Misinformation campaign

The decision meant that Seoul was resuming humanitarian assistance to North Korea, which had been suspended in April in reaction to Pyongyang's launch of a long-range missile earlier in the month and its second nuclear test on May 25. A senior Unification Ministry official revealed that the government may in the future support the construction of hospitals and agricultural improvements, depending on how inter-Korean relations change in the days ahead.

It is commendable that government authorities did not dwell too long on the shock from the North's missile and nuclear tests and turned their eyes again on the suffering people in North Korea. Considering Pyongyang's propaganda campaigns with derogatory and hostile language against the South in recent months, Seoul's magnanimity is particularly noteworthy. Yet, it will for some time withhold permission for Southerners to travel to the North or the shipment of aid materials, despite many NGOs' requests for an early lifting of the restrictions.

The months-old suspension of humanitarian aid from the South is apparently having significant consequences on the impoverished society in the North. Pyongyang is making some unusual efforts to change its people's attitudes toward the South. One example was the official Chosun Central TV's "South Korea in Crisis" programme shown late in July.

It was a collection of footage from South Korean KBS, MBC, SBS and YTN broadcasts, which portrayed the miserable lives of poor people in the South. Unemployed youths, evictees, aged people without support, the homeless, credit defaulters and others from the "vulnerable class" were shown with subtitles explaining that "an absolute majority of people in the South are leading extremely miserable lives".

Perhaps the Central TV programme was Kim Jong-il's answer to the North Koreans' growing curiosity about the absence of aid from the South these days. As the Northern authorities detected yearning among their people for aid from the South, they were compelled to circulate the message that "South Korea is not as affluent and comfortable as you might imagine".

This little propaganda ploy could backfire - the supposedly destitute people in South Korean cities still look fairly well fed and are talking to their network interviewers quite freely. One middle-aged woman appearing in a state-run KBS-TV report is heard rattling off complaints about the state and declaring that she wanted to leave this country. The programme quite inadvertently showcased the democracy and freedom of the South.

Humanitarian aid is the only channel of reality between the North and South. It is also our minimum effort to preserve national identity and the earnest wish for reunification. Last year, the Lee Myung-bak government released more than 10 billion won to 37 NGOs for 40 humanitarian aid projects even though the administration stuck to the principle of no aid to the North without progress in the six-party de-nuclearisation talks. It is urged that Seoul maintain at least the same level of humanitarian aid this year so that the two parts of Korea can retain that calibre of peaceful connection despite political fluctuations.