[Senate Hearing 108-404]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 108-404
THE HIDDEN GULAG: PUTTING HUMAN RIGHTS ON THE NORTH KOREA POLICY
AGENDA
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON EAST ASIAN
AND PACIFIC AFFAIRS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
NOVEMBER 4, 2003
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Relations
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/
senate
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
RICHARD G. LUGAR, Indiana, Chairman
CHUCK HAGEL, Nebraska JOSEPH R. BIDEN, Jr., Delaware
LINCOLN CHAFEE, Rhode Island PAUL S. SARBANES, Maryland
GEORGE ALLEN, Virginia CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut
SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts
MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin
GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio BARBARA BOXER, California
LAMAR ALEXANDER, Tennessee BILL NELSON, Florida
NORM COLEMAN, Minnesota JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV, West
JOHN E. SUNUNU, New Hampshire Virginia
JON S. CORZINE, New Jersey
Kenneth A. Myers, Jr., Staff Director
Antony J. Blinken, Democratic Staff Director
------
SUBCOMMITTEE ON EAST ASIAN
AND PACIFIC AFFAIRS
SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas, Chairman
LAMAR ALEXANDER, Tennessee JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts
CHUCK HAGEL, Nebraska JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV, West
GEORGE ALLEN, Virginia Virginia
GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin
JON S. CORZINE, New Jersey
(ii)
?
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Charny, Mr. Joel R., vice president for Policy, Refugees
International, Washington, DC.................................. 46
Prepared statement........................................... 49
Citizen's Coalition for Human Rights of Abductees and North
Korean Refugees, statements of October 30 and November 3, 2003,
submitted for the record....................................... 55
Hawk, Mr. David, human rights investigator, U.S. Commission for
Human Rights in North Korea, Washington, DC.................... 3
Prepared statement........................................... 6
Kumar. Mr. T., advocacy director for Asia and the Pacific,
Amnesty International, Washington, DC.......................... 40
Prepared statement........................................... 41
Mochizuki, Professor Mike, director of the Sigur Center for Asian
Studies, George Washington University, Washington, DC.......... 20
Prepared statement........................................... 22
``Toward a Grand Bargain With North Korea,'' article from The
Washington Quarterly, Autumn 2003, by Mike Mochizuki and
Michael O'Hanlon........................................... 23
Palmer, Ambassador Mark, president, Capital Development
Corporation, Washington, DC.................................... 11
Prepared statement........................................... 14
Rios, Ms. Sandy, chairman, North Korea Freedom Coalition and
president, Concerned Women for America, Washington, DC......... 33
Prepared statement........................................... 37
(iii)
THE HIDDEN GULAG:
PUTTING HUMAN RIGHTS ON THE NORTH KOREA POLICY AGENDA
----------
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2003
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee on East Asian
and Pacific Affairs,
Committee on Foreign Relations,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:35 p.m. in
room SD-419, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Sam Brownback
(chairman of the subcommittee), presiding.
Senator Brownback. Good afternoon. The hearing will come to
order.
Hopefully, this hearing will begin to expose the true
nature of the North Korean regime and its reputation as one of
the worst violators of human rights in the world today.
We'll hear testimony from the author of the recently
released report, ``The Hidden Gulags: Exposing North Korea's
Prison Camps.'' This was sponsored by the U.S. Committee on
Human Rights in North Korea. We'll also see recently smuggled
video footage of a labor camp in North Korea for minor
offenders. I want to note, too, this is for minor offenders,
the footage that we will see. Other witnesses will speak about
the need for putting human rights on the agenda in any future
dealings with North Korea, and speak more generally about
various policy options.
Before we get to the witnesses, I'd like to make some brief
comments. First, promoting democracy and freedom in North Korea
and ending its nuclear threat do not need to involve military
action by the United States. We should explore every possible
avenue for a peaceful and democratic resolution of the
stalemate on the Korean Peninsula.
How we can peacefully achieve a democratic Korea is one of
the issues we will explore at this hearing today. And let me be
clear about one thing. A resolution will not be on terms
dictated by Kim Jong Il's regime.
We should recall the way Ronald Reagan dealt with the
Soviet Union in the 1980s. He called it for what it was, a
brutal regime that repeatedly violated the rights of its
citizens. He continued to deal with the Soviets out of
necessity, but he never forgot, for one moment, the horrors of
that regime and the violations of human rights occurring within
its borders. He never forgot about the people of that country
yearning for freedom and for democracy, and neither should we.
Ronald Reagan did this, however, not as some flag-waving
rally for human rights and democracy, but because he knew that
profound historic changes were going to happen, not only in the
Soviet Union, but in other parts of Europe, as well. He saw the
signs of systems failure, and he understood that when people
are not free to make their own decisions, a ruler's hold on
power is tenuous.
In North Korea, we are seeing similar signs of systems
failures. The regime is already collapsing. Free countries
should not prop it up, but rather hasten its demise to the
totalitarian junk-heap of history.
Here are some of the signs of systems failures in North
Korea. China has dispatched 150,000 troops to the border with
North Korea, and they're expected to beef it up to upwards of
half a million. This isn't simply a function of trying to
cutoff refugees desperately trying to escape and survive the
conditions in North Korea. Surely the local state security
forces can deal with that. Thousands of North Korean refugees
are in hiding in northeast China, looking for every venue of
escape. We witnessed a similar exodus in Eastern Europe as
those totalitarian states were collapsing.
According to the report by the U.S. Committee on Human
Rights in North Korea, hundreds of thousand have died of
starvation and oppression, while others continue to languish in
their gulags. We saw that in Eastern Europe and the Soviet
Union before its collapse.
As Dr. Eberstadt, of the American Enterprise Institute,
testified before this committee and other Senate hearings,
North Korea resorts to criminal activities to earn hard
currency in order to keep its regime on life support. With
sovereignty and diplomatic privileges as its cover, North Korea
is essentially a state-run organized criminal enterprise that
is engaged in drugs and arms trafficking, counterfeiting, and
other activities across the globe. Given these signs, we must
have the resolve to deal firmly with North Korea.
In this context, I'm in the process of preparing
comprehensive legislation designed to promote freedom and
democracy for the millions who languish in North Korea, and to
protect the hundreds of thousands of North Korea refugees that
have already fled.
Let me make clear what this bill is not about. It's not
about continuing to subsidize the North Korean regime so that
it can build and maintain more gulags. The American people will
not stand for that.
Having said that, if the administration is able to force
North Korea to halt its nuclear program, that is certainly a
positive step forward. But North Korea will not get one cent
from the United States or other supporters of human rights, I
hope, unless it also agrees to make significant improvements
into its human-rights situation.
There is no obligation for the United States and its allies
to keep the regime on life support.
The American people will not tolerate food aid being
skimmed by the North Korean regime for its army and the elites.
We must be able to verify and monitor the distribution of food
in all parts of North Korea.
I'm hopeful that with the support of key Members of the
House and Senate, we will be able to introduce the bill before
adjournment.
We have a building across from the Capitol here in
Washington, DC, called the Holocaust Museum. Thousands of
survivors and their families are gathered this week to pay
tribute to the proposition that the world will never forget
what happened to the Jewish people during World War II.
There is no question in my mind that had Congress held
hearings and made the effort to speak the truth about the Nazi
regime in 1943, many lives would have been saved.
There is another message that the Holocaust Museum
represents. It also stands for the proposition that we will not
remain silent in the face of the kind of horrors that are
occurring on a daily basis in North Korea. What you're about to
see has been going on for 50 years since the end of the Korean
conflict. It's about time such behavior comes to an end. Unless
we are willing to speak out about the evils of the North Korean
regime, we may, in the words of George Santayana, ``be
condemned to repeat history.''
Our first witness, Mr. David Hawk, is a human-rights
investigator and advocate. His worked for the United Nations
and other organizations include the Khmer Rouge genocide and
the Rwanda massacres. Recently, he's consulted for the Landmine
Survivors Network on humanitarian assistance projects in
Cambodia and Vietnam.
Mr. Hawk, I look forward to your testimony. And at the
conclusion of your testimony, we'll have a short video
presentation, which was previously shown by Tokyo Broadcasting
Service, who owns its copyrights. And we will see that at the
end of this testimony.
Mr. Hawk, I'm delighted to have you here today and look
forward to your testimony and your explaining the photographs
that you have in front of us, as well.
STATEMENT OF DAVID HAWK, HUMAN RIGHTS INVESTIGATOR, U.S.
COMMITTEE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS IN NORTH KOREA, WASHINGTON, DC
Mr. Hawk. Senator Brownback, thank you very much for
inviting me to testify today about the nature of the North
Korean prison camp system.
As you know, North Korean officials continue to adamantly,
strenuously deny that they have any political prisoners or any
political prison camps. I hope that the report released last
week by the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea will
provide the vocabulary, the analysis, and a modicum of evidence
that will enable U.N. officials, diplomats, visiting
congressional delegations, journalists, and others with the
material and information they need to challenge such denials.
Virtually all of the scores of thousands of Koreans
imprisoned in the kwan-li-so political penal forced-labor camps
are victims of what the U.N. defines as arbitrary detention.
None of those so imprisoned have undergone any judicial process
or trial. Most of those imprisoned serve lifetime sentences
performing slave labor--usually mining or lumber-jacking,
timber-cutting, or agricultural production--under terrible
conditions. Most of those imprisoned are there by virtue of a
system of guilt by association in which not only the perceived
political wrongdoer, but members of his or her family, up to
three generations, are imprisoned for life at hard labor.
Virtually all of the kwan-li-so inmates--and the former
guards believe that the number 200,000 is the minimal figure of
the population of the kwan-li-so camps--are political
prisoners. Six such political penal labor camps are believed to
be operating currently. Eyewitnesses's accounts of four of
these prison camps appear in the report, along with satellite
photos of these four political prison camps.
The other component of the North Korean gulag is the kyo-
hwa-so prison camps, which, like the kwan-li-so, are
characterized by very high rates of deaths in detention from
combination of below-subsistence-level food rations combined
with hard labor under terrible conditions. But the kyo-hwa-so
inmates have been through a judicial process and are given
fixed-term sentences. And the inmate population of the kyo-hwa-
so forced labor prisons and camps is mixed. Some have been
convicted of criminal offenses, others are political prisoners.
Such kyo-hwa-so inmates were imprisoned for what would not be
criminal acts in a non-totalitarian society. Examples included
in the report are those North Koreans in prison and condemned
to hard, dangerous labor for singing, or being overheard
singing, South Korean pop songs, for listening to South Korean
radio, or having met South Koreans while they were in China.
This report provides descriptions of seven kyo-hwa-so prison
camps and a satellite photograph of Kaechon kyo-hwa-so in South
Pyong-an Province.
You may have heard, previously, testimony from Soon Ok Lee.
She was in Kaechon, and a satellite photograph of the prison
camp where she was imprisoned appears in the report.
Similarly, the shorter-term jib-kyul-so provincial
detention center inmate populations are also mixed. Some
detainees are imprisoned for what are essentially misdemeanor-
level offenses, but many others are imprisoned solely for
having left North Korea to obtain food or money for food in
China or having left their village without authorization to
seek food in a neighboring area. These provincial detention
facilities and the related ro-dong-dan- ryeon-dae labor
training centers constitute a separate system of punishment and
forced labor for North Koreans who have been forcibly
repatriated from China.
Each of these different prison slave-labor camps are
characterized by extreme phenomena of repression. Lifetime
imprisonment and guilt by association up to three generations
in the kwan-li-so, forced abortion and ethnic infanticide in
the provincial detention centers along the North Korea/China
border. The practice of torture and extremely high rates of
deaths in detention from forced labor and below-subsistence-
level food rations permeate the system in these camps at all
levels.
The base of information, the data base, on which this
report was prepared is outlined in the introduction to the
report. For some of the prison camps, we have multiple sources,
such as the kwan-li-so at Yodok, where there were four former
prisoners provide testimony that ranged in years from 1975 up
until the late 1990s.
For other of these prison camps, there are limited, even
single, sources. For example, Mr. Kim Yong is the only known
prisoner from camp number 14 and camp number 18 to have escaped
and subsequently obtained asylum in South Korea.
On the other hand, if North Korean authorities want to
disprove the claims made by the former prisoners, it would not
be difficult to invite appropriate representatives of the
United Nations, the ICRC, or responsible NGOs, such as Amnesty
International or Human Rights Watch, to visit the sites which
are identified and precisely located in the report.
Until such time as onsite verifications are allowed, the
refugee testimonies, as are presented in the report, retain
their credence and authority.
Since the authorities in North Korea do not allow onsite
verification, the U.S. Committee, with the help of the National
Resource Defense Council, was able to obtain satellite
photographs of seven different prison camps, prisons, and
detention centers, whose landmarks have been identified by the
former prisoners from these facilities.
Finally, Senator, I'd like to call your attention to some
of the recommendations in the report. First, I hope that
Congress will encourage the Bush administration to increase
their satellite coverage of the North Korean prison camps.
These satellite photographs on display at this hearing are
taken from the archives of commercial satellite photo
companies. But these commercial satellite photo companies do
not have satellites revolving over North Korea anywhere near
the frequency or power and scope that the U.S. Government does,
and it would be extremely helpful if there would be updated
information presented to Members of Congress and others with
the appropriate security clearances as to development and
activities in these camps. We are able to provide coordinates
of longitude and latitude up to a hundredth of a degree.
Second, with respect to the situation of North Koreans in
China, I hope that the United States will speak to the Chinese
about allowing the UNHCR access to North Koreans in China or,
pending that step, simply to stop the repatriation of North
Koreans until it can be verified that the extreme punishment of
repatriated North Koreans has ceased.
I would also hope that the United States, preferably in
cooperation with South Korea and Japan, can approach the
Chinese about a program of orderly departure, first asylum and
third-country resettlement, if that's the only way to empty out
the kwan-li-so penal labor colonies.
Third, as a substantial contributor to the World Food
Program in Korea, I would hope that the United States could
urge the World Food Program to offer food support to the kyo-
hwa-so, jib-kyul-so, and ro-dong-dan-ryeon-dae prisons and
prisoners, in order to reduce the high number of deaths and
detention from malnutrition, starvation, and related diseases.
And, last, regarding the present six-party talks with North
Korea, I have no idea if these negotiations can or will
succeed, and perhaps they will be limited to security tradeoffs
and arrangements. However, if a more comprehensive solution is
envisioned or demanded--that is, one that includes foreign aid
to, foreign investment in, and normalized economic relations
with North Korea, by which they mean opening up the borders of
Europe and North America to goods and materials from North
Korea--in that situation, I would hope that the humanitarian
and human-rights conditions, some of which are detailed in this
report, would also be put on the agenda for consideration at
the negotiation.
Thank you, Senator.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Hawk follows:]
Prepared Statement of David Hawk, Human Rights Investigator, U.S.
Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, Washington, DC
THE HIDDEN GULAG: EXPOSING NORTH KOREA'S PRISON CAMPS--PRISONER
TESTIMONIES AND SATELLITE PHOTOGRAPHS
Senators, thank you very much for inviting me to testify today on
the North Korean prison camps system. As you know, North Korean
officials continue to adamantly, strenuously deny that they have
political prisoners or political prison camps. I hope that my
report,\1\ released last week by the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in
North Korea will provide the vocabulary, the analysis, and the modicum
of evidence that will enable UN officials, diplomats, parliamentarian
delegations, journalists and others to challenge such denials.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The entire report may be accessed at www.hrng.org
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Virtually all of the scores of thousands of Koreans imprisoned in
the kwan-li-so political penal forced labor camps are victims of what
the UN defines as ``arbitrary detention.'' None of those so imprisoned
have undergone any judicial process. Most of those imprisoned serve
life-time sentences performing slave labor--usually mining,
lumberjacking and timber cutting or agricultural production--under
terrible conditions. Most of those imprisoned are there by virtue of a
system of guilt by association, in which not only the perceived
political wrong-doer, but members of his or her family up to three
generations are imprisoned at hard labor. Virtually all of the kwan-li-
so inmates are political prisoners. Six such political penal labor
camps are believed to be operating currently. Eyewitness accounts of
four of these prison camps appear in the report, along with satellite
photos of these four political prison camps.
The other component of the North Korean gulag is kyo-hwa-so prison
camps, which like the kwan-li-so are characterized by very high rates
of deaths-in-detention from combinations of below-subsistence food
rations coupled with hard labor under brutal conditions. But the kyo-
hwa-so inmates have been through a judicial process and are given fixed
term sentences. And, the inmate population of the kyo-hwa-so forced
labor prisons and prison camps is mixed: some have been convicted of
criminal offenses: others are political prisoners. Such kyo-hwa-so
inmates were imprisoned for what would not be criminal acts in non-
totalitarian societies. Examples included in this report are those
North Koreans imprisoned and condemned to hard, dangerous labor under
extremely harsh conditions for singing South Korean songs, listening to
South Korean radio, or having met South Koreans in China. The report
provides descriptions of seven kyo-hwa-so and a satellite photograph of
Kaechon, South Pyong-an Province.
Similarly, the shorter-term jib-kyul-so provincial detention center
inmate populations are also mixed. Some detainees are imprisoned for
essentially misdemeanor level offenses. But many others are imprisoned
solely for having left North Korea to obtain food or money for food in
China. Or having left their village without authorization to seek food
in a neighboring area. These provincial detention facilities and the
related ro-dong-dan-ryeon-dae labor training camps constitute a
separate system of punishment and forced labor for North Koreans
forcibly repatriated from China.
Each of these different prison-slave labor camps, prisons and
detention facilities are characterized by extreme phenomena of
repression: life-time imprisonment and guilt by association, up to
three generations in the kwan-li-so; forced abortion and ethnic
infanticide in the provincial detention centers along the North Korea-
Chinese border; the practice of torture and extremely high rates of
deaths-in-detention from combinations of forced labor and below
subsistence food rations permeate the prison and camps system at all
levels.
The base of information on which this report was prepared is
outlined in the introduction. Still, for some of these prison camps we
have limited sources, even single sources. For example, Mr. Kim Yong is
the only known escapee from Camps 14 and 18 in province known to have
obtained asylum. On the other hand, if North Korean authorities want to
disprove the claims made by former prisoners, it would not be difficult
to invite appropriate representatives of the UN, the ICRC, or
responsible NGOs such as Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch to
visit the sites identified and located in this report. Until such time
as on-site verifications are allowed, the refugee testimonies, such as
presented in this report retain their credence and authority. Since the
North Korean authorities do not allow on-site verification, the U.S.
Committee, with the help of the National Resource Defense Council, was
able to obtain satellite photographs of seven different prison camps,
prisons and detention centers, whose landmarks have been identified by
the former prisoners from these facilities.
Finally, may I call your attention to some of the recommendations
of the report.
First, I hope Congress will be able to encourage the Bush
Administration to increase their satellite coverage of the NK prison
camps.
Second, with respect to the situation of North Koreans in China, I
hope that the U.S. will speak to the Chinese about allowing the UNHCR
access to North Koreans in China, or pending that step, to simply stop
the repatriation of North Koreans until it can be verified that the
extreme punishments of repatriated North Koreans has ceased. I would
also hope that the United States, preferably in cooperation with South
Korea and Japan can approach the Chinese about a program of orderly
departure, first asylum and third country re-settlement if that is the
only way to empty out the North Korean kwan-li-so.
Third, as a substantial contributor to the World Food Program in
Korea, I would hope that the United States could urge the WFP to offer
food support to the kyo-hwa-so, jib-kyul-so and ro-dong-dan-ryeon-dae
prisons and prisoners in order to reduce the number of deaths in
detention from malnutrition and related diseases.
Fourth, regarding the present six-party talks with North Korea, I
have no idea if these negotiations can or will succeed. Or, perhaps
they will be limited to security trade-offs and arrangements. However,
if a more comprehensive solution is envisioned or demanded--that is one
that includes foreign aid to, foreign investment in, and ``normalized''
economic relations (opening up the borders of Europe and North America
for North Korean-produced goods and materials), then I would hope that
humanitarian and human rights consideration would also be put on the
agenda for consideration.
Senator Brownback. Thank you, Mr. Hawk.
I have looked over your report,\2\ a summary of it, and
it's, you know, quite clear and explicit, and quite condemning,
what's taking place in North Korea.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ The report, including the satellite photos discussed during Mr.
Hawk's testimony, can be found on the U.S. Committee for Human Rights
in North Korea's Web site at: www.hrnk.org
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
I wonder, would you give me a couple of minutes and come
around and point to these various pictures, and hold them up
and say, ``Here is what's in this one''? I didn't ask you to do
that ahead of time, but you've got a number of these satellite
pictures, and these are all from commercial entities, as I
understand, from what you said. And just go around and spend a
moment, if you could, on each of them, identifying them.
Mr. Hawk. This is a commercial satellite photograph of the
entire Korean Peninsula with the selected prison-camp locations
of the former prisoners who were interviewed in the report.
There are many additional prison camps. These are only the
prison camps for which we had former prisoners or guards who I
was able to interview who could identify the locations of the
camps and their locations are put in this satellite photo by
the coordinates of longitude and latitude, so they're quite
accurate placements.
This is a partial interview of the kwan-li-so political
penal labor colony called Yodok, and, as you can see, this is
primarily, an agricultural prison labor farm in which various
crops are grown in the valleys in between the mountain areas.
This is where a fellow by the name of Kang Chul-Hwan was
imprisoned from the age of 9 to 19 because of the perceived
political mistake his grandfather made.
But you get a sense of the sprawling nature of these prison
camps. They're 40 miles long by 20 miles wide, so they're huge
areas that are cordoned off and guarded, and you have some
sections that are for political prisoners, and then you have
other sections isolated from the political prisoners for the
families of the political prisoners.
In the report, for each of these red boxes there is a
detail of the photograph with the identifications of various
places. The prisoners were able to find where they were living,
their dormitories, their prison housing units. They were able
to find their work sites, and they were able to find the
offices of the prison camp and execution and punishment sites
in the photographs.
This is a partial overview of both camp number 14, which is
on this side of the Taedong River, and camp number 18, which is
on this side of the Taedong River. Camp 14 is for perceived
political wrongdoers, political prisoners; 18 is for the
families of the people over here. This is a coal mine. Camps 14
and 18 are described in the report. This is where Kim Yong,
who's currently actually studying theology in Los Angeles,
escaped from. He was able, in a closeup, to identify the coal
mine where he worked, over here, and he was transferred over
here, and he worked on a coal trolley. In the detailed shots
you can see the tracks for the coal that was produced here--was
shipped to a local power plant about 20 kilometers away. He
escaped by hiding in a coal trolley. His job had been to repair
the coal trolleys. He jumped into one, and that is how he
escaped the camp.
And then you have various details of the camp with the
various sections of the prisoners. This is the entrance to the
coal mine, where Kim Yong did prison labor for 3 years as a
coal miner.
This one has--in another section of the camp, this has his
house. He was able to identify the prison dorm where he was
held.
In the one over here, which is another detail of camp 14--
has in it down here the prison execution site, where they have
public executions and hangings for people who violated the
prison camp rules, or else were caught trying to escape. And,
reasonably enough, the execution site is right near the firing
range where the guards practice their rifle shooting.
And then this photograph which I referred to earlier is the
kyo-hwa-so, where Soon Ok Lee was imprisoned along with and
another woman Ms. Ji, was interviewed for the report, who was
arrested because she was overheard singing a South Korean pop
song. This is one of the camps.
It's really like a large penitentiary, and the core of
which is a textile factory and a shoe factory where the women--
this is a place for women prisoners, mixed criminals and
politicals, produce shoes and also textiles for export. When
Soon Ok Lee was there, they were exporting to Japan, to France,
and to Russia the various textile products made by prison slave
labor at the Kaechon kyo-hwa-so. But if you look closely, you
can see the wall that surrounds the perimeter, just as she
describes in her book, and you can see the guard towers along
the walls, and various places for supplies and for the
factories for shoes and for the guards.
And there are also provincial and sub-provincial detention
centers where the repatriated North Koreans are sent. Several
of the former inmates drew little sketches that identified the
places in the adjacent or interior clinics where the forced
abortions took place or where the birthing rooms where, where
babies were suffocated. And several months after we had those
sketches, we were able to get the satellite photographs of the
town, and the women and the men from these jib-kyul-so were
able to find, in a large satellite photograph of the town,
after several magnifications they could find the buildings and
the small detention facilities. You can see that they
correspond to the sketches, so you can see the birthing rooms,
and you can also see the storage rooms where, according to the
testimony of the foreign prisoners, the suffocated fetuses were
kept prior to burial.
Senator Brownback. Thank you very much. Thank you,
Mr. Hawk. That's very graphic and specific.
We will now have the video presentation, and I believe,
rather than Mr. Hawk, Pastor Shin was going to narrate us
through this video presentation.
Pastor Shin, if you could come forward--he has worked a
great deal on human rights in this. And I would note to people
that this is previously shown by Tokyo Broadcasting Service.
They own the copyrights to this. This is, I am told, of a
misdemeanor camp, so this would be the most minor-of-offenses
type of prison camp.
And let's go ahead and start with that. And, Mr. Douglas
Shin, as you see fit to jump in here and to explain, please do
so.
Mr. Shin. Before we start the video, I'd like to make some
comments. As Mr. Hawk has explained, there are three tiers in
the North Korean penal system. The lowest level is the kyo-hwa-
so or labor training camps, the image of which we are about to
see. Kyo-hwa so is, by the way, the Russian word for labor
training camp. Kyo-hwa-so is only for the smallest of crimes,
usually misdemeanors. Sentencing is usually up to 1 year. There
are over 200 of these kyo-hwa-sos, one in each county of North
Korea. At great risk to himself, the videographer who has taken
these images has provided the first-ever video of a labor
training camp of North Korea.
These images were first aired in Tokyo on TBS and, as I
understand it, was also shown by Reuters. My understanding is
that these videos were not shown in South Korea, although there
were press reports about them. This would be the first time
that these videos are being shown in the United States.
As I understand it from my sources, all the video clips are
from a labor training camp in ro-dong-dan-ryeon-dae, which is
the official term for labor training camp. This is the
northernmost province of North Korea, right on the Chinese
border.
So we'd like to start with the first clip. The people you
see sitting on the left are very likely former refugees who
have been forcefully returned from China. Ordinary refugees who
have left China and are rounded up and sent back to North Korea
are sentenced to the equivalent of a misdemeanor, and they're
sent to a kyo-hwa-so, like this.
If a former refugee is determined to have dealt with
missionaries in China or even tried to flee to South Korea or
elsewhere, the sentence is 7 years to life in either a
penitentiary that is kyo-hwa-so or a political prisoners camp
that is kwan-li-so.
And second clip, please.
They're saying, ``giddy-up, giddy-up'' in Korean. This is a
video of workers moving a train car, presumably after having
loaded it. Inmates are forced to move the train car, as there
is no fuel to start the engine and work it. Please notice that
there are women pushing the car, as well.
And the third one, please.
OK, here you see workers removing wood and building a new
roof within the camp grounds. See the truss structure that is
not quite completed yet. There's a soldier right in the middle
ground. OK, please note women and children are also working in
this camp.
And the fourth one.
This is simply a video of detainees lined up, probably for
a meal, because they don't have tools at hand.
The narration goes ``kyo-hwa-so inmates,'' kind of
whispering to the camera.
And the final and fifth one, please.
Here you see inmates lined up to march. Yes, here you see
inmates lined up to march, with tools in hand. They are most
likely finishing a job and heading back to the dormitory. The
first part of the conversation goes, ``They've got to be
inmates.'' And the other interlocutor, probably standing next
to the videographer, goes, ``Yeah, they have to be. They ought
to be on their way to the dormitory at the end of the day.''
OK, thank you very much.
Senator Brownback. Thank you very much, Mr. Douglas Shin,
for sharing those with us in the first-ever, as I understand
it, showing of those in the United States, these clips of a
misdemeanor labor camp.
I ask now that Ambassador Palmer and Professor Mochizuki
join Mr. Hawk at the table. In the interest of time, I'd like
to ask everyone, if they could, to summarize their comments.
Ambassador Palmer has served in policy positions at the
State Department in the Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, and first
Bush administrations, including launching the National
Endowment for Democracy. He organized and participated in the
first Reagan/Gorbachev summit as the State Department's top
criminologist. And as the U.S. Ambassador to Hungary, he helped
persuade its last dictator to leave power. Ambassador Palmer is
the author of a fabulous new book that I'll put a plug in for
here, ``Breaking the Real Axis of Evil.''
Ambassador Palmer, delighted to have you here.
Mike Mochizuki is professor of Political Science and
International Affairs at George Washington University--I hope I
got somewhere close to the correct pronunciation.
Together with his colleague at the Brookings Institute,
Michael O'Hanlon, Professor Mochizuki is the coauthor of ``The
Crisis on the Korean Peninsula: How to Deal with a Nuclear
North Korea.''
Mr. O'Hanlon was to testify today, but he had a scheduling
conflict and could not join us.
Ambassador Palmer, you're certainly no stranger to these
neighborhoods. I look forward to your testimony and the floor
is yours.
STATEMENT OF HON. MARK PALMER, PRESIDENT, CAPITAL DEVELOPMENT
CORPORATION, WASHINGTON, DC
Ambassador Palmer. Yes, good. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It's
a pleasure to be with you today.
I think it's very important that we be clear, right off,
about what the goal is. The goal is to help the North Korean
people liberate themselves from this gulag, both the gulag that
we've seen and the larger gulag which is North Korea, to
achieve democracy, and to unite peacefully with their fellow
Koreans in the South. In my judgment, this will require the
ouster of the dictator, Kim Jong Il, and we need a
comprehensive strategy to achieve that goal.
In 1972, Brezhnev demanded the same thing that Kim Jong Il
has just demanded--that is, a nonaggression pact and trade and
economic assistance--and President Nixon responded in that year
by saying, ``Fine, I'll negotiate about those two things, but
you have to add a third basket--human rights, freedom of
contact, freedom of travel. You have to have a human-rights
basket.'' And, of course, as we all know, that was the Helsinki
process, and it ended up in encouraging a tremendous expansion
of freedom in Eastern Europe and ultimately in bringing down
the Communist regimes. I think it would be reasonable for all
of us to ask President Bush to repeat that lesson. That is to
say that we are willing to talk with Kim Jong Il about his
desiderata, but we're going to demand that he add the third
basket, and we repeat the Helsinki process.
This is important, because the only reason that a dictator
can remain in power is if people, the people of his nation,
cooperate--passively, out of fear, or for whatever other
reason, they cooperate. And the whole game, in my judgment--
having lived in and studied a lot of these regimes, the whole
game is to get the people to non-cooperate, to get to the point
where they say, enough is enough. And we, in the free world,
have an obligation to help them get to that point.
Now, how to do that? First, I think it's terribly important
to recognize that we must communicate with the people of North
Korea, we must open up the country, we must let them know that
they're not alone, and we must help them believe that they can,
in fact, join South Korea and become a normal country. An
invaluable avenue for that, of course, is media penetration.
It's really a disgrace that Dr. Norbert Vollertsen does not get
more support in getting radios into North Korea. Having radios
capable of receiving Radio Free Asia and South Korean stations
is really of tremendous importance. All of us who lived in
Eastern Europe during the period when Communists were brought
down know that radio broadcasting, and now television and the
Internet, are really central to the process. Members of the
elite in North Korea have greater access to information, and we
need to work on them, as well, through these same channels.
There is also, of course, a Korean diaspora, including a
sizable Korean community in Japan, and I think that we need to
work hard on turning some of those people, on gaining agents of
influence from within that community, many of whom, of course,
are sympathetic, or have been historically sympathetic, to the
North Korean Communist regime. I think there is an opportunity
there to penetrate the North through that community.
Exchanges have worked very well in opening up and
ultimately bringing down Communist regimes, and I am a strong
proponent of more exchanges with North Korea, even if in the
beginning they're timid and not exactly what we want.
I, for example, started the first business school, the
first MBA program in a Communist country, and I think that
things like that, even through they're not explicitly
political, can make a difference, and we may have to start at
that end of the spectrum.
I don't think we're going to get a lot of cooperation out
of China. My own sense is that because they are a dictator,
that mostly they're supporting Kim Jong Il. And although I
agree we should put pressure on them to cooperate on the
refugees, my own sense of the bottom line is that they're
really on the wrong side and are likely to continue to be on
the wrong side.
Russia's another situation. It's, sort of, a half democracy
or half dictatorship. I think with Putin there is a chance, and
we should work hard on him, to let refugees come out into
Russia and to create the kind of flows that we saw, and I
personally saw, coming through Hungary in 1989, which really is
what led to the collapse of East Germany.
It's very, very important that we begin to talk about
reunification in very concrete ways. I was particularly pleased
to see that in the paper he submitted, Mr. Hwong, the most
senior defector from North Korea, talked about four stages. I
think it's really important, in shifting a lead opinion in
South Korean to the point where they're willing to really
encourage change in North Korea, encourage the fall of the
Communists. It's important to reassure them that this can be
done in a stable way, in a way that's not going to overwhelm
the South Korean economy.
So I think it's very important to begin now to do detailed
planning and, most importantly, to publicize that detailed
planning on radio and television and the Internet to the North.
It can be done in a stable way. I participated personally in
doing it in Eastern Germany, where I was a large-scale
investor, and I think there are some lessons to learn from that
experience in Eastern Germany, some things not to do, as well
as things to do.
But I think the most important thing is to begin the
process, and do it very publicly, so that all governments--
Japan, Korea, ourselves--really will get enthusiastic about
bringing down the regime and not be hesitant the way we are
today.
At the end of the day, the only thing that really works
well is people-power, in my judgment. If we look at all of the
change that has taken place, not only in Communist regimes, but
in the Philippines, in Indonesia and Argentina and Chile, and,
in fact, in South Korea, itself, in ousting dictators, what
really works is getting a nonviolent people's movement going,
first in the underground, first through covert literature,
covert printing presses, and ultimately above-ground, taking
control of the whole state through strikes, general strikes,
boycotts, and the 198 different techniques, which are outlined
in Gene Sharp's very good book, ``From Dictatorship to
Democracy.'' There are 198 different techniques that have been
used for achieving justice through nonviolent means, and we, on
the whole, I think, don't understand this world. We are
accustomed to thinking that either we do it through broad-scale
sanctions, economic sanctions, or we do it through military
means, or we do it through hope. All those things, in my
judgment, are much less important than learning the lessons of
Solidarity. How did Solidarity get organized in the
underground? How did they actually do it? How did it happen in
these other countries? We can learn those lessons. My book--
thank you for mentioning--goes on at great length about how to
do this. That is, how to help the North Koreans get organized
over the coming months and years, and eventually push this
terrible tyrant out of office.
In my prepared testimony, Mr. Chairman, I go on about this
at some length. I won't take the time to do it now.
But let me just say that I think the main thing is a hangup
for most people is that they look at the regime in Pyongyang,
and they say, this is a brutal regime, and it's not going to
tolerate nonviolent resistance. It's just going to kill
everybody or put them in these camps. That's a reasonable
question, but the answer is that people in very, very brutal
situations have succeeded with nonviolent revolt, have
succeeded in paralyzing countries and bringing down dictators
again and again and again. Even in the heart of Berlin in the
middle of the Second World War, a group of women went out and
struck and did a sit-in and got their Jewish husbands released
from Auschwitz. And Hitler was certainly not faint of heart. He
was not a man unwilling to use force against peaceful
demonstrators. But it worked in Berlin in 1943. In my judgment,
it can work in Pyongyang today. But we need to get organized
and to support it.
It is really striking to me that, if you look at my former
employer, the State Department, or any other part of the U.S.
Government, including the CIA, there is no one, no part of the
bureaucracy that's committed to organizing nonviolent
resistance movements. No one. There's no one with any
expertise, there's no one who gets up in the morning and says,
OK, I'm going to work with the 43 different countries that are
under dictators, I'm going to work with the people of that
country to organize these kind of movements, and we're going to
do this peacefully, but we're going to do it. We're not set up
for that, and that's really a disgrace. It's the biggest single
weakness in our national-security apparatus, in my judgment.
I think outsiders can do a huge amount to de-legitimize Kim
Jong Il. And, as I said before, that is the name of the game.
We need to show that ``the emperor has no clothes.''
One of the ways to do that would be to do what is now
increasingly being done under international practice, and that
is to indict him, to set up an international tribunal to go
through all of the elements of criminality, which, as you said
earlier, Mr. Chairman, he is guilty of. You mentioned drugs,
you mentioned supply of weapons to other rogue regimes. In
addition to that, I would add the fact that his behavior led
directly to the starvation death of two million people. Clearly
that is a crime against humanity. He is implicated in the
assassination of South Korean cabinet ministers in Burma. That
is murder. He is implicated in the downing of a civilian Korean
airliner in the 1980s. That is terrorism. I mean, you can go
down a long list of things that would form the basis for an
indictment. And I think David Hawk's magnificent and detailed
report is precisely one of the things that could be used in an
indictment.
By indicting him, we show that this man, who likes to think
of himself as a form of God, that this man is nothing better
than a common criminal. I think we need to get on with doing
that.
And this is my final suggestion, Mr. Chairman. Another
thing that could, in my judgment, really work well is to
remember what Prime Minister Churchill and President Roosevelt
did with their fireside chats during World War II.
By speaking to the free world emotionally and strongly,
they rallied the free world to defeat the fascists and to win
the war.
I think that every democratic leader in the world should,
on a weekly or monthly basis, broadcast into North Korea--of
course, in the Korean language--a message of hope and
encouragement, with some lessons of how this has been done in
other places, and confidence that they are going to get
freedom.
In 1981--you mentioned President Reagan, and, as I think
you know, I worked with President Reagan during that period--we
got over 20 Prime Ministers and Presidents of democratic
countries to tape televised messages to broadcast into Poland,
into Solidarity, of exactly this nature. So there is precedent
for this, and I think it would have a huge effect in North
Korea if they heard the Prime Ministers of Japan and England
and Italy and many other countries, including, of course, the
President of the United States, speaking to the people of North
Korea and saying, we are on your side. You are going to achieve
your freedom, and here's how to do it.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Ambassador Palmer follows:]
Prepared Statement of Ambassador Mark Palmer, President, Capital
Development Corporation, Washington, DC
Let us be clear about our goal. We want to help the North Korean
people liberate themselves from the gulag, achieve democracy and unite
peacefully with their fellow Koreans in the South. This will require
the ouster of the dictator, Kim Jong Il. We need a comprehensive
strategy to achieve that goal.
In December 2002 Kim Jong Il created a new crisis by admitting that
he had been conducting a secret program to develop nuclear weapons, in
violation of the 1994 agreement with the United States. He threatened
war if the United States did not agree to negotiate a nonaggression
pact and restart economic assistance in return for his, again,
promising not to develop nuclear weapons. This presents an
extraordinary opportunity for the United States and South Korea to move
``From Helsinki to Pyongyang''--the title of a statement of principles
that Michael Horowitz of the Hudson Institute and I conceived and
drafted and for which we secured leading Americans as cosigners. The
Wall Street Journal published the statement on 17 January, 2003. We
argue that just as President Richard Nixon in 1972 agreed to
negotiations on Leonid Brezhnev's demands for a nonaggression pact and
improved economic cooperation but insisted on broadening the agenda to
include human rights, so President Bush should propose to open
negotiations on such a Helsinki-like three-basket agenda with North
Korea. The animating insight of Helsinki was that, by publicly raising
human rights issues to high-priority levels, the United States would
set in motion forces that would undermine the legitimacy of the Soviet
communist empire, and so it turned out to be. By formally acknowledging
in Helsinki the legitimacy of such rights as the free exchange of
people, open borders, and family reunification, the communists opened
the floodgates of dissent and brought about their eventual ouster.
Would Kim Jong Il agree to enter into such a negotiation and
agreement? In 2002 and 2003 he is showing signs of desperation, and
searching for new solutions to mounting problems. In 2002, he
introduced a modest reform in the setting of wages and prices, quite
likely in part the result of his study trips to China and Russia. In
his belligerent way, he is literally begging for relations with, and
help from the United States. While he is no Gorbachev 1984-1985, there
are some similarities--which we should exploit.
Of the 43 remaining Not Free countries, North Korea is the only one
that has yet even to take a cautious step into stage one of the three
stages of democracy development set forth in my book ``Breaking the
Real Axis of Evil: How to Oust the World's Last Dictators by 2025.'' It
has no proto-civil society, no legalistic culture to influence, no free
media. It is far more isolated than the pre-Helsinki Soviet Bloc.
Material privation surpasses that in the 1960s and 1970s Soviet Bloc,
which failed its citizens miserably, but made at least some pretense of
having a consumer base.
In fact, thanks to the resilience of the human spirit and
imagination, countries are rarely as locked down as they seem from
without. The people of North Korea can be persuaded that there is light
at the end of the tunnel, and that they can rejoin with their relations
in the South in a united, democratic, and open Korea. The democracies,
especially those with a strong presence in the region like the United
States and Japan, in partnership with the Republic of Korea, a charter
member of the Community of Democracies, need to make communicating with
the people of North Korea their first priority. Once the brutalized
people of North Korea begin to believe that they can work to change
their destiny, and that they will have all the help the democracies can
possibly provide, the rotten edifice will begin to crumble. But there
is no time to lose.
An invaluable avenue is media penetration, which is not impossible
in North Korea. People have radios even in the countryside. But we need
to ensure that they have radios that can receive foreign broadcasts.
Dr. Norbert Vollertsen's efforts, along with those of his South Korean
colleagues, to send in such radios are a vital part of the larger
strategy. Radio Free Asia has a Korean-language service, and South
Korean stations can be received. Building up the Radio Free Asia Korean
Service from its current four hours a day to a full-time service would
take a modest spike in funding, and considering the potential
dividends, the resources need to be found. A concerted effort to get
through to the North Korean public in this manner is essential, even
with the attendant jamming and monitoring.
Members of the elite in North Korea have greater access to
information from outside, through satellite television, the Internet,
and other media. They must get a consistent message that there is a
future for those who are willing to switch their allegiance to the side
of the people--and that the regime is doomed in any case owing to its
own failings. They must also understand that should the leadership lash
out in its self-imposed death throes, the response will be withering
and total. The military, security, and foreign affairs elites' access
to international media is essential to the regime. By using these
conduits, the democracies can work to reduce the chance for a
conflagration when the regime crumbles. High-level officials have
defected before, some in recent years. There is no doubt they are
taking the risk of defection for a reason. Certainly they know how low
North Korea's dictators have laid the country, and how backward it is
today. Now they must be shown a way out. The intelligence services of
the democracies need to recruit agents of influence in this rarefied
stratum. If the North Korean army and security forces can be persuaded
not to turn on dissidents at home or against ``enemies'' abroad, and if
the North Korean people can be empowered to take the necessary risks,
the shift to democracy could follow very quickly.
The democratic world must work within Japan's sizable Korean
community to find ways to get inside and funnel information out. While
this community contains a great many North Korean agents and still more
sympathizers, even this can be turned into an asset. Interrogating and
turning North Korean agents, with all the attendant risks, will at the
very least give a clearer picture of North Korea's support network. If
these resources are squeezed or redirected toward the struggle for
democracy, the regime will feel real pressure.
Such exchanges with the outside world as still exist must be
exploited. Russia, at least nominally a democracy, continues to court
cold-war-era allies. But North Korea cannot be seen as an ally that
produces any financial or strategic gain for Moscow. Following the
terrorist attacks on the United States, Russia's President, Vladimir
Putin, has tried to draw closer to the United States. An opportunity to
change tack is now at hand. President Bush should communicate to Putin
that he sees a peaceful transition to democracy in North Korea as being
in the interests of both the United States and Russia, and that Moscow
has an important role to play in assuring a ``soft landing.'' Broadcast
facilities in the Russian far east could help increase the radio
footprint--and the frequencies used--for reaching the North Korean
general population. Russia's border with North Korea, though relatively
short, allows for some defections, refugee flows, and interaction with
North Korean authorities. Furthermore, a declared policy of offering
political asylum to those who escape should be adopted. A sufficient
flow of refugees could, as in former East Germany, lead to the collapse
of the regime without any bloodshed or war. If Russia wants to be
considered a democracy and a partner in the war on terrorism, its
actions with regard to North Korea, as well as the post-Soviet ``near
abroad,'' rogue states, and its own dirty war in Chechnya, need to be
the proof of such a commitment to a common goal.
China, which shares a much longer border with North Korea, has a
deeper, more significant relationship with Pyongyang--a relationship
among dictatorial regimes that feel besieged by the democratic world's
pull. While China is somewhat more open, it is integral to maintaining
the regime it saved from annihilation in the Korean War. There is far
greater interchange between China and North Korea. Defections and
refugees from North Korea are common--some three hundred thousand in
the past few years. Consistent with the rest of Chinese human rights
practice, some are forcibly returned to North Korea. Others, as is the
case with illegal aliens the world over, are kept in essentially
chattel-slavery conditions in China. The communist Chinese regime's
quest for international respectability, though doomed by its own
essential nature, could be used to advantage in this most dire
circumstance. It is against international law to return refugees to
countries where they will likely be tortured or killed. Chinese
commitments--indeed exhortations--that international law must be the
basis for relations among nations should be invoked. In addition, this
is the most permeable border into North Korea, and better intelligence
on the state of the regime and the people of North Korea is best
gathered here. Democracies should fund the resettlement in South Korea
of Koreans who manage to escape the North Korean border guards.
The bottom line is that Beijing needs to be forced to accept that
North Korea will eventually reunify with South Korea in a democratic
Korean state, and that the democracies wish to manage this, starting
the process sooner rather than later. Of course, if China itself is
democratized earlier than North Korea this problem evaporates.
In addition to all this external activity, the democracies need to
work to get inside the country directly. Why not up the ante by
announcing that the United States, and other democracies wish to open
embassies in Pyongyang? With the right talent in even a handful of
democratic embassies, the influence of democracies in North Korea--and
over developments there--would increase exponentially. Like all
embassies, these should be freedom houses, with Internet access and
facilities where people can safely meet. The ambassadors and all their
diplomatic staff need to make themselves visible on the scene in
Pyongyang, testing their limits, traveling to the hinterland, reporting
and networking and influencing, even passing out free radios able to
receive foreign broadcasts, as our embassy office in Cuba has been
doing.
Under the leadership of the South Koreans, the democracies and NGOs
need to vastly expand educational, cultural, scientific, people-to-
people, and other exchanges with North Koreans. This tried-and-true
method had huge impact on opening up the USSR and Eastern Europe and
can work in North Korea as well. Kim Jong Il has been willing to
explore exchanges, although very tentatively and with repeated
backsliding. Even if the initial areas the dictator is interested in
should be restricted to such subjects as management training, learning
how the World Bank and other international development institutions
function and how commercial law works, the democracies should see this
as the beginning of a process. While nervous and paranoid, Kim Jong Il,
like most dictators, may begin to think he is smart enough to avoid the
fate of others before him who thought they could control everything. We
need to believe that he will fail once enough opening occurs.
Managing the shift to reunification should start now. Because
regimes rarely crumble according to a timetable, having a plan in place
for the disintegration of the North Korean regime is imperative. The
neighborhood needs to buy into the overall plan, or, as with China, be
willing to stay out of the way. The whole democratic world must
reassure the region, and Seoul most of all, that it will have resolute
backup--including resources--when the process gains its own momentum.
Fear of being overwhelmed is palpable, and understandable given the
massive disparity that has grown between North and South Korea. This
fear is perhaps the largest barrier to active South Korean government
support for regime change in the North. They need reassurance that the
process can be managed. The time to begin planning for what can be done
in all conceivable scenarios is now.
A major reason to begin post-communist planning now is to do it
publicly, broadcast it to North Korea and therefore help raise
expectations there, create momentum, make the prospect of radical
change seem real and near-term. No dictatorship can long survive once
the people withdraw their cooperation.
Already, South Koreans and others are studying how Germany went
about its unification in 1990, and what is to be avoided. While the
analogy is imperfect, there are still lessons to learn. One obvious
``don't'' is not to convert the North Korean currency on a basis too
favorable to it. This killed East Germany's one competitive advantage--
low labor costs. Labor mobility will also have to wait for some time,
until the North's economy has made some advances, so as not to swamp
the South with cheaper labor and again, not to deny northern Korea its
natural advantage in attracting investment. Squaring this need with the
inevitable drive for family reunification and freedom of movement will
be a difficult equation, and one that requires serious thinking now.
Perhaps Korea should be reunited in principle after the dictator's
ouster but with some degree of separation and autonomy for a transition
period. A positive lesson from Germany's unification: building up
infrastructure pays big dividends in enabling economic growth,
attracting domestic and foreign investment, and stemming the exodus to
more affluent areas. North Korea was once the country's industrial
base, and industry requires serviceable roads, ports, railways, and
communications systems.
Cadres of South Korean police, administrators, and other managers
will need to move north to help make the transition as smooth as
possible. Northerners need to be brought into the process at all
stages. Most important will be the early introduction of democratic
political institutions and getting to the point where North Koreans can
manage local matters in the same way South Koreans already do.
One of the most positive models for a liberated North Korea is the
example of South Korea. In a single lifetime, South Korea has risen
from being considered a hopeless backwater under dictators to joining
the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development--the club of
the world's richest democracies. South Koreans also had to struggle
against and overcome dictatorship to achieve their freedom. Their
ingenuity and know-how are already on hand.
A campaign to help bring the world's most repressive regime down,
with the North Koreans themselves leading the way for their own
liberation, can make an entirely free and united Korea a reality. In
parallel with all the other steps outlined above, from the outset we
must be working with North and South Koreans and others to organize a
non-violent movement to achieve this objective. In a sense, all the
other steps are designed to open the space for a nonviolent movement to
operate and succeed.
Trying to force dictators to modify the worst aspects of their
behavior may certainly help to lessen the human suffering they cause.
Soviet leader Nikita Sergeyevich Krushchev closed down much of Stalin's
gulag; and we should strive to get Kim Jong Il to do the same. But
softening repression does not eliminate its cause; eliminating the
dictator is the only way to do that. History provides no account of a
dictator being converted into a democrat while still in power, or of
relinquishing power of his own volition. The only way for democracy to
emerge is for the dictator to go.
How the dictator is challenged determines whether and how quickly
he can be ousted, and it also has a crucial effect on whether
sustainable democracy ensues. Armed rebellions usually fail, often even
before they can begin. Even if they succeed, what comes after is
typically no better, and frequently worse, than what they displace.
Leaders of guerrilla movements are adept at the use of violence and
take those skills with them when they take over presidential mansions:
that is why violent revolutions typically produce repressive regimes.
The people inherit only a new set of jailers.
But there is another set of strategies for dissolving dictatorial
power and establishing democracy, and it has a remarkable record of
success. In their seminal book, ``A Force More Powerful'', Peter
Ackerman and Jack Du Vall document a dozen cases in which nonviolent
popular movements prevailed against seemingly overwhelming odds and
took power away from arbitrary rulers. My own experiences in the U.S.
civil rights movement and in diplomatic service in communist countries
confirm their view that political systems that deny people their rights
can best be taken apart from the inside by the people themselves--of
course with substantial assistance from outside.
No dictator can hold power without sowing the seeds of popular
discontent. Payoffs to cronies and constables who crack down on
opponents eventually exude the smell of corruption, which is always
deeply unpopular. The mothers and fathers of young dissidents who are
``disappeared'' do not forget who is responsible for sundering their
families. And few dictators are known for their brilliance in economic
management: the economic crises that frequently follow can pile up more
dry tinder of public resentment.
From the moment when the match of organized nonviolent opposition
is first struck to the day that the dictator steps down, years can
elapse--or only weeks. Almost a decade passed between the first
stirrings of organized dissidence against the Polish communist regime
in the early 1970s and the appearance of Solidarity in the midst of the
Gdansk shipyard strike. But forty years earlier, a general strike by
the citizens of El Salvador had toppled a military tyrant in a matter
of days. The difference is not in how much violence the state is
prepared to use--the Salvadoran general was one of his country's
bloodiest rulers. What makes for success is developing and
communicating clear objectives for the struggle, organizing and
mobilizing people on a wide scale, applying maximum pressure to the
pillars of a regime's support, and protecting the movement from
inevitable repression.
In his landmark tract ``From Dictatorship to Democracy'' which has
been translated into a dozen languages and used as a bible by
dissidents from Burma to Serbia, Gene Sharp--the master theoretician of
nonviolent conflict--identifies 198 separate methods of nonviolent
action. From social and economic boycotts to industrial and rent
strikes, and from outright civil disobedience to physical interventions
such as sit-ins and occupations, the panoply of nonviolent weapons is
far more diverse and inventive than the broadcast media's preoccupation
with street marches would lead idle viewers to imagine.
That nonviolent resistance can be at once robust and precise,
widespread and carefully timed, is typically unexpected by outsiders,
but not by the dictators who are its targets. They do not share the
common misconceptions that nonviolent action is passive and reactive
and that its leaders are amateurs or pacifists. Nonviolent movements
that develop a systematic strategy to undermine their opponents and
seize power are deliberately engaging in conflict, albeit with
different resources and weapons.
Even though these strategies do not use guns or explosives, they
are not forms of conflict for the fainthearted. Nonviolent fighters
often have to make protracted physical and economic sacrifices before
they liberate their peoples. Many have to endure arrest, imprisonment,
and torture. Many have been murdered. Yet tens of thousands of them, in
conflict after conflict on five continents, have willingly faced these
risks, in the interest of achieving freedom or justice.
Shrewd leadership can help them minimize risks and maximize the
political damage their movement inflicts on the dictator. In movements
that need people at the working level of society to join open or
clandestine opposition, leaders can enlarge the ranks only by showing
people that the goals of the struggle are worthy, the strategy sound.
So unlike organizations that employ violence, nonviolent movements
cannot be operated like an army, strictly from the top down. Their
leaders have to rely on the same skills that are needed in running a
democracy: persuading people to go along and encouraging initiative at
the grass roots. A nonviolent campaign is effective when it
overstretches the capacity of a dictator to maintain business as usual;
but it can do that only when it empowers people everywhere to challenge
his control.
Nonviolent power is therefore always rooted in the mind and action
of the individual, and sometimes that action seems innocuous when the
struggle is young. As Jan Bubec, the Czech student leader has said,
most of the movements against communist rulers in central and eastern
Europe first took the form of samizdat, or self-published books,
pamphlets, and other literature. The civic action to curb the military
dictatorship in Argentina in the late 1970s began with a handful of
unsophisticated mothers of the disappeared marching in the capital's
central square. Nonviolent combatants understand something that
dictators do not: to be sustainable, social or political action has to
be built on the choice of individuals to engage in it, not on state
edicts that prod unwilling subjects into compliance.
Although nonviolent resistance begins with the individual citizen,
it has far more potential than violent insurrection to enlist all parts
of the oppressed society in the cause. While violent skirmishing with
police or soldiers may appeal to young firebrands, it frightens off
older people and those without a taste for physical confrontation--in
other words, the most stable elements of civil society, whose support
is essential for lasting social or political change. By giving people
from all walks of life (even children) ways of participating in a
movement, nonviolent strategies enlarge the inventory of resources and
tools available to undermine a regime.
This eclectic, inclusive approach to mobilizing support can even
extend to people within the regime. Dissatisfaction with a dictator is
not limited to those who are politically motivated to oppose him. From
lower-level apparatchiks all the way up to the praetorian guard, there
is often fear and ambivalence in the ranks of the dictator's chosen
servants and defenders. The greater the repression that the dictator
has employed, the greater the opportunity to subvert the loyalty of
those defenders--but not if the movement vilifies them. When Ferdinand
Marcos fell in the Philippines in 1986, and when Slobodan Milosevic
fell in Serbia in 2000, their own military officers and police refused
final orders to crack down on the opposition. That could not have
happened had nonviolent organizers demonized or picked fights with
security and military services.
Whether it is manifested in crowded public rallies or the emptiness
of boycotted stores, in the boisterous occupation of key factories or
the public stillness of a general strike, the vitality of a nonviolent
movement necessarily raises popular expectations that it can work where
other methods may have failed. Unless people are encouraged by the
chance of victory to take action, they will never believe that change
is possible. Nothing aids a dictator like the assumption that he cannot
be vigorously challenged and when he is challenged the confidence of
those whose support he requires to remain in power begins to erode.
Then, when a movement's momentum builds from one engagement to the
next, the whole nation will realize that the dictator's survival is in
question.
No dictator is exempt from having to face this question once a
nonviolent movement opens up space for opposition. If we think that the
dictators in Beijing and Pyongyang are too ruthless to be bothered by
nonviolent challengers, we should revisit the story of Charlotte
Israel, the German woman who organized a sit-in demonstration in the
heart of Berlin in World War II and forced the Nazis to release her
husband and thousands of other Jewish spouses who had been taken to the
death camps.
North Korea definitely offers reasons for optimism. It is perhaps
the most brittle dictatorship in the world today. Seldom has a regime
more fully failed its people and had as little legitimacy and popular
support. We know from senior defectors that even those immediately
around Kim Jong Il are more afraid than loyal, and that he himself is
intensely afraid of being overthrown.
We need to develop a training and support program for a non-violent
movement for and inside North Korea, benefiting from the experience in
South Korea, the Philippines, Indonesia, eastern Europe and elsewhere.
Leaders from those successful movements should train Koreans. A
volunteer cadre of those who have escaped from North Korea could form
one core group for training in organization and conflict techniques.
But others in South Korea and beyond can play important roles.
Outsiders can help by delegitimizing Kim Jong Il. We need a new
class of dictator-ousting sanctions narrowly targeted on him, as
opposed to broad economic and other sanctions which wall off North
Koreans, punish an already suffering people, reinforce the gulag and
Kim's control. One such sanction gaining international precedent is to
indict and try a dictator for crimes against humanity in a specially
instituted tribunal. The basis for an indictment against Kim Jong Il is
clear. David Hawk's magnificent and detailed report provides
substantial material. Kim Jong Il also should be indicted for the
deaths of some two million Koreans from starvation. He is also
implicated in the assassination of South Korean cabinet ministers in
Burma and the downing of a Korean airliner in the 1980s. I urge that
dictatorship itself be declared a crime against humanity; by definition
it denies an entire people of rights guaranteed under a host of
international agreements adhered to even by North Korea. By treating
Kim Jong Il as the criminal he is, we will undermine his attempt to
appear almost like a god. We will show that the emperor has no clothes.
This is profoundly important in building the will to resist and oust
him.
Outsiders also could help instill the will to resist among North
Koreans by the sort of fireside chats which Prime Minister Churchill
and President Roosevelt used to give the free world the courage to
resist and defeat the fascists in World War II. Democratic leaders
should make a weekly or monthly practice of speaking to the North
Korean people via radio, television and the Internet. We persuaded over
twenty prime ministers and presidents of democracies to join in
broadcasting to Poland and Solidarity in the 1980s.
Let us finish the job of bringing democracy to the Korean peninsula
through the diplomacy of opening and liberation, and inspiring and
supporting people power.
Senator Brownback. Thank you, Ambassador. That's a very
thoughtful set of comments from somebody, as they say, ``been
there, done that,'' and I appreciate the thoughts.
Professor, thank you very much for joining us. The
microphone is yours.
STATEMENT OF PROF. MIKE MOCHIZUKI, DIRECTOR, SIGUR CENTER FOR
ASIAN STUDIES, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY, WASHINGTON, DC
Mr. Mochizuki. Thank you very much, Chairman Brownback, for
this opportunity to appear before your subcommittee.
We all agree that the North Korean state is a horrific and
brutal regime that represses and tortures its own people, and
we all agree that this state increasingly engages in
international criminal activities to maintain the regime, and
that its policies and behavior pose an acute threat to the
stability of North East Asia and to our basic security
interests and fundamental and moral values. But there is an
honest and significant debate and disagreement about how best
to deal with North Korea, about whether to and how to
incorporate the human-rights issue in our dealings with the
North Korean regime.
In a book that Michael O'Hanlon and I recently published on
this subject, we articulate and recommend a comprehensive and
constructive engagement strategy toward North Korea. Simply
put, the strategy involves a more-for- more approach. We would
demand more from the North Korean state, but we would also
offer more. We would offer regional security assurances,
economic aid, technical assistance, and investments in order to
entice North Korea to respond positively to a more ambitious
agenda that would include conventional arms control and a
human-rights dialog, as well as the dismantling of its nuclear
weapons and missile programs.
This strategy would seek to fundamentally alter the
structure of incentives and disincentives with the North Korean
regime. While mobilizing international pressure on North Korea,
this approach would seek to steer the regime in a reformist
direction by outlining a realistic path out of its present
predicament. And we see a human-rights dialog, an improvement
in the human-rights situation, in North Korea as an essential
component of such a reform trajectory.
The underlying logic or rationale of our more-for-more or
grand-bargain approach becomes most evident when we compare our
approach to other options or alternatives that have been
pursued or suggested.
One alternative is to focus primarily on the North Korean
nuclear and ballistic missile threat. While recognizing and
deploring the atrocities that North Korea commits against its
own citizens, proponents of this narrow approach argue that
broadening the agenda in our dealings with North Korea will
only complicate our negotiations to denuclearize North Korea.
But the recent track record shows the limitations of this
narrow approach. North Korea has demonstrated that it will
cheat on agreements and use its nuclear programs to blackmail
the United States and the international community and extort
external aid without fundamentally altering its behavior. We
believe the only way to get out of this cycle of cheating,
blackmail, and extortion is to encourage North Korea to
demilitarize the society and implement economic reforms.
Another alternative approach is what some call ``hawkish
engagement.'' This approach involves maximizing international
pressure on North Korea by avoiding bilateral negotiations with
Pyongyang and insisting on multilateral talks through which
China, Russia, and South Korea would join the United States and
Japan in criticizing North Korean behavior and policies.
Although proponents of this approach are willing to hint, in a
piecemeal fashion, about possible positive incentives, such as
security assurances and economic aid, they insist that North
Korea must first agree to a verifiable and irreversible
dismantling and end to its nuclear weapons program. The problem
with this approach is that North Korea is unlikely to give up
first its strongest diplomatic card before the details of our
positive incentives are clearly and publicly articulated. The
danger of this approach is that the multilateral talks might
yield few positive results and ultimately allow North Korea to
engage in stalling tactics while moving forward on the
development of nuclear weapons.
A third alternative is to dismiss the possibility of
negotiating any kind of workable agreement with North Korea
that it will honor. Proponents of this approach argue that what
we should be doing is mobilizing an international coalition to
squeeze the North Korean regime and ultimately provoke the
collapse of the North Korean state.
Although we might all like to see an alternative North
Korean state emerge or to see Korean unification after the
North Korean state collapses, a squeezing strategy entails
major risks.
First of all, there is the strong possibility that the
North Korean state will not collapse easily. Instead, a
squeezing strategy may cause the North Korean regime to expand
its international criminal activities, worsen its abuses
against its own people and engage in brinksmanship tactics that
increase the danger of miscalculation and military conflict.
Second, an abrupt collapse of the North Korean state could
result in political and social chaos, with major negative
ramifications for military and human security for which we are
ill prepared.
Finally, although China, Russia, and South Korea may be
willing to apply diplomatic pressure against North Korea, these
countries, and perhaps even Japan, are unlikely to join a
squeezing strategy that would aim at provoking a collapse of
the North Korean regime.
Critics of Mike O'Hanlon's and my ``more-for-more'' or
``grand-bargain'' proposal question whether North Korea would
really respond favorably to such an approach. Of course, none
of us can say with any certainty how North Korea will respond,
because this approach has never been tried.
But there are some indications that it is worth trying this
course of action. First, studies of North Korean negotiating
behavior suggest that the North Koreans become more responsive
and flexible when the agenda is broadened beyond the nuclear
issue. But broadening the agenda by proposing up front the
vision of a grand bargain does not mean that everything has to
be implemented at once. Indeed, the grand bargain can be
implemented incrementally on the basis of mutual reciprocity.
But to encourage responsiveness and flexibility on the part of
North Korea, we recommend that the incentives be articulated in
a clear and coherent package, rather than in piecemeal fashion,
as the Bush administration is doing today.
Second, since last summer, North Korea has taken some
significant, although still limited and inadequate, steps
toward economic reforms. Our approach would further encourage
this direction.
Third, our approach is more likely to win the support of
the major states in the region--China, South Korea, Russia, and
especially Japan, if the kidnaping issue is taken up as part of
the human-rights dialog. Therefore, proposing the more-for-more
bargain would allow us to mobilize the necessary international
pressure to compel North Korea to be responsive to our
approach. And if, in the end, our approach should fail, then
the other countries would be more willing to consider harsher
measures against North Korea.
Finally, our approach attempts to get at the root cause of
North Korea's economic problems, human rights abuses, its
international criminal activities, and its nuclear weapons
program--namely, the highly militarized nature of its society.
By insisting on significant cuts in its conventional military
as part of the Korean Peninsula conventional arms-control
process, we could not only reduce the burden that the military
imposes on the North Korean economy, but also gradually correct
the major distortions of North Korean society. Such an
approach, we feel, will work to soften and open up the country
to more activities, like humanitarian non-government
organizations, international business enterprises, and U.N.-
related organizations, and ultimately improve the horrific
human-rights situation in that tragic country, and transform
this brutal regime.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Mochizuki follows:]
Prepared Statement of Mike Mochizuki, Director of the Sigur Center for
Asian Studies, George Washington University, and Michael O'Hanlon,
Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy Studies, the Sydney Stein, Jr., Chair,
Brookings Institute, Washington, DC
TOWARDS A ``GRAND BARGAIN'' WITH NORTH KOREA INCLUDING A HUMAN RIGHTS
AGENDA
Mr. Chairman, Mr. Ranking Member, other Senators on the committee,
it is an honor to appear today to discuss the terrible human rights
situation in contemporary North Korea, and the means by which the
United States and its regional partners might seek to improve it.
Our argument comes from a book that we recently wrote entitled
Crisis on the Korean Peninsula: How to Deal with a Nuclear North Korea
(McGraw-Hill, 2003) (The book is summarized in the attached article
from The Washington Quarterly Autumn 2003 issue.) We make a proposal
for a new, broader, more demanding negotiating agenda with the DPRK.
Some have called this type of approach ``more for more''--greater
incentives being offered to North Korea to change, but only in exchange
for deep reforms in that country going well beyond resolution of the
nuclear weapons issue.
We include human rights centrally in the negotiating agenda--in the
belief that American values and basic human decency demand it, and in
the realpolitik conviction that any country with the current human
rights practices of the DPRK cannot be a reliable negotiating partner
of the United States. Among our demands are that North Korea allow the
return of all Japanese kidnapping victims, and that it begin to engage
the international community in a human rights dialogue about its prison
camps and other forms of domestic repression that is akin to what we
have conducted with China in recent times.
The broader logic of our proposal is simple. We see a negotiation
focused only on North Korea's nuclear weapons as posing a catch 22 for
the United States. If we offer North Korea major benefits simply for
returning to compliance with the 1994 Agreed Framework, we are
rewarding proliferant behavior and giving in to a form of extortion.
But if we follow the Bush administration's approach and demand that
North Korea give up the illicit weapons first, before other issues such
as economic development assistance can be discussed, progress is
unlikely. Pyongyang probably sees nuclear weapons as perhaps its only
real national asset and hence will probably refuse to surrender them
without getting a good deal in return. This is a recipe for paralysis
in the six-party talks expected to resume later this fall.
The more logical, and it seems to us the more ethical, approach to
take in this situation is to offer North Korea economic assistance, a
lifting of trade sanctions, and tighter diplomatic ties and stronger
security assurances--but only as a way of helping North Korea reform,
not as a reward for its recent behavior or for its Stalinist form of
government. We can only justify assistance and engagement with North
Korea if the process begins to repair an abysmal regime--assuming it is
not already beyond repair, as in fact it may be.
A reform agenda must cover all the major issues dividing North
Korea from the international community and resulting in the horrible
plight of the North Korean people. That means it must address North
Korea's oversized military and broken economy. It also means a serious
negotiating agenda must compel North Korea to reassess and gradually
change its horrendous and fundamentally immoral human rights record.
This type of reform has occurred before within a communist system,
most notably in Vietnam and China in recent times. It is hard to
achieve, but clearly not impossible. Often, economic reforms lead the
way followed by slower political change and improvement in human rights
policy. Given the absence of appealing policy alternatives, we can
accept such a gradual improvement in North Korean human rights in our
judgment, as long as it is crystal clear that we will insist on
improvement as part of any deal we negotiate with Pyongyang.
However, attempting such change could also, of course, lead to an
uncontrollable sequence of events resulting in such upheaval in North
Korea as to produce the demise of that regime. While few in this
country would lament such an event, North Korean leaders would surely
fear it. That means they would be unlikely to accept such a broad
agenda for reform, unless they also faced a stern international
community threatening tougher action should the strategy of diplomatic
engagement not succeed. Our proposed grand bargain thus requires a
continuation of military deterrence and a willingness to use economic
as well as even military coercion should diplomacy fail.
By seriously attempting diplomacy first, however, and offering
Pyongyang real incentives to change, the United States would improve
its ability to convince South Korea, Japan, China, and Russia that
tougher measures could be needed if an engagement strategy does not
work.
In sum, the broad point here is that even if one swallows disbelief
and attempts a serious negotiating agenda with Pyongyang, as we
advocate, such an engagement strategy should include a major human
rights component. Expectations for rapid change must be realistic, but
aspirations must be ambitious, and pressure on North Korea to change
must be real. Both American values and hard-headed U.S. foreign policy
interests demand it. No narrow negotiation that leaves the present DPRK
regime unchanged, but for elimination of its nuclear program, can be
expected to produce lasting stability in the region. No such
negotiation is in fact even likely to succeed. Ironically, only by
enlarging the diplomatic agenda with North Korea do we have any hope of
making real progress--or, should talks fail, of convincing our regional
security partners to resort to tougher measures if that becomes
necessary.
[From The Washington Quarterly Autumn 2003]
TOWARD A GRAND BARGAIN WITH NORTH KOREA
(By Michael O'Hanlon and Mike Mochizuki *)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Michael O'Hanlon is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution
in Washington, D.C. Mike Mochizuki is a professor of political science
and international affairs at George Washington University. O'Hanlon and
Mochizuki are coauthors of Crisis on the Korean Peninsula: How to Deal
with a Nuclear North Korea (McGraw-Hill, 2003).
The most promising route to resolve the worsening nuclear crisis in
Northeast Asia is for Washington, Tokyo, Seoul, and Beijing to pursue a
grand bargain with Pyongyang. These governments need to recognize that
North Korean economic atrophy, caused largely by North Korea's
excessive conventional military force as well as its failed command-
economy system, is at the core of the nuclear crisis and that curing
the latter can only be done by recognizing the underlying disease. This
grand bargain should be big and bold in scope, addressing the
underlying problem while providing bigger and better carrots with the
actual potential to entice, together with tough demands on North Korea
that go well beyond the nuclear issue. In this comprehensive way,
policymakers would provide a road map for the vital and ultimate goal
of denuclearizing North Korea. Through the stages of implementation,
each side would retain leverage over the other as aid would be provided
gradually to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) while the
DPRK would cut or eliminate its weapons and reform its economy over
time, thus reassuring each side that it was not being hoodwinked.
The Benefits of Thinking Big
North Korea is likely to find a broad plan tough and demanding.
Such a plan would result in major changes in DPRK security policy as
well as its economy and even, to some extent, aspects of domestic
policy such as human rights. Yet, such broad road maps are often
useful. If the parties lay them out clearly and commit to them early in
the process--even if implementation occurs over time--they can help
countries on both sides focus on the potentially substantial benefits
of a fruitful diplomatic process, thus reducing the odds that
negotiations get bogged down in pursuit of marginal advantages on
specific issues. Specific pledges can also help countries verify each
other's commitment to actual results and thus enhance confidence.\1\
THE FAILURE OF DIPLOMACY DU JOUR
U.S. policy toward North Korea in the last decade has been, for the
most part, narrow and tactical, focusing on the crisis du jour rather
than on a broader game plan. The 1994 Agreed Framework on North Korea's
nuclear program required that the DPRK cease activities that could have
given it a nuclear arsenal of 50 weapons by the decade's end; in
exchange, the United States and other countries promised to provide
North Korea with alternative energy sources. This deal was beneficial
within its limited scope, but it failed to address the underlying
problem or lead U.S. policymakers to pursue a broader vision beyond the
specific attempt to buy out the North Korean missile program later in
the decade. Such a tactical approach was perhaps inevitable in the
early 1990s, when the Clinton administration was focused on domestic
issues and was inexperienced in its foreign policy, as Somalia, Haiti,
and Bosnia had shown. As a result of these distractions and
inexperience, the Clinton administration had a difficult time at the
highest levels of government focusing strategically on North Korea and
thus failed to develop an integrated approach for dealing with
Pyongyang that combined incentives with threats and deterrence.\2\
A tactical, nuclear-specific focus that involved incentives to
alter one specific type of behavior could have been defended as a
reasonable approach in the early 1990s. Indeed, until stopped by the
Clinton administration, Israel had reportedly been pursuing a deal to
compensate North Korea for not selling missiles to Iran.\3\ If it made
strategic sense for a security-conscious country such as Israel to
consider buying out North Korea's missile program, why did it not make
sense for the United States and its regional allies to buy out North
Korea's even more dangerous nuclear program?
In addition, after the dissolution of the Soviet bloc, many U.S.
policymakers expected that North Korea would no longer enjoy the aid or
favorable trading arrangements that it needed to survive and would soon
collapse, thus obviating the need for a long-term solution. Other
policymakers may have expected that concluding a deal on nuclear
weapons would naturally lead to a quick thaw in relations on the
peninsula without any need to articulate a broader vision. In any
event, even if some had wished to articulate such a vision, domestic
politics in the United States and in South Korea, where hawks
discouraged dealing with the Stalinist regime to the north, stood in
the way. Moreover, a tactical, crisis-driven approach to dealing with
North Korea did produce some temporary successes, the most significant
being the Agreed Framework.
Despite its reasonable logic, however, this approach is not as
promising today.\4\ President George W. Bush has made it clear that he
is opposed to new deals with North Korea on the nuclear issue that
smack of blackmail. North Korea has now demonstrated its disinterest in
an incremental, slow process of improving relations. It would not have
developed its underground uranium-enrichment program--a clear and
blatant violation of the Agreed Framework, which required North Korean
compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty--were it content
with the benefits of such a patient approach.
In addition, the type of limited engagement pursued over the last
decade may have inadvertently encouraged the DPRK to develop a
counterproductive habit of using its weapons programs to gain money and
diplomatic attention. Whether one views this tendency as extortion or
as the desperate actions of a failing regime, the outcome has been the
same.
THINKING BIG
Aiming for a big, multifaceted deal might seem counter intuitive
when Washington and Pyongyang cannot even sustain a narrow agreement on
a specific issue. A recent CSIS report even explicitly argued against
making any proposal that included ambitious conventional-arms
reductions on the grounds that such broad demands could only be a
recipe for stalemate and failure.\5\ The 1999 Perry report, drafted by
a policy review team led by former secretary of defense William Perry,
also took aim at broad proposals, suggesting that they would meet
resistance in Pyongyang, which would see any attempt at major reforms
as a measure designed to undermine the regime.\6\
The current situation is at an impasse, however; a new idea is
needed. The Bush administration's proposal, which demands broad
concessions from North Korea, especially on the nuclear weapons front,
without offering any concrete incentives in return and which resists
bilateral negotiations with Pyongyang, is probably not that new idea.
It stands little chance of convincing Pyongyang to change course.
Coercion is unlikely to bring about North Korea's collapse or to
convince Pyongyang to change its policy quickly enough to prevent a
major nuclear crisis in Northeast Asia. Furthermore, this approach
elicits little support from key U.S. security partners in the region.
South Korea under the Roh government certainly prefers diplomatic
engagement over coercion, and although Japan has recently become
tougher by stopping North Korean shipping and considering tighter
economic sanctions, it still wants to avoid a military crisis that
risks war on the Korean peninsula.
Aiming for a larger bargain in which more is offered to North Korea
but more is also demanded in return risks little except a bit of money.
On the upside, it has the potential to break the current impasse in
Northeast Asia, just as broad visions or road maps have guided other
recent peace negotiations in the Balkans and the Middle East (with many
obvious limitations and setbacks, but some real successes to date as
well). The grand bargain approach can benefit both sides. The United
States and its allies can reduce the DPRK threat across the board and
begin to turn that police state away from a policy of reflexive
confrontation and blackmail, while North Korea can gain greater levels
of assistance over time and perhaps can begin to reform its economy in
the way China did--and as Pyongyang seems to desire, at least
occasionally.
Moreover, studies of North Korean negotiating behavior\7\ suggest
that broader deals may work better than narrow proposals on specific
issues. This seemed to be the pattern in the 1993-1994 negotiations
leading to the Agreed Framework. Although these talks progressed slowly
for a year or so, they produced an accord once the negotiations were
broadened beyond the nuclear weapons issue to include energy,
economics, security, and diplomatic incentives. Alas, the promises made
in this deal were never realized, as all parties (especially the DPRK)
put up roadblocks, but the inclusion of these dimensions of the
relationship nonetheless helped produce the initial agreement.
In addition to other advantages, a broader approach would also
provide the bold initiative that the Roh government suggested that the
United States offer to Pyongyang.\8\ Without strong cooperation between
Seoul and Washington, no plan for dealing with North Korea can work.
Indeed, if Pyongyang senses dissension and discord in the U.S.-South
Korean alliance, the North Korean government will probably revert to
its traditional temptation of trying to split the two allies.
Beyond cooperation with South Korea, a grand bargain proposal can
make U.S. policy much more palatable to other key regional players--
Japan and China. Collaboration among these four countries in their
basic approach to resolving the North Korean problem is essential to
prevent Pyongyang from being tempted to play one government off against
the others, as it often has done in the past, and to enable these four
countries to work together to pursue their common goals.\9\ Yet, they
will not unite behind a policy that begins with hard-line measures; in
particular, South Korea and China will consider taking a tough stance
against Pyongyang only after serious diplomatic steps have clearly been
attempted and have failed. Uniting the four players is thus the best
way both to improve the prospects for diplomacy and a successful
coercive strategy, should that diplomacy fail.
Making It Work
For the grand bargain to work, both carrots and sticks are needed--
incentives as well as resolute deterrence and even threats if need be.
Beyond the nuclear issue, such a grand bargain must also address the
broader problems on the Korean peninsula--most notably North Korea's
oversized military and undersized economy, as well as a horrible human
rights record that is repressive even by Communist standards.
BALANCING CARROTS AND STICKS
A policy that uses carrots and sticks is not necessarily a
contradictory one. Although the world should not give Pyongyang
substantial aid and other benefits simply to appease a dangerous leader
or to solve an immediate security crisis, the United States and its
allies can and should be generous if North Korea is prepared to
eliminate its nuclear weapons programs, transform the broader security
situation on the peninsula, reform its economy, and even begin to
change its society. Doing so would not show weakness but rather provide
a way to solve--not postpone--an important security problem by changing
the fundamental nature of the adversary.
Moreover, depending on the particular circumstances surrounding
negotiations, the grand bargain's strategic use of carrots can help
retain the threat of a military strike against Yongbyon as a last
resort. Although Washington has been unable to convince Seoul of the
need for such a threat today, that situation could change. A committed,
initial attempt at diplomacy, including the offer of numerous
inducements for North Korea, would give the United States a better
chance of getting its regional allies to support a military threat as a
last resort. By providing more carrots, the U.S. government might thus
gain greater support for the possible, subsequent use of a stick.\10\
Any military strike at North Korea's nuclear reactors and plutonium
reprocessing facilities at its Yongbyon site north of Pyongyang would
be extremely risky in light of the possibility that a larger war would
result. Furthermore, a military strike would probably fail to destroy
or render unusable many of North Korea's spent fuel rods, meaning that
the DPRK might still manufacture one or more weapons even after an
attack. (Although some may be concerned about direct radioactive
fallout, studies conducted by the Pentagon in the early 1990s concluded
that radioactive release would probably be quite limited, unless an
operational nuclear reactor with heavily irradiated fuel was struck.)
Nevertheless, the preemption option would arguably be preferable to
an unchecked, large-scale DPRK nuclear program, if someday that was the
only alternative. Such a threat was credible when the Clinton
administration made it in 1994 because South Korea did not
fundamentally object. The Bush administration can probably make it
credible again by pursuing better diplomacy and better coordination
with Seoul, Tokyo, and Beijing. A military strike is, of course, not
likely to destroy either the DPRK's hidden uranium-enrichment program
or the bomb or two that North Korea might have already, nor would
military action destroy any additional plutonium moved from Yongbyon
prior to the attack. Nevertheless, a strike could destroy the DPRK's
nuclear reactors at the site, entomb the associated plutonium, and
destroy the reprocessing facility--all with limited risk of radioactive
fallout, according to former secretary of defense Perry and former
assistant secretary Ashton Carter.\11\
North Korea's true hard-liners may fear the Bush administration to
such an extent that they argue against giving up their nuclear program
at present--which also may have been the case during the Clinton
administration.\12\ The grand bargain proposal may be able to convince
the DPRK to abandon its nuclear programs gradually, however, through a
combination of reassurances and inducements.\13\ Kim Jong Il has
demonstrated sufficient interest in engaging with the outside world as
well as in exploring economic reforms--evidenced by the creation of
special economic zones, the recent liberalization of prices, and other
tentative but real steps to try some of what China and Vietnam have
successfully attempted in recent decades. The United States and other
countries should seriously test his willingness to go further.
Moreover, Kim Jong Il's position within North Korea now appears
strong. He has used purges and promotions to produce a top officer
corps loyal to him, and the likelihood that military commanders think
that they have a solution of their own to solve North Korea's economic
problems is slim. If a proposed package deal were to address the
country's core security concerns while providing a real opportunity for
recovery and greater international engagement, North Korea may very
well take the idea seriously.\14\ A grand bargain that allowed North
Korea to surrender its nuclear capabilities gradually while allowing it
to keep some fraction of its conventional weaponry near the
demilitarized zone (DMZ) just might persuade Pyongyang to get on board.
The DPRK might prefer to have both aid and nuclear weapons, but the
United States should try to force North Korea to choose between the
two.\15\ This is in fact the crux of the logic behind the grand bargain
approach: that North Korea can be forced to choose and that it can
probably be induced to make the right, peaceful choice.
The allies would not let down their military guard at any point
during the proposed process nor would a failed experiment cause any
other irrevocable harm. Even a failed effort to negotiate a grand
bargain would at least temporarily ice the larger, visible part of the
DPRK's nuclear program because no negotiations would proceed unless
Pyongyang allowed monitoring of its program and froze it as well.
Further, because the aid would be provided mostly in kind, not in cash,
it would by itself do little to prop up a desperate regime with the
hard currency it so desperately craves.
Going Beyond the Nuclear Issue
By not fixating on just the nuclear program, ironically, a grand
bargain is more likely ultimately to denuclearize North Korea and, most
importantly, prevent any further development of North Korea's nuclear
inventory. The proposed plan would begin by rapidly restoring fuel oil
shipments and promising no immediate use of U.S. force if North Korea
agreed to freeze its nuclear activities, particularly plutonium
production and reprocessing at Yongbyon, while negotiations are under
way. These steps would simply ensure that neither party had to
negotiate under duress.
As for its main substance, the approach would then seek to strike a
deal on nuclear weapons. The proposal would replace North Korea's
nuclear facilities at Yongbyon with conventional power sources and
include rigorous monitoring of North Korea's nuclear-related sites as
well as short-notice challenge inspections at places where outside
intelligence suspected nuclear-related activity.
Given North Korea's concerns about the Bush administration's
doctrine of preemption and the success of military operations against
Iraq, convincing the DPRK to give up all its nuclear capabilities
immediately might not be feasible.\16\ In fact, it might take several
years, perhaps even until the end of the decade, to reach that final
goal. The United States could accept any deal, however, that could
immediately freeze the DPRK's nuclear activities verifiably and then
quickly begin to get fuel rods out of North Korea.
Beyond nuclear issues, both sides would cut the overall number of
conventional forces as well as accompany those cuts with a commitment
by South Korea, China, Japan, and the United States to help North Korea
gradually restructure its economy. Cuts of 50 percent or more in
conventional weaponry would reduce the threat that North Korea's
artillery and rocket forces currently pose to South Korea, particularly
to nearby Seoul. Unlike some proposals, the grand bargain would not
entail the North Korean withdrawal of all its conventional capabilities
from the DMZ. North Korea almost surely considers its forward-deployed
forces necessary to deter South Korea and the United States. Hence, the
DPRK cannot realistically be expected to surrender both its weapons of
mass destruction (WMD) and its conventional deterrent.
The principal purpose of these conventional reductions actually
would be as much economic as military. Offering aid tied to cuts in
conventional arms makes more economic sense than buying out nuclear and
missile programs. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld recently
convincingly argued that the real solution to North Korea's problems is
for the country to move toward a market economy, because that approach
has worked for other Communist states in East Asia, notably China and
Vietnam.\17\ North Korea may actually be planning secretly to make cuts
in its conventional forces anyway.\18\ A combination of cuts in DPRK
forces and economic reforms in the country stands the best chance of
producing stabilizing and desirable results.
If Pyongyang agreed to such reductions, North Korea's economy would
benefit twice: by a reduction in the size and cost of its military and
by obtaining greater technical and economic aid from Japan, South
Korea, the United States, and perhaps China (as well as the lifting of
U.S. trade sanctions). Specifically, such a deal should reduce North
Korea's military expenditures substantially, helping reform the
country's economy and increasing the likelihood that aid is used
productively. North Korea's conventional military forces comprise one
million individuals and are backed up by large reserve forces as well
as a large arms industry. This situation suggests that the lion's share
of North Korea's defense budget, which represents 20-30 percent of its
gross domestic product, is consumed by conventional forces; therefore,
reducing them should be a main focus of any reform proposal. External
aid can help in that process.
This policy would reduce the core threat that has existed in Korea
for half a century, while offering at least some hope that economic
reform in the DPRK might begin to succeed. Given this economic logic
and rationale, it would only make sense to keep giving aid so long as
North Korea continued down the path of economic reform. China could
provide technical help, in light of its experiences over the last 25
years in gradually introducing entrepreneurial activity into a
Communist economy.
China's experience could also offer reassurance--surely important
to North Korean leaders--that it is possible to reform a command
economy without losing political power in the process. Even though most
Americans would surely prefer to see North Korea's corrupt and ruthless
government fall, pursuing a policy that would achieve that outcome does
not seem realistic without incurring huge security risks and exacting
an enormous humanitarian toll on the North Korean people--nor would
China and South Korea likely support it under current circumstances.
Moreover, by accepting this grand bargain proposal, North Korea would
be agreeing to at least a gradual and soft, or ``velvet,'' form of
regime change, even if Kim Jong Il were to retain power throughout the
process.
Additional elements of the grand bargain would include North Korean
commitments to:
continue to refrain from terrorism;
permanently return all kidnapping victims to Japan;
participate in a human rights dialogue, similar to China in
recent years;
end DPRK counterfeiting and drug smuggling activities;
sign and implement its obligations under the chemical
weapons and biological weapons conventions; and
stop exports and production of ballistic missiles.
For its part of the grand bargain, the United States would offer
numerous benefits beyond economic and energy assistance, none of which
would require a change in the U.S. government's fundamental regional
policies. The White House would:
commence diplomatic ties with North Korea;
end economic sanctions;
remove North Korea's name from the list of state sponsors of
terrorism;
give a binding promise not to be the first to use WMD;
provide a nonaggression pledge--a promise not to attack
North Korea first with any types of weaponry for any purpose
(and perhaps even an active security guarantee if North Korea
wished, akin to what the United States provides to its allies);
and
sign a formal peace treaty ending the Korean War.
Breaking the Stalemate
After a decade of issue-by-issue and initially fruitful
negotiations, a broad vision is now needed to resolve the impasse on
the Korean peninsula. This idea must address the underlying cause of
the problem--North Korea's economic and societal collapse, together
with its failed experiment in communism and its juche system of self-
reliance--as well as the immediate nuclear symptoms of that disease.
Although couched in broad and ambitious terms, the proposed road
map could be put into effect gradually. Intrusive nuclear inspections
typically take months or longer, reductions in conventional forces take
at least a couple of years, and development programs take even longer.
Thus, the concept is grand in its intent and scope, but implementation
of the policy need not be rushed. In fact, the need for gradual
implementation would provide each side with leverage over the other.
The United States and its partners would continue to provide aid
and economic support only if North Korea upheld its end of the bargain.
Similarly, security guarantees would be contingent on complete
compliance with denuclearization demands as well as other elements of
the proposal. For its part, North Korea would not have to give up all
its nuclear potential until it gained a number of concrete benefits,
and the government would not have to keep reducing conventional forces
unless outside powers continued to provide assistance.
Although reductions in conventional forces are the linchpin of the
grand bargain's success, numerous additional key elements are involved,
the most important of which is a broad approach to economic reform in
North Korea. There is reason to believe that the economic reform model
that worked in China starting about a quarter century ago can work in
Korea today, although each case is distinct. If that is the case, a
grand bargain could do much more than address an acute nuclear security
problem; the approach could begin to transform what has been one of the
world's most troubled and dangerous regions for decades.
NOTES
\1\ Richard N. Haass and Meghan L. O'Sullivan, ``Terms of
Engagement: Alternatives to Punitive Policies,'' Survival 42, no. 2
(summer 2000): 120-121.
\2\ Leon V. Sigal, Disarming Strangers: Nuclear Diplomacy with
North Korea (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1998), pp.
52-65.
\3\ Ibid.,pp.66-67.
\4\ See Morton I. Abramowitz and James T. Laney, Testing North
Korea: The Next Stage in U.S. and ROK Policy (New York: Council on
Foreign Relations, 2001), www.cfr.org/pdf/Korea_TaskForce2.pdf
(accessed June 19, 2003). For more recent arguments along similar
lines, see Brent Scowcroft and Daniel Poneman, ``Korea Can't Wait,''
Washington Post, February 16, 2003; Samuel R. Berger and Robert L.
Gallucci, ``Two Crises, No Back Burner,'' Washington Post, December 31,
2002; William S. Cohen, ``Huffing and Puffing Won't Do,'' Washington
Post, January 7, 2003; Ashton B. Carter, ``Alternatives to Letting
North Korea Go Nuclear,'' testimony before the Senate Committee on
Foreign Relations, Washington, D.C., March 6, 2003; Sonni Efron,
``Experts Call for N. Korea Dialogue,'' Los Angeles Times, March 7,
2003 (citing testimony by Robert Einhorn); Morton Abramowitz and James
Laney, ``A Letter from the Independent Task Force on Korea to the
Administration,'' November 26, 2002, www.cfr.org/publication.php?id5304
(accessed June 18, 2003); ``Turning Point in Korea: New Dangers and New
Opportunities for the United States,'' February 2003,
www.ciponline.org/asia/taskforce.pdf (accessed June 18, 2003) (report
of the Task Force on U.S. Korea policy).
\5\ CSIS International Security Program Working Group,
``Conventional Arms Control on the Korean Peninsula,'' Washington,
D.C., August 2002, www.csis.org/isp/ conv_armscontrol.pdf (accessed
June 18, 2003). See Alan D. Romberg and Michael D. Swaine, ``The North
Korea Nuclear Crisis: A Strategy for Negotiation,'' Arms Control Today
33, no. 4 (May 2003): 4-7.
\6\ William J. Perry, ``Review of United States Policy Toward North
Korea: Findings and Recommendations,'' Washington, D.C., October 12,
1999, www.state.gov/www/regions/eap/991012_northkorea_rpt.html
(accessed June 18, 2003).
\7\ Scott Snyder, Negotiating on the Edge (Washington, D.C.: U.S.
Institute of Peace, 1999), pp. 58-60, 143-153; Sigal, Disarming
Strangers, pp. 52-65, 78.
\8\ See ``S. Korea Urges U.S. Initiative for North,'' Washington
Post, March 29, 2003.
\9\ See Snyder, Negotiating on the Edge, pp. 149-150.
\10\ Gary Samore, ``The Korean Nuclear Crisis,'' Survival 45, no. 1
(spring 2003): 19-22.
\11\ See Ashton B. Carter and William J. Perry, ``Back to the
Brink,'' Washington Post, October 20, 2002.
\12\ See Philip W. Yun, ``The Devil We Know in N. Korea May Be
Better Than the Ones We Don't,'' Los Angeles Times, May 7, 2003.
\13\ See Michael Armacost, Daniel I. Okimoto, and Gi-Wook Shin,
``Addressing the North Korea Nuclear Challenge,'' Asia/Pacific Research
Center, Institute for International Studies, Stanford University, April
15, 2003, www.asck.org/reports/APARC_Brief_1_2003.pdf (accessed June
18, 2003).
\14\ See Kongdan Oh and Ralph C. Hassig, North Korea Through the
Looking Glass (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 2000), pp. 114-
124.
\15\ For a similar argument, see Joseph S. Nye, ``Bush Faces a
Tougher Test in N. Korea,'' Boston Globe, May 7, 2003.
\16\ See Doug Struck, ``Citing Iraq, N. Korea Signals Hard Line on
Weapons Issues,'' Washington Post, March 30, 2003; James Brooke,
``North Korea Watches War and Wonders What's Next,'' New York Times,
March 31, 2003.
\17\ Bill Sammon, ``N. Korea `Solution' a Market Economy,''
Washington Times, May 14, 2003.
\18\ The North Korean statement of June 9, 2003, that justified its
nuclear weapons programs as a way to compensate for reductions in
conventional military forces suggests such an inference. David Sanger,
``North Korea Says It Seeks to Develop Nuclear Arms,'' New York Times,
June 10, 2003, p. A9.
Copyright 2003 by The Center for Strategic and International Studies
and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Senator Brownback. Thank you very much, professor.
And I want to thank all the panelists.
First, Mr. Hawk, this is the best detailed description and
the marrying together that I've seen of the stories that I have
heard, the interviews that I have done with a number of
refugees coming out of North Korea, and then matching them with
the satellite photography. I think it's an excellent
contribution that you're making to the debate of something the
North Koreans have denied for years. They just say, ``Well, it
doesn't exist,'' and you hear all this testimony coming out
from people and then marrying the two up, I think it was a
great contribution. I deeply appreciate that.
But why is it taking us so long, in the international
community, to recognize the size and scale of this horrific
gulag system and deaths that are taking place in North Korea?
In this day and age, it seems like this is something we should
be on top of immediately. Why is it taking us so long?
Mr. Hawk. I think primarily because of the extreme
isolation of North Korea. Up until 2 years ago, they had
relations, diplomatic relations, only with Soviet bloc
countries. It's only within the last 2 years that you have the
EU establishing diplomatic relations and the kind of talks that
that allows, and it's only within the last 2 years that you
have a large enough body of former refugees, including former
prisoners who have obtained asylum in South Korea, so that you
have a critical mass there now of testimony and of evidence.
Previously, you had Kang Chul Hwan's prison memoirs of Yodok,
and you had Soon Ok Lee's book about ``The Eyes of the Tailless
Animals,'' of her prison memoirs at Kaechon kyo-hwa-so, and you
had a few other people who had given interviews in Seoul and
also in Washington. But it's really only within the last 2
years that you have enough--a critical mass of people who have
obtained asylum. And, you know, they escaped into China and
have to make their way to Mongolia or Hong Kong, most of them
all the way down through Southern China, down through Burma,
Vietnam, or Laos, into Cambodia, into Thailand, where they fly
from Bangkok to Seoul and seek asylum in South Korea. So it's
actually taken several years, or several months, for these
former North Koreans to get to a place where journalists and
human-rights researchers can get at them, and that's only been
possible in the last 2 years.
So I think it's largely because of the self-imposed
isolation of the regime, which didn't have diplomats there,
outside the Soviet bloc, and didn't allow journalists in, or
academics, and certainly not human-rights investigators.
Senator Brownback. When did large-scale refugee flights
start out of North Korea, Mr. Hawk?
Mr. Hawk. In the mid 1990s or the late 1990s, with the
height of the famine crisis, when the production and
distribution system broke down. And 1995 is the year often
cited--that's when the North Koreans admitted they had a
problem. But from that point on, when the distribution centers
were no longer handing out food, and the production centers
were no longer functioning and paying people to work, that you
had people either fleeing North Korea to China to find food, or
else sending a member of their family up to China to get a job
to earn income to send the money back to North Korea so the
family could obtain some food. So that only started in the mid-
to late-1990s, and then it's really about 2000 when you start
getting these people making their way to South Korea.
Senator Brownback. I'm going to ask all of you gentlemen,
and start with you, Mr. Hawk, on this. You've all stated that
we need a human-rights portfolio in the package of negotiations
that are taking place with North Korea and the surrounding
countries and the United States.
But let me pose the question to you in reverse. What are
the dangers, if any, in failing to include human rights on the
negotiating agenda? Say we just stay on a narrow issue that
this is about nuclear weapons and the proliferation of nuclear
weapons, and that's it. What is the danger of not including
human rights in a negotiating portfolio?
Mr. Hawk. To the extent to which I understand the North
Korean negotiating position, they don't want only security
arrangements. They want a security guarantee, but they also
want large amounts of foreign aid, and they want lots of
goodies, and they want foreign investment. And they want to be
able to get investment from South Korea into various production
zones from which goods are shipped to Europe and the United
States, which is how most of the other countries in East Asia
have developed and become prosperous. I think North Korea wants
to join the queue of states of building toys and electronics et
cetera, and shipping them to the United States. So if these
issues that come up in the negotiations, then I don't see how
you cannot also raise the issue of labor standards. I mean,
we're not supposed to import slave or prison-labor-made goods
anyway, and--I hope Congress will encourage the U.S.
negotiators not to envision a situation where production for
export zones are developed while domestic production is based
on prison, slave, and forced labor.
I believe it's the North Koreans who don't want to accept a
purely security tradeoff. I think their intent is to ask for a
lot more than that. And as long as that is the case, then it
seems that the ``basket-three'' equivalent should be put on the
table. The humanitarian and human-rights considerations--the
elements that are enumerated in the conclusions and appendices
of the report--provide the details and specifics of the human-
rights dialog that Mike's book talks about.
Senator Brownback. Ambassador Palmer.
Ambassador Palmer. Well, I think that the greatest danger
is the nature of their regime does not change under those
circumstances. If you continue to have a regime that's closed,
that's involved with other terrorist states and encouraging
terrorism--that is, exporting weapons to places like Pakistan,
et cetera, or the delivery of weapons of mass destruction. I
mean, unless you change the basic nature of the North Korean
situation, the political situation there, internally, it will
continue to be a very dangerous state. Even if you can get
verified restrictions on their nuclear weapons program for 1
year or 2 years, you'd never know when they're going to fall
off the wagon even on that, and plus they may go ahead with BW
programs or CW programs, or God knows what.
So I think the only real secure guarantee that we will ever
have that this regime is going to cease being the kind of
menace to its neighbors and for that world that it is today is
to change the regime. I mean, it's simple, to me.
Senator Brownback. Professor.
Mr. Mochizuki. I generally agree with that. Unless the
regime is fundamentally transformed, I don't think that even if
we do reach an agreement on the nuclear issue, a narrow
agreement, that there will continue to be the cycle of
cheating, blackmail, and extortion. And really it is an
agreement that is bound to fail, like the one in 1994. So if
you are going to tackle the nuclear issue, then you have to get
at the fundamental problem, the nature of the regime.
Senator Brownback. The North Koreans frequently employ a
strategy of brinkmanship. And, particularly, Ambassador Palmer,
I want you to address this in negotiations, given your
background in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, fall of
communism at that point in time. Are there any parallels to
what you saw at that point in time in the brinkmanship versus
what you're seeing now in the brinkmanship of North Korea? And
are there any lessons that we can derive from what history
would teach us then, to now?
Ambassador Palmer. Yes, I think there are. The historical
periods are kind of a little bit confusing, but, for example,
when Khrushchev was threatening us with nuclear devastation,
which he did quite openly, what it really indicated was not
that he wanted to launch nuclear weapons against us, but he was
desperate, in terms of his own domestic situation. And, of
course, he was ultimately pushed out.
I think that Gorbachev, who I knew directly--Gorbachev,
there's some interesting--when you look at Kim Jong Il and what
he's been going in the last 2 years, there's some interesting
parallels between Gorbachev and Kim Jong Il. I think Gorbachev
recognized and certainly talked with George Schultz and with
President Reagan in my presence about--he didn't know what to
do. You know, this was a man who was really adrift. He had tons
of questions, and no answers. That's my sense of Kim Jong Il,
that he's been traveling to Russia, traveling to China, trying
to find answers. He's dabbled, he's put his toe in the water of
a little bit of reform, which has unleashed all kinds of bad
stuff, as well as some good stuff.
And so I think it's very much in our interest to engage him
directly. Him. Not the system or the regime or the government,
but him. And in my book, I go on at some length about how to do
this, both through carrots and sticks. I think it's important
to talk with him about his alternatives. His alternatives are
really that he goes down in history as a criminal and maybe
ends up in jail or maybe even is dead, gets killed, like
Ceaucescu, or he can cooperate with this transition, end up
with a villa in Geneva, and, you know, have a nice life.
So, you know, but we need to get close enough, somebody has
to get close enough to him, and I would argue we ought to open
an embassy in Pyongyang, which could distribute radios, so
Norbert's balloons aren't the only way of getting radios in
there. We ought to have an embassy there doing what our embassy
in Havana is doing, giving out radios, which is the best thing
that embassy, or office, in Havana, has ever done. And we could
do that in Pyongyang. But you need to be on the ground.
So I think that we ought to go in there. I very much agree
with David's point that they want a big, broad agenda, and we
ought to run in there and say, ``Terrific. We want a big, broad
agenda, too.'' I think he's desperate. I think he knows he's in
trouble, and we ought to be confident enough to use our
strength when he's in trouble. And our strength is our values
and our ideology. That's our strength. That's where we're on
the side of the North Korean people. We ought to get in there,
open up the place, and bring him down.
Senator Brownback. Professor, would you respond to that
same question?
Mr. Mochizuki. Yes. I mean, it's definitely true that Kim
Jong Il and his father engaged in brinksmanship tactics.
But I think the problem is, is that our present piecemeal
approach gives the initiative to North Korea and allows them to
use brinksmanship in order to gain diplomatic leverage.
Ambassador Palmer talked about a carrot-and-stick approach.
I would argue that what we need is a sledgehammer-and-steaks
approach, that we really maximize our international pressure,
and that means getting not just Russia and South Korea and
Japan onboard, but China onboard, but, at the same time,
offering major incentives, like steaks. I mean, I think that's
the only way you get out of this cycle of North Korea seizing
the initiative by using brinksmanship and we basically pursue a
reactive policy.
Senator Brownback. Gentlemen, thank you very much for your
insightfulness on a very difficult topic, and I appreciate it.
And I appreciate particularly your policy recommendations that
you brought here today.
Now I'd like to invite the second panel to the table.
Ms. Sandy Rios, who is the chairperson of the North Korean
Freedom Coalition. She serves as president of Concerned Women
of America, the nation's largest public-policy women's
organization, with half a million members nationwide. She
currently hosts Concerned Women Today, a daily radio program.
She has an audience of nearly a million listeners a week.
Mr. Kumar is advocacy director for Asia and the Pacific at
Amnesty International. He is--on a personal note, many in the
human-rights community continue to miss your former colleague,
Mike Jay--a passionate advocate for North Korean refugees and,
as I understand it, a key contributor to Amnesty
International's report. I hope this hearing serves to advance
the goals of Mike, as well.
And then we have Mr. Joel Charny. He's vice president for
Policy, Refugees International, recently returned from a trip
to northeast China, where he had an opportunity to meet with
and interview a number of North Korean refugees.
I welcome all of you to the panel here today.
And, Ms. Rios, please proceed with your testimony.
STATEMENT OF SANDY RIOS, CHAIRMAN, NORTH KOREA FREEDOM
COALITION, AND PRESIDENT, CONCERNED WOMEN FOR AMERICA,
WASHINGTON, DC
Ms. Rios. Senator Brownback, it's a great privilege to be
able to testify for you today. And I have to say, though, more
than an honor; it's a responsibility for me, and I'd like to
explain that.
As you said, I am the president of Concerned Women for
America, but I also wear the hat of chairman of the North Korea
Freedom Coalition. While most of you in this room were
grappling with the horrors of September 11, 2001, I and a few
companions were traveling, unaware, in that dark and isolated
land known as North Korea. We had crossed the bridge over the
Tumen River by foot under the watchful eye of armed guards the
day before, visited schools, seen their children perform with
robotic excellence, enter the Presidential concubine's gambling
casino and traveled around a vacation island viewing herds of
seals from a rented speedboat. That's what we were doing as the
World Center Trade Towers fell, and it wasn't until 24 hours
after the fact, when we passed back across that bridge into
northern Manchuria, that a restaurant owner told us the news.
One of my companions from New York City used a satellite phone
to call his wife, who then confirmed the dreadful news. We were
then stranded in Beijing for several days and were finally able
to make it out and back home, only by going through Japan.
Our journey had begun in China, where our assignment was to
interview North Korean refugees who had escaped and were hiding
in northern Manchuria. Much of them had fled across the river,
desperate for food. Much like the famed escapes of the
oppressed East Germans over the Berlin Wall, the stories are
legion of the heroism and determination that lack of freedom
drives men and women to in this part of the world. The
difference in the peoples lies in the end result. For the East
Germans, to survive the escape was to be free. But for the
North Koreans, to survive the escape was to eat, yes, but then
to enter a twilight zone of existence that no person on this
Earth should have to endure.
It is the Chinese and ethnic Korean Christians who greet
the refugees with rice and the love of God. They open their
homes at great risk, knowing that their own fates will be
determined by the dangers they dare to embrace. They take these
people in willingly, sacrificially, and their faith is a
testimony to the power of God in the face of abject evil.
I sat on the floor with four young boys and their plump and
smiling surrogate mother in the kitchen at her small home in a
village up in the mountains. I said ``young boys'' because they
appeared to be prepubescent teenagers, but, in reality, they
were 16 and 17 years old. Their bodies were underdeveloped and
malnourished due to the famine and to the fact that Kim Jong Il
routes humanitarian aid to the military while starving his own
people. They were told in school, incidentally, that there was
no rice because the Americans had sunk the ships bringing in
the food. Three of them, friends, had just recently swum across
the Tumen River separating the two countries in a valiant and
courageous effort to get food and, in one boy's case, to take
the enormous risk of bringing some of it back to his starving
mother.
The boy who was planning to make that treacherous return
trip was animated and smiling. He was filled with mission and
purpose. And after telling us that he had learned about God in
this loving sanctuary, our interpreter asked him if he was
going to go back and declare his faith.
With refreshing candor characteristic of his colorful
personality, he said softly, ``I don't have that much faith
yet.''
Another one huddled beside me with the twisted, silent
countenance only a trauma victim can display. He talked quietly
about their dangerous swim across the river and how in one
moment he thought he was going to die, how the other two boys
encouraged him on, and how they had persevered to the shore for
freedom, still with no expression, the voice subdued.
The woman who had taken them in was constantly moving
about, touching and hugging and feeding them. She was a
Christian, one of the band of brave souls who are risking their
own lives and well-being to help the people that no one wants,
the North Korean refugees.
The boys were not permitted to leave the house, they
couldn't go to school, work, or play, because if caught they
would be sent back and summarily executed. The Chinese
Government doesn't want them. The South Korean Government
doesn't want them, and the current U.S. policy severely limits
sanctuary here. There is no place to go.
As we tried to leave this mountain hideaway, neighbors came
out of their houses, watching, not with innocent curiosity, but
with the intention of spying and reporting on their rebellious
neighbor. We shuddered to think of her fate as we pulled away.
The next day, we ventured into a town on the border and
tried, at least, in spite of passing an unexpected prison chain
gang, to enter a Chinese apartment discretely. We quickly
climbed the steps to the top floor and entered silently. We
were ushered into a, sort of, family room, where five more
refugees were sitting, along with the apartment dweller,
another Christian and his wife who had opened their home. Once
we entered the room, the doorbell rang, and an electric wave of
tension surged through all of us. The man rushed to shut the
door to the room, and another watched nervously out the window,
and we felt, in that moment, the dread fear the Chinese and
North Koreans live with daily. Our hearts pounded as we
realized that it was a false alarm.
I proceeded to interview two of the refugees. One was a
young mother, who had fled across the Tumen River herself to
get food for her husband and baby. She was aided, once again,
by Christ's followers, who gave her rice and a small bible,
after which she made the dangerous trip back with her treasure,
she was subsequently caught and put in prison. And hatred of
Christianity in North Korea was so great that if you are caught
with a Bible not only do they punish you, but your parents and
children, three generations. She was waiting for her sentence
in the prison when she chose to jump from the top floor, an
attempt to kill herself and hopefully save her family. She fell
in a broken heap and was left for dead, but she was not dead.
As I sat beside her on the floor, I saw the mangled bones in
her feet and legs juxtaposed to her otherwise beautiful body
and face. At 24, her life was over. She had lost her husband;
her child; she could not leave this apartment, except in the
dark of night; could not hold a job; had no future and no hope.
Next, I turned to a 12-year-old girl hovering on a couch.
Another child/adult wearing the unmistakable countenance of
trauma, no expression; just a deep, deep furrow in her brow.
Words without emotion devoid of eye contact. She told how for
the past several years she had been hiking daily up into the
mountains, a ten-kilometer walk one way, to spend the day
picking branches off trees. She would then bundle them
together, drag them back the same ten kilometers to sell them
for the American equivalent of 25 cents in order to feed her
sick father and little brother. Somehow she had escaped, but,
in the process, her little brother had disappeared. It was in
reliving that moment that she broke down and could not go on
with her story.
When I left that room, with those people, fully
comprehending the risk that they had taken not only to escape
but to allow me to come and hear their stories, I vowed to them
on that day that they had not taken that risk in vain--that I
would make sure their stories were told so that the whole world
could hear.
I was a radio talk-show host at the time, and confident I
could go back and accomplish that. I was reporting for my new
job here in Washington on October 15, but my plan was to use
the 2-weeks I had left to expose the evil I had seen. Little
did I know that my country would be attacked, leaving me and my
companions stranded in Beijing, and that that would cut my
remaining time on the air so short I wouldn't have the ability
to do what I had earnestly promised. It grieved me to let them
down in that way, but I couldn't see how my duties as president
of Concerned Women for America would ever intersect with their
needs.
Leave it to the gracious God that I serve to find a way.
The North Korea Freedom Coalition came about quite
unexpectedly. My selection as chairman, an equal surprise, but
it is a surprise I welcome, and it is with the passion of one
who has seen the evil of Kim Jong Il and his regime that I lead
and will continue to lead this group.
I lived in Berlin, Germany, during the height of the cold
war. I traveled regularly through Checkpoint Charlie into East
Berlin and observed the palpable oppression of the East German
people. I've been to Vietnam, to China several times, and to
Russia before the breakup of the Soviet Union.
I have tasted and smelled the evils of oppression, but I
can tell you that I don't think anything matches the horror of
life in North Korea. That's why I stand to speak and, if
necessary, shout their cause for them today.
The North Korea Freedom Coalition is a bipartisan coalition
of religious, human-rights, non-governmental Korean and
American organizations whose prime purpose is to bring freedom
to the North Korean people and to ensure that the human-rights
component of the U.S. and world policy toward North Korea
receive priority attention.
We're a coalition of both the ideological left and right,
ranging from the Salvation Army USA to the Religious Action
Center of Reform Judaism headed by David Saperstein, because on
issues of human need and desperation we can most certainly
agree.
We are strong supporters of the North Korea Freedom Act of
2003, as you know, Senator Brownback, the soon to be bipartisan
act that will promote human rights, democracy, and development
in North Korea. The provisions contained in the act will
provide safe harbor for North Korean refugees, provide ways to
get information and food to those starving for both, monitor
the death camps so well detailed in David Hawk's report, and
make sure that not one American dollar is spent to build
another gulag. Further, any negotiating with the North Korean
regime that says, ``You can continue to starve and torture your
people as long as you dismantle the weapons of mass
destruction,'' is as unacceptable as it is un-American.
And while we wish no harm to our South Korean friends, we
also stand to remind them that it is equally unacceptable for
them to prop up a regime that is starving and torturing their
relatives to the north, because the consequences of saving them
would be too costly.
We will encourage our government to help South Korea absorb
the difficulties that may come, but only the extent that the
South ceases to aid and abet the murderous regime of the North.
Not only are we determined to get information and freedom
into North Korea, we are determined to get the word out, in the
West, of the brutality and starvation of the North Korean
people by their ``Dear Leader.'' We believe that, by God's
grace, the net effect of such a movement can be much the same
as the fall of both the Soviet Union and the Berlin Wall, no
shots fired, just freedom imploding.
President Bush has led the way on this issue by boldly and
rightly declaring North Korea part of an ``axis of evil.'' This
is no time for the faint of heart or spineless appeasers. This
is a time for Americans of all political stripes to unite for a
noble purpose: to bring freedom, food, and wholeness to the
suffering people of North Korea.
Senator Brownback, one additional word. We have been able
to, I guess, find a lot of resonation with this piece of
legislation with unexpected groups here in the country, and one
of those is South Korean students in America. Let me just
mention a few groups that have signed onto this legislation.
The Korean American Students at Yale, the MIT Asian Christian
Fellowship, the Brandeis Korean Students Association, the UC-
Berkeley Students Praying for North Korea, and Korea-American
Student Association at Stanford, and there's a ton of others.
South Korean churches in this country are mightily stirred by
this, and they're coming out in support of this act. In fact,
we've received petitions containing 6,438 signatures of Korean
Americans who support this legislation from 93 Korean American
churches in 18 different states in the nation, and this, sir,
is just the beginning.
Thank you so much for this time.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Rios follows:]
Prepared Statement of Sandy Rios, Chairman, North Korea Freedom
Coalition and President, Concerned Women for America, Washington, DC
Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I consider it a great
honor to testify before you today, but more than an honor, a
responsibility. I will explain. I am the President of Concerned Women
for America, the largest public policy women's organization in the
country, but I come before you today wearing a different hat, that of
Chairman of the North Korea Freedom Coalition.
While most of you were grappling with the horrors of September 11,
2001, I and a few companions were traveling unaware in that dark and
isolated land known as North Korea. We had crossed the bridge over the
Tumen River by foot under the watchful eye of armed guards the day
before, visited their schools, seen their children perform with robotic
excellence, entered the presidential concubine's gambling casino and
traveled around a ``vacation island,'' viewing herds of seals from a
rented speedboat. That's what we were doing as the World Center Trade
Towers fell, and it wasn't until 24 hours after the fact, when we
passed back across the bridge into Northern Manchuria, that a
restaurant owner told us the news. One of my companions from New York
City used a satellite phone to call his wife who confirmed the dreadful
news.
We were then stranded in Beijing for several days and were finally
able to make it out and back home only by going through Japan.
Our journey had begun in China where our assignment was to
interview North Korean refugees who had escaped and were hiding in
Northern Manchuria. Most of them had fled across the river desperate
for food. Much like the famed escapes of the oppressed East Germans
over the Berlin Wall, the stories are legion of the heroism and
determination that lack of freedom drives men and women to in this part
of the world. The difference in the peoples lies in the end result. For
the East Germans, to survive the escape was to be free. For the North
Koreans, to survive the escape was to eat, yes . . . but then to enter
a twilight zone of existence that no person on this Earth should have
to endure.
It is the Chinese and ethnic Korean Christians who greet the
refugees with rice and the love of God. They open their homes at great
risk, knowing that their own fate will be determined by the dangers
they dare to embrace. But they take these people in willingly,
sacrificially, and their faith is a testimony to the power of God in
the face of abject evil.
I sat on the floor with four young boys and their plump and smiling
surrogate mother, in the kitchen of her small home in a village up in
the mountains. I said young boys, because they appeared to be
prepubescent teenagers, but in reality were 16 and 17 years old. Their
bodies were underdeveloped and malnourished due to the famine and the
fact that Kim Jong Il routes humanitarian aid to the military, while
starving his own people. They were told in school, incidentally, that
there was no rice because the Americans had sunk the ships bringing in
the food. Three of them, friends, had just recently swum across the
Tumen River separating the two countries in a valiant and courageous
effort to get food, and in one boy's case, take the enormous risk of
bringing some of it back to his starving mother.
The boy who was planning to make that treacherous return trip was
animated, smiling, filled with mission and purpose. After telling us
that he had learned about God in this loving sanctuary, our interpreter
asked if he would go back and declare his faith. With refreshing
candor, characteristic of his colorful personality, he said softly, ``I
don't have that much faith yet.'' Another one huddled beside me, with
the twisted, silent countenance only a trauma victim can display. He
talked quietly about their dangerous swim across the river and how in
one moment he thought he was going to die . . . How the other two boys
encouraged him on and how they had persevered to the shore for freedom.
Still . . . no expression . . . the voice subdued.
The woman who had taken them in was constantly moving about,
touching and hugging and feeding them. She was a Christian . . . one of
the band of brave souls who are risking their own lives and well being
to help the people that no one wants . . . North Korean refugees. The
boys were not permitted to leave the house . . . they couldn't go to
school . . . work or play, because if caught, they would be sent back
and summarily executed. The Chinese government doesn't want them. The
South Korean government doesn't want them, and current U.S. policy
severely limits sanctuary here. There is no place to go.
As we tried to leave this mountain hideaway, neighbors came out of
their houses, watching, not with innocent curiosity but with the intent
of spying and reporting on their rebellious neighbor. We shuddered to
think of her fate as we pulled away.
The next day we ventured into a town on the border, and tried, at
least, in spite of passing an unexpected prison chain gang, to enter a
Chinese apartment discreetly. We quickly climbed the steps to the top
floor and entered silently. We were ushered into a sort of family room
where five more refugees were sitting, along with the apartment
dweller, another Christian and his wife who had opened their home at
great peril. Once we entered the room, the doorbell rang and an
electric wave of tension surged through all of us. The man rushed to
shut the door to our room, another watched nervously out the window,
and we felt, in that moment, the dread fear the Chinese and North
Koreans live with daily. Our hearts pounded as we realized that it was
. . . a false alarm.
I proceeded to interview two of the refugees. One, a young mother,
had fled across the Tumen River herself to get food for her husband and
baby. She was aided once again by Christ-followers who gave her rice
and a small Bible, after which she made the dangerous trip back with
her treasure. She was subsequently caught and put in prison. The hatred
of Christianity in North Korea is so great that if you are caught with
a Bible, not only do they execute you, but your parents and children--
three generations are slaughtered. She was waiting for her sentence in
the prison, when she chose to jump from the top floor, an attempt to
kill herself and hopefully save her family. She fell in a broken heap,
and was left for dead. But she was not dead. As I sat beside her on the
floor, I saw the mangled bones in her feet and legs juxtaposed to her
otherwise beautiful body and face. At 24 her life was over. She had
lost her husband . . . her child . . . she could not leave this
apartment except in the dark of night . . . could not hold a job . . .
no future . . . no hope.
Next, I turned to a 12-year-old girl hovering on a couch--another
child/adult wearing the unmistakable countenance of trauma. No
expression . . . just a deep, deep furrow in her brow. Words, without
emotion, devoid of eye contact. She told how for the past several years
she had been walking daily up into the mountains, a 10 kilometer walk
one way, to spend the day picking branches off trees. She would then
bundle them together, drag them back the same 10 kilometers to sell
them for the American equivalent of 25 cents in the market, in order to
feed her sick father and little brother. Somehow she had escaped, but
in the process her little brother had disappeared. It was in reliving
that moment that she broke down and could not go on with her story.
When I left that room with those people, fully comprehending the
risk they had taken not only to escape but to allow me to come and hear
their stories, I vowed to them on that day that they had not taken that
risk in vain . . . that I would make sure their stories were told so
that the world could hear.
I was a radio talk-show host at the time, confident I could go back
and accomplish that. I was reporting for my new job here in Washington
on October 15, but my plan was to use the two weeks I had left to
expose the evil I had seen. Little did I know that my country would be
attacked, leaving me and my companions stranded in Beijing, and that
that would cut my remaining time on the air so short, I wouldn't have
the ability to do what I had earnestly promised.
It grieved me to let them down in that way, but I couldn't see how
my duties as President of Concerned Women for America would ever
intersect with their need.
Leave it to the gracious God that I serve to find a way. The North
Korea Freedom Coalition came about quite unexpectedly, my selection as
chairman an equal surprise. But it is a surprise I welcome, and it is
with the passion of one who has seen the evil of the Kim Jong Il Regime
that I lead and will continue to lead this group.
I lived in Berlin, Germany, during the height of the Cold War,
traveled regularly though Checkpoint Charlie into East Berlin and
observed the palpable oppression of the East German people. I have been
to Vietnam, China several times, and to Russia before the break up of
the Soviet Union. I have tasted and smelled the evils of oppression,
but I can tell you that I don't think anything matches the horror of
life in North Korea. That is why I stand to speak and, if necessary,
shout their cause for them today.
The North Korea Freedom Coalition is a bipartisan coalition of
religious, human rights, non-governmental, Korean and American
organizations whose prime purpose is to bring freedom to the North
Korean people and to ensure that the human rights component of the U.S.
and world policy toward North Korea receives priority attention.
We are a coalition of both the ideological left and right, ranging
from The Salvation Army USA to the Religious Action Center of Reform
Judaism headed by David Saperstein, because on issues of human need and
desperation, we can most certainly agree.
We are strong supporters of the North Korean Freedom Act of 2003, a
soon-to-be bi-partisan act that will promote human rights, democracy,
and development in North Korea. The provisions contained in the act
will provide safe harbor for North Korean refugees, provide ways to get
information and food to those starving for both, monitor the death
camps so well-detailed in David Hawk's report, and make sure that not
one American dollar is spent to build another gulag.
Further, any negotiating with the North Korean regime that says
``you can continue to starve and torture your people as long as you
dismantle your weapons of mass destruction'' is as unacceptable as it
is un-American.
And while we wish no harm to our South Korean friends, we also
stand to remind them that it is equally unacceptable for them to prop
up a regime that is starving and torturing their relatives to the North
because the consequences of saving them would be too costly.
We will encourage our government to help South Korea absorb the
difficulties that may come, but only to the extent that the South
ceases to aid and abet the murderous regime of the North.
Not only are we determined to get information and freedom INTO
North Korea, we are determined to get the word out in the West of the
brutality and starvation of the North Korean people by their ``Dear
Leader.'' We believe that by God's grace the net effect of such a
movement can be much the same as the fall of both the Soviet Union and
the Berlin Wall. No shots fired--just freedom imploding.
President Bush has led the way on this issue by boldly and rightly
declaring North Korea part of an Axis of Evil. This is no time for the
faint of heart or spineless appeasers. This is a time for Americans of
all political stripes to unite for a noble purpose: To bring freedom,
food and wholeness to the suffering people of North Korea.
Thank you.
Senator Brownback. Thank you for that passionate, clear
presentation.
Mr. Kumar, thank you very much for joining us, advocacy
director for Asia and the Pacific, Amnesty International.
STATEMENT OF T. KUMAR, ADVOCACY DIRECTOR FOR ASIA AND THE
PACIFIC, AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL, WASHINGTON, DC
Mr. Kumar. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Amnesty International is extremely pleased to testify here
for two important reasons. The first reason is it's a closed
country. Second, the human-rights abuses that are taking place
in North Korea is extremely disturbing to us.
We have been monitoring human rights around the world for
more than 40 years. Our only job is monitoring human rights,
not to take into consideration any other issues. First, I will
list what abuses we have encountered there, which we have seen
there. Second, I will go into details about what we feel is the
best approach to deal with the abuses that are taking place.
As I mentioned to you earlier, Mr. Chairman, this is a
closed country. So the information that we get has to be
extremely scrutinized and be verified. But despite these
difficulties, we were able to come up with some excellent
reporting of what's happening there.
I think we are the only human-rights organization which was
allowed to go to North Korea. We visited North Korea in 1995.
But since we were not able to get free access to persons in
other places, we came out and issued a very harsh statement in
1995.
The issues that we are concerned are public executions,
where people have been gathered around grounds and people have
been executed for various crimes, including people who have
been sent back from China. Some of them have been executed.
Torture resulting in death, inhumane prison conditions, and
large-scale abuses and other abuses like torture, as I
mentioned earlier.
I would like to bring your attention to one issue that's
disturbing us for the last 3 or 4 years.
That's the issue of starvation and death.
In mid 1990s, North Korea experienced famine and, as a
result of famine, starvation due to natural disasters and
economic mismanagement. The result of is, this is not our
figure, it's the U.N. figure, is that 2 million people have
died because of that famine and mismanagement of economic
resources. Almost 40 percent of the children are chronically
malnourished.
Senator Brownback. Currently?
Mr. Kumar. They are extremely chronically malnourished.
Senator Brownback. But that's a current number?
Mr. Kumar. Yes, that's the number--that's a U.N. figure.
Almost half the population--that is 13 million--are also
malnourished. And we are extremely fearful that any food
embargoes that's being enforced, for whatever reason, can hurt
the most vulnerable, like the children, elderly, pregnant
women, nursing women, and the elderly. So we appeal to you, Mr.
Chairman, please d-link any food embargoes when you consider
any political consideration toward North Korea. We discussed
this pretty much intensely internally as an organization, and
we came up with the decision that our responsibility and the
world's responsibility is to the people of North Korea. We
should separate North Korean people from the regime. So we
can't afford to have another 2 million perish because of famine
there because we may be angry with the regime there. We can't
allow children who are born because of famine, and then going
through severe physical and mental problems when they are
growing up. So that's our plea to you, Mr. Chairman.
And how best to achieve transparency and to deal with North
Korea is something--we thought the U.N. is the best method.
Even though North Koreans invited us in 1995, they are
extremely closed and extremely nervous about outsiders
interfering into their so-called internal affairs. They have
ratified four major U.N. conventions--civil and political
rights, economic and social rights, the children's rights. So
they have an obligation and duty to invite special rapporteurs
to visit these--from these conventions to visit North Korea to
investigate impartially. We will urge the administration and
you to take the leadership in exerting pressure through the
U.N. so that these people can--these special rapporteurs can
make an impartial intervention in North Korea and find out
what's happening there. That will be our recommendation, in
terms of seeing what's happening inside in this closed country.
In closing, Mr. Chairman, I would like to appeal to you
again. We are extremely worried about the people of North
Korea. We should never punish average citizens for somebody
else's mistake. Let U.S. and other countries stand up and
continue the food aid as they are giving now.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Kumar follows:]
Prepared Statement of T. Kumar, Advocacy Director for Asia and the
Pacific, Amnesty International USA
Thank you Mr. Chairman and distinguished members of this committee.
Amnesty International is pleased to testify at this important hearing.
The human rights situation in North Korea has been a consistent and
grave concern to Amnesty International. We last visited the country in
1995 but were not allowed to undertake independent monitoring. Since
that time, numerous attempts to enter the country to assess the human
rights situation have been denied by the North Korean authorities.
Despite the North Korean government's lack of cooperation, we have
received numerous credible reports of grave abuses.
Amnesty International's long-standing concerns about human rights
violations in North Korea include the use of torture, the death
penalty, arbitrary detention and imprisonment, inhumane prison
conditions and the near-total suppression of fundamental freedoms,
including freedom of expression, religion, and movement.
In recent years, many human rights abuses in North Korea have been
linked directly or indirectly to the famine and acute food shortages,
which have affected the country since the mid-1990s. The famine and
persistent acute food shortages have led to widespread malnutrition
among the population and to the movement of hundreds of thousands of
people in search of food--some across the border with China--many have
become the victims of human rights violations as a result of their
search for food and survival.
In this context, Amnesty International believes that guaranteeing
equitable distribution of food to all individuals in North Korea
without discrimination is a key priority which the North Korean
government must address urgently, in line with its international
obligations, with appropriate assistance from the international
community. The United States Government can play a leading role in
helping to ensure that thousands of innocent civilians are spared the
horrors of malnutrition and deaths due to hunger.
UNITED NATIONS HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION
In a resolution on North Korea passed at the 58th session of the UN
Commission on Human Rights in April 2003, the Commission expressing the
Commission's deep concern about reports of systemic, widespread and
grave violations of human rights in North Korea, including ``torture,
public executions, and imposition of the death penalty for political
reasons.''
In the resolution, the Commission also expressed concern at ``the
existence of a large number of prison camps, the extensive use of
forced labour, and the lack of respect for the rights of persons
deprived of their liberty.'' Other areas of concern included reports of
``all-pervasive and severe restrictions on the freedoms of thought,
conscience, religion, opinion and expression, peaceful assembly and
association and on access of everyone to information, and limitations
imposed on every person who wishes to move freely within the country
and travel abroad.''
The resolution also called on Pyongyang to implement ``its
obligations under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and
Cultural Rights, in particular concerning the right of everyone to be
free from hunger.'' The resolution also requested ``the international
community to continue to urge that humanitarian assistance, especially
food aid, destined for the people of the Democratic People's Republic
of Korea, be distributed in accordance with humanitarian principles and
to ensure also the respect of the fundamental principles of asylum.''
RESTRICTIONS ON ACCESS
There is little detailed information on the extent of human rights
violations in North Korea due to the restrictions on access to the
country for independent human rights monitors. Information and access
to the country remain tightly controlled, hampering the investigation
of the human rights situation on the ground. However, reports from a
variety of sources suggest a pattern of serious human rights
violations, such as those described below.
EXECUTIONS
Amnesty International has received reports of public executions
carried out at places where large crowds gather. These executions are
announced in advance to encourage attendance by schools, enterprises,
and farms. Some prisoners have reportedly been executed in front of
their families. Executions are carried out by hanging or firing-squad.
FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND RELIGION
Opposition of any kind is not tolerated. According to reports, any
person who expresses an opinion contrary to the position of the ruling
party faces severe punishment, as does their family in many cases. The
domestic news media is strictly censored and access to international
media broadcasts is restricted. Any unauthorized assembly or
association is regarded as a ``collective disturbance'', liable to
punishment.
Religious freedom, although guaranteed by the constitution, is in
practice sharply curtailed. There are reports of severe repression of
people involved in public and private religious activities through
imprisonment, torture and executions. Many Christians are reportedly
being held in labor camps.
TORTURE AND ILL-TREATMENT
Reports from a variety of sources suggest that torture and ill-
treatment are widespread in prisons and labor camps, as well as in
detention centers where North Koreans who have been forcibly returned
from China are held for interrogation pending transfer to other places.
Conditions in prisons and labor camps are reported to be extremely
harsh. Inmates are made to work from early morning until late at night
in farms or factories, and minor infractions of rules can be met with
severe beatings. According to some reports, however, more deaths are
caused by lack of food, harsh conditions and lack of medical care than
by torture or ill-treatment.
FREEDOM FROM HUNGER AND MALNUTRITION
North Korea continues to rely on international aid to feed its
population, but many people in the country are suffering from hunger
and malnutrition. According to a study published last year by the Food
and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO), 13 million
people in North Korea--over half of the population--suffered from
malnutrition. Aid agencies have estimated that up to two million people
have died since the mid-1990s as a result of acute food shortages
caused by natural disasters and economic mismanagement. Several million
children suffer from chronic malnutrition, impairing their physical and
mental development. Many people in the country also lack adequate
medical care due to lack of medical personnel and supplies.
According to a special report by the FAO and the World Food Program
(WFP) on October 30, 2003, despite improved harvests, North Korea will
have another substantial food deficit in 2004. A combination of
``insufficient domestic production, the narrow and inadequate diet of
much of the population and growing disparities in access to food as the
purchasing power of many household declines'' has meant that about 6.5
million North Koreans will require assistance next year.
The situation remains ``especially precarious'' for young children,
pregnant and nursing women and elderly people. Malnutrition rates
remain ``alarmingly high'', as four out of ten young children suffer
from chronic malnutrition, or stunting, according to a survey conducted
in October 2002 by the UNICEF and the WFP. According to FAO and the
WFP, ``Continued, targeted food aid interventions are essential to
prevent a slippage back towards previous, higher levels of
malnutrition.''
An economic policy adjustment process initiated by the North Korean
government in July 2002 has led to a further decrease in the already
inadequate purchasing power of many urban households. The new report
cites government authorities who state that rations from the Public
Distribution System (PDS)--the primary source of food for 70 percent of
the population living in urban areas--are set to decline to no more
than 300 grams per person per day in 2004, from 319 grams this year.
Although the PDS rations are very low, industrial workers and elderly
people now spend more than half of their income on these rations alone.
They are unable to purchase staples such as rice and maize from private
markets, where prices are as much as 3.5 times higher, let alone more
nutritious foods.
Freedom from hunger and malnutrition and the right to food are
fundamental rights guaranteed in the International Covenant on
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), to which North Korea is
a State Party. The provision of food where humanitarian assistance is
needed is both a joint and individual responsibility. The expert
Committee set up to monitor the Covenant has concluded that all State
Parties, individually and through international cooperation, are under
an obligation to ensure ``an equitable distribution of world food
supplies in relation to need''.
North Korea must ensure that international food aid and other food
supplies are distributed equitably to all among its population, without
discrimination. If its population is in need of food supplies that it
cannot provide, the government must seek outside assistance, and must
refrain from using food as a negotiating issue.
Amnesty International wrote to President Bush in July 2003
commending the Administration's announcement that the US Government
would refrain from using food as an instrument of political and
economic pressure and seeking further assurances that this will remain
US policy. States such as the USA, which are in a position to help the
North Korean population, must provide the necessary food aid, without
tying this to particular political goals. The US government responded
in August, assuring that the policy of the United States is to provide
emergency food aid based on humanitarian considerations without regard
to political, military or economic issues; however, there has been a
decline in food aid to North Korea in recent years. This trend has
continued despite concerns from the WFP and other humanitarian agencies
of substantial shortfalls in food aid and serious levels of chronic
malnutrition among vulnerable sections of the population.
Should the US, which has been a leading donor of humanitarian food
aid to North Korea in the past, impose food embargoes or reductions in
food aid to North Korea, it is the ordinary North Korean people who
would suffer more. The worsening food shortage would also lead to
worsening conditions for already vulnerable sectors of the North Korean
population, such as children, women and elderly people. As a prominent
aid donor stated, ``Withholding aid would not only be morally wrong, it
would also not solve any problems. Closing the door now means much
greater difficulty in reopening the future--and with an open door comes
the possibility of the same level of communication, or of gradually
developing an even better level (of communication).'' Food should not
be used as an instrument of political and economic pressure and must be
the subject of embargoes.
NORTH KOREAN ASYLUM SEEKERS IN CHINA
In the face of serious food shortages and political repression,
thousands of North Koreans have fled across the border to China where
many live in fear of arrest and possible repatriation. The Chinese
authorities claim that all North Koreans who illegally come to China
are economic migrants, and have consistently denied them access to any
refugee determination procedure, in violation of China's obligations
under the 1951 Refugee Convention and despite evidence that many among
them have genuine claims to asylum.
Their desperate plight has been brought into sharp focus by a
series of diplomatic incidents in which over 100 North Koreans have
entered foreign diplomatic facilities in several Chinese cities in an
attempt to claim asylum. China has responded to these incidents by
stepping up its crackdown on North Koreans, particularly in the
provinces of Liaoning and Jilin which border North Korea. Hundreds,
possibly thousands, of North Koreans have been detained and forcibly
returned across the border where they meet an uncertain fate. Amnesty
International fears that they could be subjected to serious human
rights violations as discussed below, including arbitrary detention,
torture or even summary execution.
The renewed crackdown in northeast China has also extended to
people suspected of helping North Koreans, including members of foreign
aid and religious organizations and ethnic Korean Chinese nationals
living in the border area, many of whom have been detained for
interrogation. In December 2001, a South Korean pastor, Chun Ki-won,
and his assistant, Jin Qilong, an ethnic Korean Chinese national, were
arrested in Hulunbeier City in China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region
while leading a group of 13 North Koreans through northeast China
towards the neighboring state of Mongolia. On March 3, 2002, Chun Ki-
won and Jin Qilong were charged with ``organizing other people to
illegally cross the national border''. They were tried by the
Hulunbeier Municipal People's Court in Inner Mongolia in July, found
guilty and sentenced to pay fines of 50,000 and 20,000 Yuan
respectively (US$6,000/US$2,400). They were subsequently released, and
Chun Ki-won was deported to South Korea on August 22, 2002.
The 13 North Koreans were detained in Manzhouli Prison in Inner
Mongolia. Three of them, including a newly-born baby, were reportedly
returned to North Korea in late January or early February 2002, but
there were no further details about their status or whereabouts. The
others, including four children, were reported to have been moved from
Manzhouli Prison in July 2002, but their current whereabouts remain
unknown.
More recently, five men were arrested on January 18, 2003 in Yantai
for helping North Koreans, and were sentenced on May 22, 2003. They
include a South Korean journalist, Seok Jae-hyun, who was sentenced to
two years and a fine of 5,000 Yuan and another South Korean national,
Choi Yong-hun, who was sentenced to five years and fined 30,000 Yuan.
RETURNED ASYLUM SEEKERS
Despite the uncertain fate that awaits them, many North Koreans
continue to cross the border into China. Some have sought asylum in
diplomatic compounds and foreign schools in China and have been allowed
to leave, traveling to South Korea via third countries. Hundreds of
others have been reportedly apprehended in northeast China and forcibly
returned to North Korea.
Those forcibly returned are held for interrogation in detention
centers or police stations operated by North Korean security agencies.
Depending on who they are and the result of interrogation, they may be
sent back to detention centers or prisons in their home province, or to
labor camps for up to six months. A few such returnees, particularly
former officials or those found with religious literature, are assigned
long terms of imprisonment with hard labor or in some cases face
execution. Those sent back to their home province are ostracized within
their community and subjected to surveillance. Many flee the country
again. Some have fled and been returned several times, reportedly
facing increasingly severe punishments with each failed escape attempt.
WHAT CAN BE DONE?
Mr. Chairman, given the closed nature of North Korea and continued
reports of numerous human rights abuses, it is imperative that the
international community find the best way to encourage increased
transparency in the country. We are not aware of any independent
functioning civil society or non-governmental organizations in North
Korea.
The international community should focus on persuading North Korea
to invite United Nations human rights experts as a first step.
Transparency in a closed country environment like North Korea,
especially with respect to its prisons and detention centers, is more
likely to be achieved in a gradual, step-by-step manner. Because North
Korea is a member of the United Nations, it may be more inclined to
allow access to the United Nations than any other organization.
Countries like South Korea, China, Japan, EU member countries and
Russia could be helpful allies in this endeavor.
RECOMMENDATIONS TO THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION
Engage diplomatically with North Korean government
authorities;
Initiate confidence-building measures such as continuation
of food aid without conditionality and avoid food sanctions;
Urge North Korea to grant unimpeded access to international
human rights organizations;
Urge North Korea to allow UN human rights monitors access to
prisons and detention facilities;
Urge North Korea to grant unimpeded access to Special
Rapporteurs and thematic experts under the United Nations
conventions to which North Korea is a state party, such as the
International Convention on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR);
International Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights (ICESCR); Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC);
and Convention on the Elimination of all forms of
Discrimination against Women (CEDAW);
Urge the North Korean government to implement the
recommendations of the Committee on Human Rights and the
Committee on the Rights of the Child, which were issued in
response to the reports on treaty compliance submitted by North
Korea;
Urge the North Korean government to grant access to the
Special Rapporteur on Food to make visits to prisons and
detention centers where there have been reports of deaths due
to malnutrition;
Urge the North Korean government to invite experts from the
Committee on the Rights of the Child and thematic experts and
rapporteurs under CEDAW, as children and pregnant and nursing
women are identified by UN agencies as vulnerable groups badly
affected by the food shortages in North Korea. These experts
should be granted unimpeded access to prisons or detention
centers for juvenile detainees and women detainees;
Urge the North Korean government to grant access to and
cooperate without restriction/reservation with thematic
procedures of the Commission on Human Rights relevant to the
situation of North Korea: the Special Rapporteur on Torture,
the Special Rapporteur on Religious Intolerance, the Working
Group on Arbitrary Detention, as well as the Working Group on
Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances; encourage North Korean
government to report regularly to the relevant treaty bodies,
ratify more UN Conventions, including the Convention against
Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or
Punishment;
Urge North Korea to review existing legislation to ensure it
conforms with international human rights standards and
introduce safeguards to provide citizens with protections and
remedies against human rights violations;
Prohibit the use of slave, forced, or prison labor in any
investment in extraction or production enterprises.
RECOMMENDATIONS TO THE CHINESE GOVERNMENT
Allow the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
(UNHCR) access to North Korean refugees in China;
Stop repatriating North Korean refugees.
RECOMMENDATIONS TO THE NORTH KOREAN GOVERNMENT
Amnesty International has repeatedly called on the North Korean
government to take measures to increase respect for human rights in the
country, including to:
Abide by the principles laid out in the international human
rights treaties it has ratified--such as the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International
Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights--and
incorporate these principles into domestic law;
Abolish the death penalty;
Release all who are detained or imprisoned for the peaceful
exercise of their human rights;
Guarantee freedom of expression, religion, movement for all
North Koreans;
Ensure the right to freedom from hunger and malnutrition
without discrimination;
Review and revise existing legislation to ensure it conforms
with international human rights standards and introduce
safeguards to provide citizens with protections and remedies
against human rights violations; and
Grant unimpeded access to international human rights
organizations and other independent human rights monitors;
Invite the UN human rights mechanisms to visit North Korea,
in particular to grant unimpeded access to Special Rapporteurs
and thematic experts under the United Nations conventions to
which North Korea is a state party, such as the International
Convention on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), International
Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR),
Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), and Convention on
the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women
(CEDAW);
Implement the recommendations of the Committee on Human
Rights and the Committee on the Rights of the Child, which were
issued in response to North Korea's treaty compliance report;
Invite the Special Rapporteur on Food to visit prisons and
detention centers where there have been reports of deaths due
to malnutrition;
Invite experts from the Committee on the Rights of the Child
and thematic experts and rapporteurs under CEDAW, to examine
conditions generally and also focus on children and pregnant
and nursing women who have been identified by UN agencies as
vulnerable groups badly affected by the food shortages. In
addition, provide these experts with unimpeded access to
prisons or detention centers for juvenile detainees and women
detainees;
Grant access to and cooperate without restriction or
reservation with the thematic procedures of the Commission on
Human Rights, such as the Special Rapporteur on Torture, the
Special Rapporteur on Religious Intolerance, the Working Group
on Arbitrary Detention, as well as the Working Group on
Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances;
Submit reports regularly to the relevant UN treaty bodies of
experts and ratify additional human rights related UN
conventions, including the Convention against Torture and other
Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.
Thank you.
Senator Brownback. Thank you very much, Mr. Kumar.
Mr. Charny. Tell me if I'm getting that--pronounce it for
me.
Mr. Charny. Charny.
Senator Brownback. Charny, excuse me. Thank you very much
for being here with us today.
STATEMENT OF JOEL R. CHARNY, VICE PRESIDENT FOR POLICY,
REFUGEES INTERNATIONAL, WASHINGTON, DC
Mr. Charny. Thank you. And, Senator Brownback, I'd
especially like to thank you for organizing this hearing on
humanitarian and human-rights issues related to North Korea,
and for your overall commitment to human rights in that
country.
We believe precisely that focus on the nuclear issue, as
critical as that issue is to the security of the United States
and East Asia, has deflected attention from the terrible
humanitarian situation of the North Korean people. And RI
appreciates the consistent efforts of the members of this
committee to bring attention to the humanitarian and human-
rights aspects of the North Korea problem.
I will present a very brief summary of our findings and
recommendations, while requesting that my full written
testimony be entered into the record.
Senator Brownback. Without objection.
Mr. Charny. My testimony is based on a visit to one
province in China, in June of this year, interviewing 38 North
Korean refugees, ranging in age from 13 to 51. And like Ms.
Rios, I had similar experiences in just the emotional content
of the testimony that we are hearing, people speaking very
matter-of-fact about the death of relatives, about the
starvation and suffering that they had faced in North Korea,
about arrest and deportation in China, return to North Korea,
and facing difficult conditions again. And it was a one-week
trip. We only spoke to 38 people, but I think it was one of the
most intense experiences I've ever been through as an advocate
for Refugees International.
My analogy is to Cambodia, under the Khmer Rouge, a
situation that I'm familiar with from long work on Cambodia.
I don't think any other country in the world, with the
possible exception of Pol Pot's Cambodia, has created such a
controlled society where there's just--there's no air, there's
no space, there's truly no freedom for people to act and to be
human beings.
Our first interview was with a man who had crossed 3 days
before, and we asked him what his reaction was to China. And he
hesitated for a moment, and then he just broke into tears, and
he had to leave the room, and when he returned, he basically
said, you just have to understand how shocking it is ``to see
the freedom in China''--freedom in China, put that in
perspective--the ``immense wealth''--again, put that in
perspective--that the North Koreans find in China just
completely shatters their world.
Now, to summarize our findings, credible local sources that
monitor the border place the number of North Koreans in China
between 60,000 and 100,000. Now, I know that estimate is low,
but I have full confidence in this NGO and the networks that
they're a part of. They monitor the border very closely, and I
think we need to start using maybe more realistic estimates for
the numbers of North Koreans in China today.
The primary motivation of North Korean refugees to cross
the border is to ensure their survival, and I think I want to
insist on that terminology. ``Economic reasons'' somehow imply
that, they're crossing China to become businessmen or, to seek
employment in a factory. Fundamentally, it's about survival.
There's a great deal of movement back and forth across the
border, movement which is tolerated by the North Korean and
Chinese border guards when they believe it really is for
survival reasons.
Fifty percent of the refugees that I interviewed had been
arrested and deported at least once. The treatment of the
refugees upon being deported was consistent--2 months of
captivity in a labor training center, where they endure harsh
labor and starvation rations, as David Hawk details in his
report. This treatment, coupled with the political manipulation
of food rations and employment opportunities inside North
Korea, constitutes the case for considering the North Koreans
in China deserving of refugee status. They should not be
considered economic migrants. That's clear.
Trafficking of women is a serious problem, but based on my
1 week in China, it's impossible to give a precise estimate of
its scope. Korean women do cross with the deliberate intention
of marrying Korean Chinese men as a survival strategy, and I
think we need to recognize that.
The problem is that they're exceedingly vulnerable to being
captured and sold to Chinese husbands or to bar and brothel
owners well outside the border region. But we only interviewed
one woman, who had, indeed, been sent from Jilin to southern
China, who had managed to escape and to return to that area.
So, again, in a short period of time, it's just impossible to
estimate the number of women who might be trapped in
trafficking networks.
Now, I want to mention the following strategies for
protection and recommendations as to how to deal with the North
Korean situation in China.
First, the border with China is the lifeline for North
Koreans, and therein lies the dilemma. Providing real
protection while avoiding counterproductive provocations of the
Chinese Government is a very difficult challenge. We
recommend--it's obvious, David Hawk said the same--that China
stop arresting and deporting law-abiding North Korean refugees.
Now, Senator, as you well know, China has signed the 1951
convention and 1967 protocol related to the status of refugees,
and in this context, to add insult to injury, is a member of
the UNHCR Executive Committee, yet still they will not allow
the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees access to
the border region. And I tend to agree with UNHCR here that
it's not about the agreement between the Government of China
and UNHCR, which is just a technical agreement relating to
their representation in Beijing. What's fundamental is that
China's a signatory to the Refugee Convention and, further, is
a member of the UNHCR Executive Committee. The United States
has got to work that issue in the UNHCR Executive Committee.
Senator Brownback. Let me stop you just there, if I could,
Mr. Charny. How can we do that more effectively?
Because I just think this is ridiculous, that they would be
on the Executive Committee. They've got one of the worst human-
rights abuse situations right on their border.
Everybody outside of the area is documenting this. We have
photos of this. How do we get the Chinese to act?
Mr. Charny. Well, as you well know, getting China to move
on any human-rights issue is not easy. We've spoken to a high
official in the Bureau of Population Refugees and Migration and
also people in Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, and they do
assure us, these officials assure us, that this situation is on
the agenda in the bilateral dialog between the United States
and China on human-rights issues.
My hesitation or my doubt is whether this is really rising
to the level that it should. In other words, let's get this up
higher on the agenda in our discussions with the Chinese. And
then I think the Executive Committee of UNHCR meets
periodically. There is an opportunity for the United States to
either make private contact with the Chinese in the context of
the Executive Committee--that probably wouldn't work. At some
point, I think we need to go public. UNHCR is saying, ``there's
little we can do without real political support.'' And the
United States is a global leader on human-rights issues. We
give more money to UNHCR probably than any government in the
world. I think we have leverage and an opportunity to raise
this publicly within the framework of the UNHCR Executive
Committee. So it's about a more public posture on this issue,
recognizing that China often reacts negatively to public
pressure. But, again, the very idea that they're on the
Executive Committee, I think, gives us the opening to work this
issue in a public forum.
That's my reaction. It's not an easy issue to deal with, I
admit.
Now, resettlement is a possible protection strategy, but,
again, we're stuck with the Chinese being the easiest country
of first asylum, and they would have to be convinced to make
resettlement a legal process. The problem with resettlement
right now is, it's a clandestine process that involves either
embassy seizures or the underground railroad to South Korea or,
as David Hawk alluded to earlier, an underground railroad that
takes North Koreans on an unimaginable journey through southern
China, into Vietnam, across Cambodia, sometimes down through
Laos to Thailand. I can't imagine making that journey as a
North Korean refugee.
Again, part of our effort with China should be to get them
to agree to grant access--and we could limit the numbers at the
outset--but we need access to North Koreans so that we can
resettle North Koreans legally, openly, transparently. You
know, the underground railroad is amazing, but the numbers are
too small. It doesn't really make enough of a difference at
this stage.
Now, the South Korean reluctance was something I knew
little about until I went to Seoul in June, and, frankly, I was
surprised at the limited numbers of North Koreans that are
accepted in South Korea for resettlement and the evident
ambivalence of the South Koreans about taking more. Again, can
we work this issue with the South Koreans to get them to raise
their numbers from a thousand, which I think is minimal, up to
more like 2,000, 3,000, or 5,000 a year, numbers I think would
be reasonable under the circumstances.
Now, the United States has previous experience in
resettling isolated and difficult-to-assimilate populations,
such as the Hmong, from Laos. So I think we could bring that
experience to bear, accept North Koreans for resettlement, and
also provide technical training and support to South Korean
Government agencies and NGOs involved in resettlement.
And then, finally, I've referred to the underground
railway. I think American Embassy staff in Southeast Asian
countries should obviously be on the lookout for North Korea
asylum-seekers, and be prepared to consider them for possible
resettlement in the United States.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Charny follows:]
Prepared Statement of Joel R. Charny, Vice President for Policy,
Refugees International, Washington, DC
I would like to thank Senator Richard G. Lugar, Chairman of the
Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, and Senator Sam Brownback,
Chairman of the East Asia Subcommittee, for organizing this hearing on
humanitarian and human rights issues related to North Korea and for
inviting me to testify on behalf of Refugees International. RI believes
that the focus on the nuclear issue, as critical as that issue is to
the security of the United States and East Asia, has deflected
attention from the terrible humanitarian situation of the North Korean
people. RI appreciates the consistent efforts of the members of this
Committee to bring attention to the humanitarian and human rights
aspects of the North Korea problem.
In June I spent one week with a colleague in Jilin province in
China interviewing North Korean refugees. They live a precarious and
clandestine existence as illegal migrants in Jilin, which is the home
of some one million Chinese of Korean ethnicity. Through contacts with
networks of non-governmental organizations, largely affiliated with
local pastors supported by donations from Christian communities in
South Korea and the United States, the RI team conducted interviews of
38 North Koreans, ranging in age from 13 to 51. This experience, as
limited as it was, constitutes, to our knowledge, the most extensive
interviewing of North Korean refugees in China by an American
organization in 2003.
The estimates of the number of North Koreans in China vary widely--
from under 100,000 to as high as 300,000. The organizations that hosted
the RI visit monitor border crossings on a daily basis and through
their service programs keep a close eye on the total number of North
Koreans needing support at any given time. They incline towards the
lower estimate, and having seen first hand the care with which they
approach the question of numbers, RI accepts their estimate of 60-
100,000 North Koreans presently in northeast China.
The primary motivation of the North Koreans crossing into China is
either to find a better life in China or to access food and other basic
supplies to bring back to their families in North Korea. Among the 38
people that RI interviewed, no one had experienced direct persecution
for her or his political beliefs or religious affiliation prior to
crossing the border for the first time. The Chinese government argues,
therefore, that the Koreans are economic migrants rather than refugees,
and should be treated the same way that the U.S. treats illegal
migrants from Mexico or Haiti.
From a refugee rights perspective, China's reasoning is flawed. The
fundamental problem is that North Koreans are subject to special
persecution upon being deported from China, with the minimum period of
detention in ``labor training centers,'' which are tantamount to
prisons, being two months. Second, everyone in North Korea is divided
into political classes, with less privileged people, who constitute the
majority with suspect revolutionary credentials, receiving lower
rations and less access to full employment. The deprivation that North
Koreans are fleeing cannot be isolated from the system of political
oppression that epitomizes the North Korean regime. These factors taken
together give North Koreans a strong case for being considered refugees
in their country of first asylum.
THE CURRENT SITUATION FOR NORTH KOREAN REFUGEES IN CHINA
The experience of conducting 38 interviews of North Korean refugees
over the space of a week was harrowing. While the demeanor of the
refugees ranged from a matter-of-fact passivity to emotional fragility
to defiance, the stories that they told were consistent in their grim
portrayal of life in North Korea and the losses that they had suffered,
especially during the famine period, but in some cases more recently.
Most of the refugees that RI interviewed were originally from areas in
the far north and east of the country, regions that had been denied
international food aid during the famine as described in USAID
Administrator Andrew Natsios' book, The Great North Korea Famine.
Approximately half of the refugees had lost at least one relative to
starvation or disease and an equal portion had been arrested in China
and deported at least once. The following account illustrates what
North Korean refugees go through:
We first came to China in 1997. We have been arrested and
deported a total of three times. In April 2002 my husband, my
son, and I were arrested. My daughter happened to be out at the
time. We were taken to the border crossing point at Tumen and
handed to the North Korean security guards. We first went to
the county labor training center, then to the local one in our
home town. We worked on construction and road building
projects, and were provided only with bad corn and corn
porridge for food.
In June 2002 my husband and I returned to China. My son was
delivered to the border by another person. We returned to where
we were staying in China and found our daughter.
We were arrested again in September 2002. This time it was
the whole family. In October my daughter and I returned to
China, but my husband and son stayed in North Korea. In
February they tried to come, but they were arrested in North
Korea. My son was sent to an orphanage this time, and my
husband to a labor training center. He got sick there, was
released, and died three days after his release. My son tried
three times to escape from the orphanage and return to China,
but each time he was caught and returned. Finally, he was able
to escape and re-join us in China in March.
In April my daughter and I were arrested again and deported.
On this return I learned that my husband had died. My son had
not known. We were again put in the local labor training
center. I wanted to see the grave of my husband, so the guards
allowed me and my daughter to leave. We then escaped again and
returned to China.
The testimony of recent arrivals, nine of whom had come to China
this year and three of whom had crossed into China within a week of our
meeting, belied the reports that the North Korean economy has been
improving in response to the limited economic reforms initiated in July
2002. In separate interviews, the recent arrivals, who were largely
from North Hamyung, reputedly one of the poorest provinces in North
Korea, consistently stated that the public distribution system, which
prior to 1994 assured the availability of basic food for the
population, had completely collapsed. The economic reform program has
resulted in rampant inflation. The price of rice and other basic
commodities has skyrocketed, while wages--for coal miners, for
example--have not kept pace. Children receive no food distributions at
school, and many schools have stopped functioning while teachers and
students search for means to survive.
What is especially shattering for North Koreans is the contrast
between their life of misery and the life lived by Chinese of Korean
ethnicity across the narrow border. The Tumen River, which marks the
northernmost part of the border between North Korea and China, is no
wider than 100 yards and shallow enough to walk across in certain spots
in summer. Yet it marks an Amazonian divide in living standards and
economic freedom. When RI asked a 35-year-old North Korean man who had
arrived in China just three days earlier his initial impression of
China, his eyes welled up. He bowed his head and he began sobbing. The
stunning contrast between his life of fear and deprivation in North
Korea and the relative wealth he found on the other bank of the Tumen
River was shattering. Even refugees who had been in China longer could
not help expressing their gratitude and amazement that in China they
ate rice three times a day.
The constant threat of arrest and deportation, however, means that
China is far from a paradise for North Koreans. Men have a difficult
time finding sanctuary in China because staying at home is not an
option and moving around Yanji city or rural areas to find day labor
exposes them to police searches. The few long-staying male refugees who
RI interviewed were established in a safe house deep in the countryside
with access to agricultural plots in the surrounding forest. Otherwise,
men tend to cross the border, hook up quickly with the refugee support
organizations, access food and other supplies, and then return to their
homes in North Korea. RI's impression based on very limited data is
that this back and forth movement, when the motivation is clearly to
obtain emergency rations, is tolerated by the North Korean and Chinese
border guards.
One protection strategy available to women is trying to find a
Korean-Chinese husband. The problem is that these women are vulnerable
to unscrupulous traffickers who pose as honest brokers for Chinese men.
RI was unable to define the scope of this problem, but anecdotal
evidence suggests that the trafficking of North Korean women is
widespread. Women, some of whom have a husband and children in North
Korea, willingly offer themselves to gangs along the border who sell
them to Chinese men. These women see this as their only option for
survival. RI interviewed several women who, knowing that they were
going to be sold, escaped from the traffickers once in China. Other
North Korean women are successful in finding a Korean-Chinese husband
and achieve a measure of stability in their lives. Probably the two
happiest refugees that we spoke to during our week in China were two
women who were part of stable marriages. These women, however, like all
North Koreans, are unable to obtain legal residency in China. If the
couple has children born in China, the children are stateless. North
Korean children in China are not able to get a formal education.
The accounts of the treatment of refugees upon arrest and
deportation were remarkably consistent across the range of individuals
that RI interviewed. Refugees arrested in Yanji and surrounding areas
in Yangbian were handed to the North Korean authorities at the border
crossing point at Tumen. They were then transported to ``labor training
centers'' in their village or town of origin in North Korea. The length
of detention in these centers was consistently two months. Conditions
in the centers were terrible. The deported refugees experienced hard
labor on construction projects or in the fields, with very limited
rations. A thin porridge made from the remnants of milled corn was the
most common food. Medical care was completely unavailable. Indeed, RI
was struck by several accounts indicating that severely ill detainees
were released rather than cared for, presumably so they would die
outside the center, freeing the guards from any responsibility for
burial.
The North Koreans consider meeting with foreigners, especially with
South Koreans to arrange emigration to South Korea, and adopting
Christianity with the intention of propagating the faith inside North
Korea to be serious crimes. According to several refugees, the
punishment for deported refugees suspected of either act is life
imprisonment in a maximum security prison camp or execution. For
obvious reasons, RI was not able to interview anyone who had been
arrested for these ``crimes.''
STRATEGIES FOR PROTECTING NORTH KOREAN REFUGEES
Refugees International recognizes that horrendous oppression and
economic mismanagement inside North Korea are responsible for the flow
of people seeking assistance and protection in China and elsewhere in
Asia. In this sense, only fundamental change inside North Korea will
staunch the flow of refugees and bring freedom and economic security to
the North Korean population. Analyzing ways to bring about the
necessary changes with the least possible suffering, however, lies
outside the scope of RI's expertise. I will therefore limit my remarks
to near-term protection strategies in the context of the current
political situation.
The border with China is the lifeline for North Koreans in
desperate condition, and therein lies the dilemma for those seeking to
provide sustenance and protection for them. Any strategy for protecting
North Korean refugees must be carried out in such a way that the
approach does not result in steps that restrict access to supplies and
security, or that lead to further arrests and crackdowns. Providing
real protection while avoiding counterproductive provocations of the
Chinese government is a difficult challenge.
Despite this challenge, and the proven difficulties of changing the
approach of the People's Republic of China on any human right issue,
Refugees International believes that a practical, near-term protection
strategy must first and foremost seek to establish greater security for
North Koreans in Jilin province in China. The refugees that RI
interviewed either expressed an intention to return to their families
in North Korea after recuperating and obtaining basic supplies or to
stay and try to make their way in China. The Chinese government has
designated Yangbian as a Korean autonomous region; in consequence
government officials are of Korean ethnicity and Korean is the official
language of government affairs and commerce, along with Mandarin. Thus,
North Korean refugees have cultural and linguistic affinity with
Chinese in this region. Local officials try to avoid harassing the
refugees and the periodic waves of arrests and deportations, according
to local sources, are the consequence of orders from the national
authorities in Beijing. The economy in the border area is vibrant, due
in part to South Korean investment, but living in the regional capital,
Yanji, or in smaller towns does not pose the immense problems of
cultural adaptation that North Koreans have faced in the South.
RI believes that the first step towards providing protection for
North Korean refugees in China is for the Chinese government to stop
arresting and deporting law abiding North Koreans who have found a home
across the border. Given the factors favoring assimilation, and the
healthy economy in Yangbian, this step should pose no immediate
security or other threat to China. The UN High Commissioner for
Refugees, Ruud Lubbers, claimed in June that Chinese officials had
informed him that they would stop arresting and deporting North
Koreans. China immediately denied any change in policy. But quiet
implementation of this approach would provide greater security to North
Koreans while keeping the border open to the back and forth movement of
people and goods that is a lifeline for poor people in the border
provinces of North Korea. Given the available options, this best
combines care for North Korean refugees with respect for the legitimate
political and economic security needs of the Chinese government.
Merely stopping the arrest and deportation of North Koreans,
however, falls well short of China's obligations under the 1951
Convention and 1967 Protocol Related to the Status of Refugees, to
which it is a signatory. Further, China is on the Executive Committee
of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Yet
China not only refuses to grant refugee status to worthy North Korean
asylum seekers, but prevents the Beijing-based staff of UNHCR from
traveling to Yangbian to assess the situation.
RI has called for UNHCR to engage proactively with the Chinese
government to seek permission to visit Yangbian and eventually to
establish an office in the region to monitor the status of North
Koreans in China and to provide protection and assistance as needed.
UNHCR's profile on this issue has been too low, considering the numbers
of North Koreans in China and China's importance to UNHCR and the
international community.
At the same time, RI recognizes that UNHCR's real leverage with the
Chinese government on this issue is minimal. Only wider political
support and engagement, especially at the level of the UNHCR Executive
Committee and bilateral discussions between China and interested
governments, will lead to meaningful change in the Chinese position.
RI urges the United States government to make the status of North
Korean refugees in China a priority issue in its on-going human rights
dialogue with the Chinese government. We have raised this issue
directly with officials of the State Department Bureaus of Population,
Refugees, and Migration and Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor; they
have assured us that this issue is indeed an important part of
bilateral discussions with the Chinese. While RI accepts these
assurances, we hope that the members of the Senate Committee on Foreign
Relations and other members of the Senate will continue to impress upon
the Administration the importance of Chinese action to facilitate
UNHCR's access to North Korean refugees.
A second possible approach to protecting North Korean refugees is
third country resettlement. Resettlement faces equally determined
opposition from China. The Chinese authorities have actively tried to
prevent North Koreans from reaching the embassies of potential
resettlement countries and refuse to allow diplomatic missions to
establish facilities to assess eligibility for resettlement in Yangbian
itself. What little resettlement there has been has resulted from high-
level defectors and other individuals reaching South Korea by boat or
via underground railroad from China and the storming of embassy
compounds in Beijing. The numbers are small. South Korea accepted fewer
than 1,000 North Koreans for resettlement in 2002 even though their
right to settle in the South is recognized in national law.
For resettlement to be a meaningful protection strategy, both China
and South Korea will have to change their policies. China will have to
allow potential resettlement countries open and unrestricted access to
North Korean refugees. This step would be a logical follow on to a
decision to allow UNHCR access to Yangbian, but neither action appears
politically feasible at this point. As for South Korea, its low
admission numbers reflect more than the difficulty of North Koreans
reaching South Korea. As I learned on a visit to Seoul in June, South
Korean citizens and the South Korean government have a remarkable
ambivalence about the suffering of North Koreans. Citizens fear
economic turmoil if North Koreans are admitted in large numbers, while
their solidarity is limited by disdain for the poverty and lack of
sophistication of North Koreans. As for the government, commitment to
the Sunshine Policy and reconciliation more broadly locates the
fundamental solution of humanitarian issues in gradual political change
in North Korea that will result from engagement, rather than in large-
scale acceptance of refugees, an act that would anger the leaders of
the North Korean government. The result is a marked lack of commitment
by South Korea to offer resettlement to North Koreans.
RI believes that in the near term resettlement is unlikely to be an
option for more than a few thousand North Koreans. The U.S. role should
be to engage with China to see if resettlement, at least on a modest
scale, can become a legal option for North Koreans in China. The
Administration should also be talking to the South Koreans about
increasing their economic and political commitment to resettlement. The
U.S. itself could be a resettlement destination. The U.S. experience
with resettling previously isolated and difficult to assimilate
populations, such as the Hmong from Laos, might be usefully applied to
North Koreans, both by accepting them here and by providing technical
training and support to South Korean government agencies and NGOs
involved in resettlement. Finally, North Koreans, through the
underground railway, have managed to reach countries as far away as
Thailand and Cambodia. American embassy staff in Southeast Asian
countries should be on the lookout for North Korean asylum seekers and
be prepared to consider them for possible resettlement in U.S.
Senator Brownback. Thank you all very much.
I regret to say we've got a vote that is on now, and so I'm
going to have to proceed from here.
Let me say this, if I can, to each of you and to the panel
before, I think this has been very illuminating. I'm regretful
that it's taken this long to gather this much information. If I
could, Mr. Hawk, from your testimony, that it strikes me this
has been going on for some period of time and we're just now
getting this little window on a very nasty place in the world.
And it's just now come to the forefront.
Ms. Rios, let me thank you for what you're doing on this.
Your grassroots movement has had a number of very successful
efforts in trafficking in persons, dealing with that, and the
Sudan, which we're hopeful getting close to a peace agreement
near-term, Religious Freedom Act. I hope this is four in a row
for you, that this one moves on forward, because this is
clearly one of the worst situations we see in the world today,
and ranks up there in the top category, historically, or at
least over the last century.
Mr. Kumar, I appreciate your thoughts about the food aid.
That is a wrestling issue that we're struggling with now,
because a number of people assert that by giving food aid, it's
being redirected toward the elite and the military and you're
propping up the regime with food aid, even though the numbers
I've seen, somewhere around a third of the North Korean
population is being fed by international food donations, and
perhaps even higher than that currently. So, obviously, it's--
and we know that this is a very vulnerable population and
nobody wants to hurt the people, but we also don't want to prop
up a regime.
And Mr. Charny, I thought your points were excellent.
I, myself, have been to that region of the Chinese/North
Korean border, just about a year ago. I wasn't as fortunate to
interview people. They pretty well cleaned the place up, I
guess, as you would say, before I got there, and everybody was
told, ``don't say anything.'' But the people I've interviewed
that have come through the region pretty much correspond to
what you've said, other than--I've heard a number of stories of
people that if they've come out of North Korea into China and
then taken back and found to have had contact with the
underground railroad or religious people, that the detention
can be much more severe, if not terminal, for them. Now, if
it's a situation that you're basically trying to forage for
food, that they're treated in a lighter fashion.
Mr. Charny. Can I just say, that's in my written testimony.
But for obvious reasons, we weren't seeing people who had been
either forced to admit or had been discovered being in contact
with South Koreans or having converted to Christianity and
agreeing to go back and proselytize. So our experience was
limited to people who were fundamentally coming into China to
survive, rather than ones who had been detained for these
crimes, so-called, that are much more serious in nature from
the North Korean standpoint.
Senator Brownback. The trafficking issue, the trafficking
in persons report, addresses some of that, as well, of women
being trafficked out and, in essence, sold to groups of men to
take care of homes, and sexually deal with the men as well, in
the trafficking report.
So we're getting a lot of information from a number of
different sources, all pointing to a cataclysmic human-rights
situation in North Korea, and I think it's just absolutely
imperative that we have this as part of the negotiations if
we're going to negotiate with North Korea, and that the Chinese
have to wake up to their responsibility in this area, that
they've got to start to address this situation for the terrible
situation that it is, or to start paying some sort of price,
internationally, for continuing to ignore one of the worst
human-rights abuses, if not the worst in the world today.
Thank you all very much for your work. I really do
appreciate it, that of you and your organizations. Godspeed.
The hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:20 p.m., the subcommittee adjourned, to
reconvene subject to the call of the Chair.]
----------
Additional Statements Submitted for the Record
Statement Submitted by Citizen's Coalition for Human Rights of
Abductees and North Korean Refugees
October 30, 2003
VIDEO STRIPS OF A NORTH KOREAN LABOR CAMP
We have photographic evidences of crimes committed against
prisoners in a North Korean prison, including those forcibly
repatriated defectors from China.
Ill-treatment of inmates in North Korean prison system has been
common knowledge in the international community, yet there has been no
solid evidence. Through underground contacts we obtained short video
strips of North Korean Defector Labor Camps in Onsong district, North
HamKyung Province. They were photographed in mid-August, 2003 and
depict punishment of forcibly repatriated defectors from China,
justifying refugee status for most of the current North Korean
defectors in China, Russia, and south east Asian countries.
Normally, when North Korean defectors are apprehended in China,
they are forcibly repatriated and are sent to work camps where they are
forced into hard labor and subject to brutal torture. Until now, the
international community has heard these stories while North Korean and
Chinese authorities denied these accounts as fictitious or distorted
stories.
By exposing these facts to the United States and to international
society, we three South Korean NGOs urge all available means and
resources be utilized in stopping the barbarous acts of the KIM, Jong-
Il regime and the mechanisms of systematic oppression in North Korea be
immediately dismantled. At the same time, we believe this is an
opportune time to encourage Chinese authorities to officially recognize
North Korean defectors as legitimate refugees as defined by
international law.
Citizen's Coalition for the Human Rights of N.K Abductees and Refugees
Movement for the Dismantling of Camps for North Korean Political
Prisoners
North Korean Network for Democratization
``The North Korea Freedom Coalition'', where Citizen's Coalition
for the Human Rights of N.K Abductees and Refugees is a member
organization, is a bipartisan coalition of religious, human rights,
non-governmental and Korean-American organizations, whose prime purpose
is to bring freedom to the North Korean people and to ensure that the
human rights component of U.S. and world policy towards North Korea
receives priority attention.
______
Citizen's Coalition for Human Rights of Abductees and North Korean
Refugees
November 3, 2003
PLEASE HELP TWO ARRESTED NORTH KOREAN WOMEN IN CHINA
Two North Korean women, Choi Sun-hwa, 56, and Song Jong-hwa, 23,
mother and daughter, were among the unknown number of North Korean
refugees who were arrested at the China/Vietnam border on 18 August
2003. There is no doubt that the above women will face severe
punishment, if not execution, because they are former landlord's
family, enemy of people. Attached is a testimony about their
background. Please do not disclose the testimony at this stage. It was
confirmed that they are still in China at the border prison of Tumen.
Hopefully, the fact that they are still in China might be an indication
of special consideration by the Chinese authorities. It is sincerely
hoped that a little more push now will lead to their release as in the
case of 7 North Korean defectors who were arrested in Shanghai with a
Japanese aid worker some months ago and reportedly released later.
I would be very grateful if you and other supporters could urgently
raise the issue with the Chinese authorities on their behalf. Your help
for these two particular refugees would also apply to the other
refugees in the same prison. Please help us! We believe your
intervention works.
Many thanks as ever and kind regards,
Sang Hun Kim
PS: the attached testimony has a very brief reference to the death
of an underground North Korean Christian. Will work hard to obtain
further information and evidence, if possible, as soon as the other
refugees from the same town are identified, both in China and Korea.
The following testimony was obtained in Seoul by an international
human rights volunteer on 21 October, 2003.
Alas! Have I Sent my Mother and Sister to Hell?
I am 28 years old (DOB: October, 1975). My name is Song Nip-sam, an
alias. I was born in the Saetpyeol district of North Korea, one of the
towns bordering China. My grandfather was a landlord and my father was
socially discriminated for that reason. He had been a worker for life
when he died from a stroke in 1996. I had a brother and two sisters. I
joined the army in 1993 after I graduated from my hometown high school.
I was so undernourished that I was discharged from the military service
in 1994 after only a year of military service. I stayed home for about
a year helping my mother with household affairs. I grew disillusioned
and angry with the North Korean regime as we were socially
discriminated against because of my family record.
I defected to China to seek freedom on 16 January 1997. On 6
December of the same year, I was grabbed by North Korean border guards
on 6 December of the same year while attempting to return to North
Korea to see my family. I was detained and interrogated by the State
Security Agency (SSA) for a little over a month, after which I was
cleared of all political offenses and released on 28 January 1998.
During this time, however, I was kicked and beaten frequently. In the
same cell of the SSA, I found a farmer by the name of Tokhung, a well-
known figure in Hamyon of my home district, who was arrested 3 days
before me. He earlier defected to China, sneaked into North Korea and
was arrested while attempting to escape from China with his wife. He
was severely beaten and badly tortured. He was still in the jail when I
was released. About two months later after my release, every one in the
town believed that he had been sent to a concentration camp and killed
there, like the case of Mr. Kim Shi-wun, a factory inventory clerk and
my fathers friend, about 50 at that time, was beaten to death by SSA
for his record of defection to China in 1995. (I heard in China from
somebody from my hometown that a woman oral hygiene doctor in my
hometown was arrested for being a Christian by the Saepyeol District
SSA sometime in 2000. She killed herself in jail by bumping her head
hard against wall to refuse to tell other Christians' names under
torture.)
My life in North Korea after my release was continuously under
surveillance, and I was disappointed and angry with the North Korean
regime and felt hopeless for my future. I defected to China for the
second time on 10 March 1999, and finally managed to arrive alone in
South Korea on 23 March 2001 via Mongolia. However, my happiness with
freedom in South Korea was short-lived with thoughts of my mother and
sister still in North Korea.
I managed to bring my mother, Choi Sun-hwa, 56, and sister, Song
Jong-hwa, 23, to China on 12 June 2003. Alas, they were arrested by the
Chinese authorities on 18 August while attempting to cross the Chinese
border to Vietnam! I have no information about the circumstances under
which they were arrested. There is no doubt that my mother and sister
faced extremely harsh persecutions and punishment because of my
grandfather's status. I am in such a state of agony that I would rather
kill myself. The many sleepless nights I have now been through and the
disappointment in not being able to turn to anyone for help makes me
mad day and night and deprives me of laughter or any pleasure in life.
I bitterly blame myself that I have sent them to hell! On this 22nd day
of October 2003, I was able to confirm that they are still in a border
prison in Tumen, China, which is surprising considering the usual
speedy rate of repatriation to North Korea. Is it an indication of a
change in the Chinese policy? Are my mother and sister going to be
spared? May God help us.