LETTER PUBLISHED IN THE INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE (1/25/96)



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR:

        The Full Quote


     Regarding "Seoul, Jittery, Sees a Menace in North" (Dec. 21):
        In this story taken from The Washington Post,  I was
     incompletely quoted, giving readers the opposite meaning of what I
     intended to say.
      I launched an Internet campaign to help the 500,000 flood
     victims in North Korea threatened by famine
     (http://shrine.cyber.ad.jp/mrosin/flood)
        I visited three of the damaged areas in November and donated
     relief goods directly to the victims. I am continuing my campaign;
     on my next trip, in February, I will focus on donating rice to the
     same people, who are now facing famine.
        The deletion, however, of an essential paragraph of the
     quote that appeared in the original article has given the
     impression that I disputed the reports of International Red Cross
     and World Food Program experts, which described the serious food
     shortage and imminent famine in North Korea.
        Potential donors to my campaign, who have seen my appeal on
     the Internet, have written that they see no need to contribute
     since I myself was quoted saying the people are well-fed. This is
     not the case. In the complete quote, I added that many of the
     villages I visited had only a very short supply of rice left and
     could be shortly without food.
        The following includes the full sense of my quote:
        "'I did not see any hunger or malnutrition when I was
   * there,' said Bernard Krisher, an American who lives in Tokyo and
     who spent two weeks in North Korea in late November delivering
     $25,000 worth of relief supplies he raised through an appeal on the
     Internet.
        "Mr. Krisher said that in the worst-hit areas, including
     Sinuiju on the Chinese border, people still had food, electricity
     and heating fuel and were in good spirits.
                "Although Mr. Krisher said he saw nothing immediately
     dire, he added that food stocks were limited. In some places, he
     said, there was only enough rice in warehouses to last a month.
     Without continued foreign aid, the situation could become much more
     desperate, he said."
   *    BERNARD KRISHER.
        Tokyo.

I0607  *   End of document.