who have followed the WFP’s operation in North Korea.  I strongly encourage you to read every last word of  Wallace’s scathing  letter, which is packed with specific facts and findings that the UNDP violated its own rules of accountability, and essentially turned over its checkbook to the North Koreans.  I know.  Sounds like an exaggeration, doesn’t it? 

Most of the actual “development” programs the UNDP was funding were actually run by the North Korean government with UN funds.  The UNDP’s “international staff” — ie., the two or three staffers  who were not North Koreans —  were not allowed to inspect them.  There is no independent evidence, no evidence except for North Korean assurances, that these U.N.-funded programs even exist.  The North Korean government received all of the paychecks itself, a la Kaesong, and its nationals handled all the money — all of it in  cash.  It charged the UNDP steep rent, and insisted that the UNDP buy all of its supplies from North Korean state vendors at steep prices.

It’s enough to make you wonder where the money is going, and it causes the WSJ editors to say that it violates the “spirit” of UNSCR 1718, by providing another potential contribution to the nuke fund.  Well, yes and no.  Obviously, nothing that took place before last October violated 1718, and I don’t think the editors are saying that.  On the other hand, here is what UNSCR 1718 requires:

[A]ll Member States shall … ensure that any funds, financial assets or economic resources are prevented from being made available by their nationals or by any persons or entities within their territories, to or for the benefit of … persons or entities designated by the Committee or by the Security Council as being engaged in or providing support for, including through other illicit means, DPRK’s nuclear-related, other weapons of mass destruction-related and ballistic missile-related programmes ….  [OFK note:  I reversed the order of the two clauses for clarity’s sake.]

Technically, the UN is not a “member state,” so it isn’t bound by the UN  resolution … although that has to strike you as being a pretty lame technicality.  On the other hand,  the UNDP’s  donors nations  are bound by it, meaning that  a UN resolution may actually  require donor nations to cease donating to a UN agency.  Franz Kafka couldn’t have made this up.

As a result, the United States,  Canada, Japan, Belgium, and Serbia intend to ask that the UNDP suspend its DPRK operations indefinitely, at least until an independent audit can establish where the money is going.  And while $100 million over the course of a decade-or-so is a relatively small amount, this would set an important precedent for making  other UN agencies more accountable for their North Korea aid, much of it paid by American taxpayers. 

This story’s  more significant impact would be to  place into context  North Korea’s demand — to which World Food Program meekly bowed — to transition desperately needed  WFP food aid into more fungible “development aid” instead.  The revelations about the UNDP give us a pretty good idea of why North Korea made that demand.  As it turns out, the WFP was undercut by a competing UN aid agency that made its business model more attractive by asking fewer questions.

Let’s hope that these developments will help Josette Sheeran to set up a meaningful feeding program for North Korea’s neediest  people.