- CHINA'S REPATRIATION OF NORTH KOREAN REFUGEES

[Joint House and Senate Hearing, 112 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

CHINA'S REPATRIATION OF NORTH KOREAN REFUGEES

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HEARING

before the

CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

__________

MARCH 5, 2012

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CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA

LEGISLATIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS

House

Senate

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey, SHERROD BROWN, Ohio, Cochairman
Chairman MAX BAUCUS, Montana
FRANK WOLF, Virginia CARL LEVIN, Michigan
DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon
TIM WALZ, Minnesota SUSAN COLLINS, Maine
MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio JAMES RISCH, Idaho
MICHAEL HONDA, California

EXECUTIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS

SETH D. HARRIS, Department of Labor
MARIA OTERO, Department of State
FRANCISCO J. SANCHEZ, Department of Commerce
KURT M. CAMPBELL, Department of State
NISHA DESAI BISWAL, U.S. Agency for International Development

Paul B. Protic, Staff Director

Lawrence T. Liu, Deputy Staff Director

(ii)

C O N T E N T S

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Statements

Page
Opening statement of Hon. Chris Smith, a U.S. Representative from
New Jersey; Chairman, Congressional-Executive Commission on
China.......................................................... 1
Royce, Hon. Edward, a U.S. Representative from California;
Member, Congressional-Executive Commission on China............ 3
Scholte, Suzanne, President, Defense Forum Foundation; Chairman
and Founding Member, North Korea Freedom Coalition............. 5
Han, Songhwa, former North Korean refugee detained in China,
repatriated to North Korea and detained in North Korea......... 7
Jo, Jinhye, former North Korean refugee detained in China,
repatriated to North Korea and detained in North Korea......... 11
Kumar, T., Director for International Advocacy, Amnesty
International USA.............................................. 21
Scarlatoiu, Greg, Executive Director, Committee for Human Rights
in North Korea................................................. 22
Horowitz, Michael, Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute............... 25

Prepared Statements

Scholte, Suzanne................................................. 34
Han, Songhwa..................................................... 39
Jo, Jinhye....................................................... 40
Kumar, T......................................................... 42
Scarlatoiu, Greg................................................. 46

Smith, Hon. Chris................................................ 47

Submission for the Record

Written Statement of Roberta Cohen, Chair, Committee for Human
Rights in North Korea and Non-Resident Fellow, the Brookings
Institution, on ``China's Repatriation of North Korean
Refugees,'' dated March 5, 2012................................ 50

CHINA'S REPATRIATION OF NORTH KOREAN REFUGEES

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MONDAY, MARCH 5, 2012

Congressional-Executive
Commission on China,
Washington, DC.
The hearing was convened, pursuant to notice, at 2:37 p.m.,
in room 2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Representative
Chris Smith, Chairman, presiding.
Also present: Representative Edward R. Royce.

OPENING STATEMENT HON. CHRIS SMITH, A U.S. REPRESENTATIVE FROM
NEW JERSEY; CHAIRMAN, CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON
CHINA

Chairman Smith. The Commission will come to order. Thank
you all for being here, and good afternoon.
Dozens of North Koreans are today at imminent risk of
persecution, torture--even execution--owing to China's decision
to forcibly repatriate them in stark violation of both the
spirit and the letter of the 1951 Refugee Convention and the
1967 Protocol to which China has acceded.
The international community--especially the United Nations,
the Obama administration, and the U.S. Congress--must insist
that China, at long last, honor its treaty obligations, end its
egregious practice of systematic refoulement, or be exposed as
hypocrites.
Article 33 of the Convention and Protocol Relating to the
Status of Refugees couldn't be more clear:

Prohibition of Expulsion or Return (``Refoulement''): No
Contracting State shall expel or return (``refouler'') a
refugee in any manner whatsoever to the frontiers of
territories where his life or freedom would be threatened on
account of race, religion, nationality, membership of a
particular social group or political opinion.

China has forcibly returned tens of thousands over
the past two decades. Most, if not all, have been
punished in North Korea. According to testimonies and
reports received by the Committee for Human Rights, the
punishment has included beatings, torture, detention,
forced labor, sexual violence, and in the case of women
suspected of becoming pregnant in China, forced
abortions or infanticide.

For the record, I would note that since 2005, I have
chaired four congressional hearings that focused in whole or in
part on the plight of North Korean refugees and China's ongoing
violations of international law.
The Chinese Government claims that North Korean refugees
are illegal economic migrants, not refugees. Furthermore, the
Chinese Government continues its policy of repatriating North
Koreans in China according to a bilateral repatriation
agreement that requires it to return all border crossers.
As we will hear today, in doing so, China is in clear
violation of its obligations of international law. Again, these
are obligations that it freely entered into. Under
international law and standards, these detained refugees are
entitled to protection if there is a well-founded reason to
believe that they will be persecuted upon return. There are
documented accounts, as well as strong evidence. We know that
the persecution exists and what awaits them if they are forced
to return.
North Korea is certainly at fault. It might also be stated
that China has contributed to the humanitarian crisis through
its policy of gendercide, the killing of baby girls by forced
abortion, or infanticide. China's one-child-per-couple policy
has led to the worst gender disparity in any nation in history,
and that is directly connected to the issue that we probe
today.
According to the 2011 Commission's report, NGOs and
researchers estimate that as many as 70 percent of the North
Korean refugees in China are women, and some researchers have
estimated that 9 out of every 10 North Korean women in China
are trafficked, usually into sex trafficking.
In the past we have heard in my subcommittee from women who
had been forced into trafficking. In one case we heard from a
woman whose daughter crossed the border and then she and her
daughter went looking for the missing daughter and sister, only
to be forced into sex trafficking themselves. They testified
before our committee and told of their harrowing experience and
the courage that they had to overcome it.
The Chinese Government needs to change and the time has
come now for us to clearly and unambiguously raise the stakes.
It is time for a change.
Our focus today is on China's role and responsibility in
solving this problem. At this time we call on China to uphold
its international obligations and take immediate steps to end
this cruel, barbaric policy of sending North Koreans back to
persecution or death.
China must conform to international norms and allow these
refugees safe passage to the Republic of Korea, or grant them
immediate asylum. And we ask the Chinese Government to take all
steps necessary to meet the requirements of the convention
relating to the status of refugees and its protocol.
And the United Nations. It is time for the United Nations
to step up and stop writing just short comments and
commentaries on this, and its leaders, including the head of
the UN High Commissioner for Refugees [UNHCR] and others, need
to speak boldly about what is about to happen to these
refugees.
Finally, I want to thank all of our witnesses for being
here at this emergency hearing. It is a special honor to
welcome Ms. Han Songhwa and her daughter, Jo Jinhye, former
North Korean refugees who are here to share their personal
accounts of detention, hardship, and loss. I am sure that their
reflections and observations will deepen our understanding of
this issue and strengthen our resolve that China must
immediately address this self-made crisis.
I would like to yield to my good friend and colleague,
Representative Royce, for any comments he might have.

STATEMENT OF HON. EDWARD R. ROYCE, A U.S. REPRESENTATIVE FROM
CALIFORNIA; MEMBER, CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA

Representative Royce. Thank you very much, Chairman Smith.
Thank you for holding this hearing.
This is an emergency. The Chinese Government is set to
repatriate many North Korean refugees, so there is an urgency
to this hearing. There is an urgency to Congress acting. We
are, for those of us who have been in North Korea, as I have,
or who have interviewed those who have survived coming over the
border and being repatriated or have had family members--I
remember talking, speaking with one young woman whose brother
attempted to cross with her and he was caught. He died by
firing squad.
Speaking to Hwang Jang Yop, who was the Propaganda Minister
from North Korea, he told us the stories about the
administration in North Korea making the decision that they
would not allow food to go to the ``No Go'' areas; that close
to 2 million people had starved to death because the North
Korean regime wanted to build up its nuclear program, its ICBM
[intercontinental ballistic missile] program, and made a
calculated decision to allow people to starve and felt that
people in those areas could not be depended upon, they were
suspect in those regions. So they allowed them to starve to
death.
You have reports by the State Department and NGOs that we
are going to study today that show a very grim picture of what
is happening in North Korea, a total denial of political and
civil and religious liberties. We know that. But the severe
physical abuse that is visited on those who are simply
suspected or accused of not being in step with the regime,
anyone who is accused of violating a restriction or a law--you
have a system of concentration camps akin to the Soviet Gulag
system.
The photographs I have seen are very reminiscent to the
ones taken in Nazi Germany. You have 200,000 people in these
camps, most of them with no hope of ever getting out. There are
a few who have managed to get out, to escape over into China.
We have interviewed them about the conditions, and they are
horrifying.
So this dismal state has led to a large number of North
Koreans, particularly women, trying to escape to take their
children out of this environment, perhaps as many as 300,000.
They have fled into China and there they seek food or work and
resettlement to South Korea. Seventy-five percent of these
refugees are women. Up to 90 percent, according to some
sources, end up being trafficked.
In northeast China, North Korean refugees live in constant
fear of being rounded up by Chinese authorities. Why is that?
It's because, despite its international obligations, China does
not follow that international law and it forcibly repatriates
North Korean refugees. This, for many, is effectively a death
sentence.
Why is that so? Because leaving North Korea is considered a
crime by the regime and it is punishable by execution or being
worked to death in the Gulag. There are new reports that Kim
Jung-Eun has issued a ``shoot to kill'' order to North Korean
guards patrolling the border, another reason why this hearing
is important today.
Sadly, thousands--thousands--of North Korean children have
been abandoned or orphaned in the Chinese countryside. They are
threatened by starvation and disease. That is why I introduced
H.R. 1464, which calls on the Secretary of State to develop a
strategy to facilitate the adoption of North Korean children by
U.S. citizens. Many here have supported this legislation.
China's mistreatment of refugees is not new. What is new
today is the intensity. As part of its stepped up repatriation
campaign, Chinese authorities have established detention
centers along the border with North Korea to accommodate
greater numbers of North Koreans being held there.
This is what I want to tell you about, because those
associated with humanitarian groups who assist North Korean
refugees are also being targeted at this time by these Chinese
officials. And by the way, that includes U.S. citizens. There
is one in particular that I know who was held in one of these
facilities; we worked to get him out.
American businessman Steve Kim is another example of a man
who spent four years in prison, and his supposed crime was
helping North Korean refugees who had escaped their homeland
and were hiding in China. They hoped to make their way to South
Korea. And remember, this is the international agreement that
China is under, to assist in helping those people escape.
But Mr. Kim recounted here on Capitol Hill, ``When I was in
prison I saw North Korean defectors who I shared the prison
cell with beaten to a pulp by prison guards.'' That was before
they were sent back to North Korea. That is the conditions that
exist in China.
The human rights situation there, there is only one word
for it: It is a nightmare. It demands the international
community getting engaged to reverse this, and these human
rights abuses demand our attention here in Congress. I thank
the Commission for holding this timely hearing.
Chairman Smith. Thank you very much, Mr. Royce.
I would like to now welcome our first very distinguished
panel, beginning with Suzanne Scholte, who is president of the
Defense Forum Foundation. Ms. Scholte hosted the first North
Korean defectors ever to speak out in the United States back in
1997, and since that time has hosted over 70 visits of
defectors, from high-ranking officials to survivors of the
North Korean political prison camps and victims of human
trafficking in China. She is also the chairwoman of the North
Korea Freedom Coalition and vice chair of the Committee for
Human Rights in North Korea.
We will then hear from Ms. Songhwa Han, who escaped to
China in the mid-1990s and later returned through North Korea,
where she was imprisoned and tortured. She escaped to China
again several years later with her children.
While living as a refugee in China she encountered forced
marriage, domestic abuse, forced labor, detention, official
beatings, and eventual repatriation. Ms. Han received
protection with the UNHCR in 2006 and asylum in the United
States in 2008.
We will then hear from Ms. Jinhye Jo, Ms. Han's daughter, a
former North Korean refugee detained in China, repatriated to
North Korea and detained in North Korea. Jo received protection
with the UNHCR in 2006 and asylum in the United States in 2008.
Since arriving in the United States she has been an active
advocate on behalf of other North Korean refugees still living
in China.
Ms. Scholte, if you could begin.

STATEMENT OF SUZANNE SCHOLTE, PRESIDENT, DEFENSE FORUM
FOUNDATION; CHAIRMAN AND FOUNDING MEMBER, NORTH KOREA FREEDOM
COALITION

Ms. Scholte. Congressman Smith, Congressman Royce, I want
to thank you deeply for responding to this urgent crisis facing
North Korean refugees in China today.
Congressman Smith, in September you hosted a hearing with
North Korean defector Kim Hye-sook, who is the longest-serving
survivor of the North Korean political prisoner camps. She
spent 28 years in Bukchang Political Prison Camp.
I mention her today because the reason she was sent to jail
at the age of 13, with her entire family, and sent to Bukchang
where her brother and sister are still being imprisoned, was
simply because her grandfather allegedly had escaped to South
Korea. She is a living example of how the regime retaliates
against three generations of a family if just one family member
flees North Korea.
As draconian as these measures have been, the current
situation is even more critical for the North Korean refugees
recently arrested in China. Most face execution for three
reasons. First of all, Kim Jong-un, as you mentioned, announced
in December that the entire family and relatives should be
annihilated if any family member fled during the 100-day
mourning period following Kim Jong-il's death.
Second, among the group of North Koreans arrested in
February are refugees who have family members who defected to
South Korea. In fact, the parents of a 19-year-old girl
arrested in China have pleaded that their daughter be allowed
to commit suicide rather than be repatriated back to North
Korea. There is also a 71-year-old mother who has a daughter in
South Korea, a 16-year-old whose brother is in South Korea, and
a mother and an infant. These refugees are trying desperately
to be reunited with their family in South Korea.
Third, China is providing information to North Korea about
the refugees it has arrested, informing the North Korea
security agents if they were trying to flee to South Korea.
Because of this collusion the Chinese Government is complicit
in premeditated murder because it knows that these refugees,
when repatriated to North Korea, face execution.
By refusing to honor its international treaty commitments
and colluding with North Korea to repatriate these refugees,
China has created a violent environment where 80 percent of
North Korean females are subjected to human trafficking and
North Korean agents are allowed to freely roam around China,
assassinating humanitarian workers and hunting down refugees.
The Chinese Government wants to be seen as a responsible
international leader, yet it refuses to allow the UNHCR access
to these refugees, but has no problem allowing North Korean
spies and assassins free reign. This collusion with North Korea
proves most definitely that China cannot hide behind its claim
that these refugees are economic migrants.
As China knows full well and has known for decades, when
they force North Koreans back to North Korea they face certain
torture, certain imprisonment, and increasingly, execution for
fleeing their homeland. China has decided that they should be
executed rather than reunited with their families.
According to Kim Sung-min of Free North Korea Radio, China
began separating North Korean defectors into two groups based
on whether they were trying to escape to South Korea, starting
in at least 2008. We suspect this was part of the crackdown
before the Beijing Olympics, as China greatly feared that the
world would come to know about their cruel treatment of North
Korean refugees.
North Korean defectors Ju Seong-ha, a reporter with Dong-a
Ilbo, and Kim Yong-hwa, have described how China uses a
different-colored stamp on the interrogation papers for those
refugees attempting to get to South Korea, the information it
provides to North Korea when the refugees are repatriated.
China is literally marking these refugees for death.
We need to convince China that it is in their best
interests to reverse their repatriation policy and work with
the international community to resolve this crisis. In fact,
China's action is not only causing this refugee crisis, but
prolonging it.
Here is why: China fears an increasing flow of refugees, if
it allows refugees safe passage to South Korea, but China's
actions are ensuring that there will always be refugees by
relieving Kim Jong-un of taking any measures that would improve
conditions in North Korea. North Koreans are fleeing North
Korea out of desperation.
They know the considerable risk they are taking and most
North Koreans who have fled desire to return to North Korea
once conditions improve. China has long desired that the Kim
regime adopt reform. By forcibly sending fleeing North Koreans
back to North Korea, China relieves any pressure for Kim to
improve conditions in North Korea so the citizens do not want
to flee.
Second, China's future will be much better toward people if
it works with South Korea rather than kowtowing to this
dictator in North Korea. The two countries celebrate the 20th
anniversary of their diplomatic ties this year and enjoy a
robust trade relationship. South Korean culture is very popular
in China, and many Chinese tourists travel to South Korea.
Working with South Korea on this issue will have a positive
benefit to their future relationship because it is inevitable
that Korea one day will be unified.
Third, all the remedies for resolving this issue are
immediately at hand to ensure no burden on China, including the
presence of the UNHCR in Beijing; a humanitarian network, and a
strong commitment from South Korea and the United States to
help resettle refugees.
Finally, China needs to be reminded of what this regime
really thinks of the Chinese people. Kim Jong-il had a long-
established policy known as ``Block the Yellow Wind,'' as he
was resistant to adopting any China-style reforms.
His racist contempt for the Chinese people was evident when
he ordered his border guards to beat the bellies of pregnant
North Korean females who had been repatriated because their
unborn babies were half Chinese. This is a perfect opportunity
for China to work with the international community rather than
kowtow to a brutal dictatorship, frequently cited as one of the
world's worst regimes.
I want to close by recognizing one of your colleagues,
Assemblywoman Park Sun-young of the Korean National Assembly,
who began a hunger strike in Seoul, calling for China not to
repatriate these refugees but allow them safe passage to South
Korea. This brave woman collapsed on Friday and was rushed to
the hospital. We urge all parliamentarians and governments
around the world to join her in calling upon China to end their
brutal repatriation policy and stop sending North Koreans to
their death.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Smith. Ms. Scholte, thank you very much for your
eloquent statement and for your ongoing and absolutely
tenacious advocacy on behalf of North Korean human rights in
general, and refugees in particular. So, thank you so very
much.
I would like to now ask Ms. Han if she would present her
testimony to the Commission.

STATEMENT OF SONGHWA HAN, FORMER NORTH KOREAN REFUGEE DETAINED
IN CHINA, REPATRIATED TO NORTH KOREA, AND DETAINED IN NORTH
KOREA

Ms. Han. Hello, my name is Songhwa Han, and I came to the
United States with my two daughters in 2008 as refugees,
following the passage of the North Korean Human Rights Act by
the U.S. Congress in 2004.
For the lowest class people in North Korea, they have a
most desperate and earnest plea. That plea is to be freed and
liberated to freedom and human rights from the worst suffering
and pain of starvation.
I want to thank the U.S. Government for hearing our plea,
for hope, and giving us freedom. I want to just describe very
briefly my reasons for leaving North Korea.
I escaped with my two daughters from North Korea for the
first time in 1998. Before defection from North Korea, my
family consisted of eight people. My mother and my two-month-
old newborn baby son died from starvation, and my oldest
daughter, who was 18 years old at the time, left home to find
food and never came back. To this day I do not know of her
whereabouts or what happened to her.
I had another five-year-old son who I had to leave at an
acquaintance's home before I escaped to China. I promised my
son, if you just sleep for five nights I will be back with rice
and candy and I will come back to get you.
Afterward, my five-year-old son, who was suffering from
malnutrition, was kicked out of the house I had put him in and
died while waiting and crying out, ``Mommy, sister, when are
you coming back? '' He cried and cried, and died in a grass
field. This news was delivered to me by someone I had hired to
go and bring my son to China.
My husband was arrested and sent to jail for the crime of
crossing the Tumen River and going to China and bringing back a
sack of rice, when what he had done was simply to go to China
to find food for his children and save them, who had slowly
over time grown weaker and weaker from starvation. He died
while incarcerated in prison from the severe punishment he
received.
Afterward, my family was labeled as anti-state traitors for
having crossed over to China and the North Korean police and
the Bowibu, or the national or domestic security agents, came
to look for us in our countryside village home. They came to
kick us out of the village, for me to take the remaining family
members and move away to another place.
Our family had devoted ourselves to the Party and to the
dear leader, but contrary to the police in the United States,
instead of protecting the citizens the North Korean police
yelled and threatened to burn down our house if we did not move
out.
I could no longer beg for help or for mercy, and I decided
right then and there rather than staying put and starve to
death, even if we died trying to go find our way to freedom, I
decided to seek out freedom.
My one sole wish was to feed my children just one meal of
white rice, and decided that I would never suffer from
starvation or be unfairly mistreated, and therefore took my
seven-year-old daughter, who was malnourished and was not
growing up properly, put her in a sack and carried her, and
held my older daughter's hand and leaned on one another and
each other and crossed the waist-high currents of the Tumen
River and safely escaped from North Korea.
After escaping to China and living in fear for almost 10
years, during that period we were forcibly repatriated four
times. During one of those forced repatriations, I would just
like to share about my experience from the time I was forcibly
repatriated during the summer of 2003.
First of all, once a North Korean defector was handed over
by the Chinese police to the North Korean Bowibu, or the
security agents, one had to become an animal.
Second, the defectors were repatriated or ordered by the
North Korean guards that, ``You are all dogs from now on, so
therefore lower your head and move around by only looking at
the ground.'' The prisoners are handcuffed and chained to one
another, and if the slightest noise is made the prisoners are
beaten with rifle butts.
After the interrogation is finished at the Bowibu, the
prisoners are taken to a reformed hard labor camp, where I was
sent. We were forced to work from 5 o'clock in the morning
until late at night, and after dragging our dead-tired bodies
back from work we were only giving a fist-sized corn/rice ball
to eat, and until 11 o'clock in the evening we were required to
participate in self-reflection and self-criticism group
meetings and forced to sing patriotic martial songs.
We would then spend the rest of our night sitting in front
of one another and picking off the ticks and lice from our
clothes and our hair, and then sleep for a few hours, and then
wake up early in the morning to the wake-up call and then get
dragged out for more labor. These types of punishments were
given out to misdemeanor criminals.
These punishments were repeated for as long as six months,
and like men who would die from malnutrition and starvation and
the women prisoners who collapsed from fatigue and could not
get up again, both women and men alike had to carry heavy logs
up to the mountainside. If a prisoner became injured there was
no recourse for medicine or for medical care.
In the wintertime there was no proper footwear available,
so pieces of cloth and strings would be used to cover up the
feet. While working in the snow, many would come down with
frostbite, but we could not stop work and had to continue
working, and also continue to work the following day.
Sometimes the men had to shovel human waste from the
latrines with their own bare hands. The women prisoners would
then carry the human waste, mixed with dirt, on their backs and
carry the load into the fields. So for the crime of going to
China for only wanting to live and not die from starvation,
North Korean refugees who are repatriated by China become
prisoners and end up suffering under crushing labor, doing
construction work or coal mining work, and become sick or
injured, or worse, suffer in misery and pain and die while
working under horrendous conditions. The wretched and poor
North Korean refugees continue to suffer like this, and the
misery is never ending.
For the crime of betraying the nation, in the Bowibu, the
domestic or national security agency prisons, the North Korean
refugee men who were forcibly repatriated were beaten with
steel pipes and countless people died from beatings inflicted
on them, where arms and legs were broken.
I, myself, was beaten in the head for the crime of having
gone over to China, and I was beaten so severely that my skull
still has pieces of bone imbedded in my head. Besides this
injury, because I was beaten so severely and punched around so
much, my eyes became swollen and one of my eardrums ruptured.
To this day I am hard of hearing in one ear.
While we were suffering from thirst, there was no water to
drink and the prisoners would end up drinking foul water from
the water tanks or wells and come down with colitis, and die
without any care or treatment given to them.
North Korean refugees, if they are miraculously able to
survive and be released from prison or from the reform labor
camps, will attempt to escape from North Korea even if it means
death if caught again.
Through this hearing today I earnestly plead and beg of
you, refugees of other countries have been accepted in the
United States numbering in the tens of thousands of people or
more. But after the North Korean Human Rights Act passed in
2004, only about 130 North Korean refugees have been granted
asylum in the United States.
These defectors, who have been separated from their
parents, separated from their children, these defectors who
have no place to go, these North Korean refugees who are
shuddering in fear in China right now and desiring freedom in
the free world, whether it be South Korea or the United States,
desire to be rescued and accepted into freedom.
If 100 North Korean refugees were accepted after the Human
Rights Act passed we would have more than 1,000 North Korean
refugees in the United States by now. Those who long to go to
the United States and who travel to Thailand and were
incarcerated in the detention camps in Thailand, who long to go
to the United States, because the wait period was so long,
waiting for many months, they decided to change their
destination to South Korea and ended up going to South Korea
instead.
I sincerely hope that the United States will accept the
North Korean refugees, like South Korea. Being accepted into
the United States is the wish of many North Korean refugees in
earnest, and on their behalf I make this request to all of you
here today.
I pray that for those North Korean refugees who are in the
period of uncertainty, that you will deal with China intensely
and help rescue the North Korean refugees in China right now.
Please help us, the North Korean refugees. Thank you.
Chairman Smith. Ms. Han, thank you very much for your
testimony. You and your daughter are surely not just victims
and survivors, but you are women of courage who bring a message
to Washington and to the world that it must hear. You talked
about the misery being never ending. You talked about the
unspeakable cruelty. The whole world needs to hear your
message. So, I thank you so very much for your being here today
and bravely offering your commentary.
I would like to now ask Ms. Jo if she would present her
testimony.

STATEMENT OF JINHYE JO, FORMER NORTH KOREAN REFUGEE DETAINED IN
CHINA, REPATRIATED TO NORTH KOREA, AND DETAINED IN NORTH KOREA

Ms. Jo. Hello. My name is Jinhye Jo, and I am a North
Korean defector. I want to first extend my greeting and deep
appreciation to God, the U.S. Government, and the American
people for allowing me the freedom to speak before you at this
place, and also for the fact that I live in America, a place
which is like heaven to me.
In North Korea, one cannot dream of going to Pyongyang
freely unless you were a part of the inner circle of Kim Jong-
il. However, I am now living in the Washington, DC area, the
capital of the United States, and I am here today to make an
earnest request.
With the desire to fill our hungry stomachs, we escaped to
China to seek the freedom that my mother spoke of. However,
what awaited us were the Chinese police and the security
officials who were obsessed with searching for, and arresting,
North Korean defectors and human traffickers who did not see a
mother of two daughters, but rather a source of money-making.
My younger sister and I were young and naive, and were just
so glad to be able to eat white rice for a meal. But we always
lived in fear, that one morning when we woke up our mother
would be taken somewhere to be sold or that she would abandon
us and leave us.
By chance, I happened to find God and became a Christian at
a small countryside church, and through the grace of God and
His protection, even though I was forcibly repatriated four
times to North Korea, I did not die from beatings, I did not
die from starvation, and I was able to survive and live.
The North Korean Bowibu, or national security agency,
officials strip-search the defector women who are sent back,
searching every article of clothing to look for hidden money or
contraband. If nothing of value is found among the clothing,
the prisoners who are standing are told to put their hands on
their head and forced to sit and stand up repeatedly until they
collapse from exhaustion. If they do collapse, they are
relentlessly slapped.
An elderly grandmother who was 65 years old and next to me
in the interrogation cells said she could not move any further
and she was immediately and mercilessly slapped and beaten,
while another young girl and I had our heads bashed against the
wall repeatedly.
After the interrogation was over and while in transit to
the prison cells, one of the prisoners had talked back to the
security guard and we were then mercilessly kicked by the
guard, who was wearing boots. We were placed in cells that were
crawling with insects and, while trying to sleep at night,
because the space was so limited, we literally had to sleep on
top of other prisoners.
As a woman, it is hard for me to describe what I saw and
experienced, but I want to speak out today with courage for the
countless North Korean refugees who have suffered under North
Korea's evil and its violation of human rights. North Korean
refugees swallow money wrapped in plastic when escaping to
China.
During arrest by the Chinese authorities and forced
repatriation to North Korea and then going to prison, the money
that is expelled naturally is peeled of its soiled plastic and
swallowed again. Another way of hiding money for women is to
hide the money in the womb or in the anal cavity.
There was an incident at the Bowibu facility in the Sinuiju
in North Korea where a 16-year-old girl's hymen ruptured and
she was hemorrhaging blood. The Bowibu agent used a rubber
glove used in washing clothes to check for money or contraband
in her vagina, and due to the reckless searching the agent had
ruptured her hymen.
In their quest to search for money and to rob the prisoners
they stopped at nothing, using all kinds of methods and means
to do so. A lot of the women prisoners also attempted to give
the money they took pains to hide to the security agents with
the hope of being shown leniency or being let go.
I remember vividly what happened to a North Korean refugee
woman with a baby conceived with a Chinese man, who was
repatriated. The head Bowibu security agent cussed profanities
at her, yelling at this woman that she was someone who carried
a Chinese seed. He then proceeded to torture and beat her with
steel hooks by hitting her on the side of the head and forcing
her to sit and stand repeatedly for 500 times, until she
collapsed.
North Korean agents continued to pour out obscenities such
as ``dirty bitch'' at the woman lying on the floor, and after
they picked her up and sat her down on the floor the agents
then beat her in the head with a wooden block and caused her
nose to bleed and her blood from the beatings splattered all
around her in the interrogation room. I saw this with my own
eyes. This is one example.
There were situations where we were bitten by bugs and we
suffered from inflammation. When the temperatures got so cold
and some prisoners were crying out in pain from frostbite, the
security guards would punish everyone in the cell.
When my family was repatriated for the last time my mother
was hauled to be beaten and tortured. Hearing our mother's
blood-curdling screams, my sister and I froze instantly with
fear as if our hearts stopped. The head Bowibu agent began to
torment and scare us by saying that if we told the truth our
mother would not be hit.
Despite this, we did not dare open our mouths. He grabbed
our heads by our hair and began hitting us. The pain that was
inflicted on us was so bad, we could not lay our heads down
properly to sleep for about two weeks.
Another form of punishment and torture I received in the
interrogation room was where I was forced to kneel down and a
wooden plank was placed between my thighs and between my bent
legs. Every time I answered ``no'' to a question I was kicked,
and that would cause me to bowl over. The plank that was placed
was tremendously painful, and this was the one way that I was
tortured and beaten.
Other forms of beating and torture that I received after
being forcibly repatriated by the Chinese authorities, were in
one instance, where I was forced to stand on tip-toes and then
mercilessly kicked and beaten, kicked and beaten to
unconsciousness while forced to kneel, and then the security
agents would wake me up with water splashed from an ashtray.
All these methods of severe and cruel punishment were to
try to find out whether the North Korean refugees had attempted
to eventually escape to South Korea or whether we had attended
church or come into contact with Christians while in China.
Our family, I believe, was miraculously saved through God's
special grace and mercy. I also believe that God saved me so
that I would be able to tell the world the plight of the North
Korean people's unfair suffering and the worst modern-day evil
that is going on right now.
When I think of the almost three-dozen North Korean
refugees who will be experiencing torture and fear on a far
worse scale than what I went through, I am filled with dread
and fear and my heart aches so much. The North Korean regime,
under Kim Jong-un, has declared that any North Korean that
attempts to escape during the mourning period for Kim Jong-il
will be dealt with most severely, and these refugees who have
embarrassed the regime and sought the world's attention to save
them will surely be punished to three generations and be given
the harshest sentence if they are repatriated by China.
I sincerely and earnestly request that all of you here
today, and for those throughout the world who will hear this
hearing, that the good fortune and privilege we have now of
living in freedom will become a reality for those more than 30
North Korean refugees currently being held by China, only
through your combined attention and effort.
I sincerely and earnestly request that you will help save
the precious lives of the more than 30 North Korean refugees,
lives that are more precious than anything in this world,
through talking with the government of China, the government
that, even as they are pushing down people who are drowning,
reaching out their hands to be rescued.
In the United States alone, over 100,000 people have signed
a petition on behalf of saving these 30 North Korean refugees.
I know that, because of the attention of this petition, they
are not alone. I never had any idea that the people that we
were brainwashed and taught to hate as sworn enemies, Americans
such as Suzanne Scholte and the distinguished people sitting
before me, that I would be sitting here before you and speaking
before you today.
I sincerely wish that the fear and terror that they are
feeling, which is what I am feeling also, will be felt together
as well by all of you, all of us here, and I sincerely and
earnestly pray that God will help them. This stack of paper
here is the petition signed by the people for the refugees that
have been arrested in China recently.
Thank you.
Chairman Smith. Ms. Jo, thank you so much for your
testimony. You have laid out again, like your mom, information
that the Congress, the Obama administration, the United
Nations, any country that recognizes and prizes human rights
and international law cannot ignore--torture, blood-curdling
screams from your mother, fists, logs being used in beatings.
Yet, you conclude by saying, ``Our family, I believe, was
miraculously saved through God's special grace and mercy. I
also believe that God saved me so that I would be able to tell
the world the plight of the North Korean people's unfair
suffering and the worst modern-day evil that is going on right
now.''
What a tremendous witness, that all people hear this, that
the President of the United States hears what you have said so
eloquently today. So, thank you so much for providing that
witness to this Commission. We hope to amplify your message and
to take very bold action ourselves.
Before I get to some questions I would like to yield to my
good friend and colleague, Mr. Royce, who does have to leave,
for any statements or questions he might have.
Representative Royce. Thank you. I would like, Mr.
Chairman, to ask a question of Suzanne Scholte. During the
horror of the Third Reich, at the waning days of that war when
Dachau was liberated, my father had his brother's camera and he
took photographs there of the bodies stacked like cord wood
next to the ovens where they were being burned, the people
starved to death in the box cars. The photographs, by the way,
of the prisoners, the uniforms, are almost identical. The
striped uniforms, the uniforms you see, these children that are
taken that are held in these work camps in North Korea.
Here is the question my father asked me recently. He said,
inasmuch as presumably we did not have the intelligence on what
was going on as 6 million people were liquidated in these
concentration camps, presuming that was the case, we had some
excuse for not knowing what we were walking into.
But how does the world today live with its conscience that
we have the evidence that this is going on as we speak, that we
have the defectors, the survivors, and yet when we say never
again to this kind of conduct the international community does
not speak with one voice to put the kind of pressure on this
and elevate this to the level that the North Koreans are forced
to deal with it. Could I ask you that question? What's your
thought?
Ms. Scholte. It is an excellent question, a very hard one
to answer. But I will try to do that. I think that having been
involved in this issue for some time, when we first started
bringing defectors from North Korea to testify in the United
States, in 1996, people did not believe it. It is much like
what happened--in the 1940s--when people were trying to say,
``This is what the Nazis are doing right now to the Jewish
people.'' People were like, ``There is no way, I can't believe
that.''
But now we have 23,000 eyewitnesses. They tell the same
story. I think the challenge has been, first of all, our
reliance on being able to see things first-hand. The reporters,
Laura Ling and Euna Lee, are an example. These two reporters
went to China to try to record what was happening to North
Korean women. North Korean women are being bought and sold
right now in China. They went to tell the story, and you know
what happened to them. They ended up in Pyongyang.
Representative Royce. I worked long and hard to try to
assist the two of them.
Ms. Scholte. Yes. But I think that----
Representative Royce. And they were American citizens and
you saw what they went through.
Ms. Scholte. Exactly. So I think part of the challenge is
being able to see the political prison camps. That is why the
work of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea is so
important, because they have documented this from survivors.
They have showed it. But we only have satellite images. No
reporters have been inside a political prison camp. That is
always the challenge that we have with the media trying to
cover things. Also, the problem also is----
Representative Royce. But it is not that difficult. I mean,
Mr. Shin--you can see the burns on his body. You can see the
scars, the horrific scars. There is no operation that would
ever inflict the kinds of things that you and I have seen on
the defectors we have interviewed.
Ms. Scholte. No, you are exactly right. That is why what we
have done is bring the--we cannot go to the political prison
camp and we can't go to China. That's why we've brought the
traffic victims here. That is why we brought the survivors of
the political prison camps here so people could hear their
stories.
But I think another challenge is how South Korea has
responded to this. I think that, for example, the U.S. Congress
is united on this. They have passed, two times now, the North
Korean Human Rights Act, bipartisan. We have seen the same type
of action taking place in Japan. We have seen the United
Nations recognize the severity of the human rights abuses in
North Korea by appointing a special rapporteur.
But South Korea has yet to pass a North Korean Human Rights
Act. There is such a division in South Korea, that is, to me, a
huge problem. I am glad that they dispatched diplomats to go to
Geneva to bring this issue up with the Human Rights Council,
but they should have dispatched diplomats to Beijing.
Representative Royce. But you saw that Beijing refused to
let Parliamentarian Park into the country. She is not going to
be allowed a visa to go into the country.
I passed a resolution here. I have written to 200
parliamentarians, 62 different countries that are part of our
International Parliamentarian Coalition on North Korean
Refugees and Human Rights. We do have a lot of parliamentarians
around the world taking action.
But I would turn it back to this country and I would say,
under the prior administration and under this administration we
have not pursued policies that would cut off the life support
for North Korea. You and I know that over in Treasury, when
they put the freeze on assets, Banco of Delta Asia, in order to
make it impossible for them to continue their military build-
up, that put Kim Jong-il in a terrible position. He could not
pay his generals.
We have heard from the defectors, like the former
Propaganda Minister, that the resources they get their hands
on, the food they get their hands on, goes to feed the military
or is sold on the food exchange in Pyongyang for hard currency
that they can put into their weapons program.
Fifty percent of the support for that regime comes through
illicit activities that we could close down with an anti-
proliferation initiative that we once had in place, or by
freezing the bank accounts so that they cannot have access to
the money to do this.
Why isn't it time to implode this regime or put the kind of
pressure that, in the past, worked on bringing down other
regimes? South Africa is an example. Sanctions brought down
South Africa, or ended apartheid in South Africa. Why not a
concerted effort in North Korea?
Instead of the new food aid, which I think, just as in the
past, is going to get to the military and help prop them up,
why not a serious effort to, once and for all, change this
situation since the aid never gets out to the ``No-Go'' areas
in the countryside? We have had French NGOs testify that they
followed the food aid being sold on the exchange for hard
currency.
Ms. Scholte. Right. Well, you know I totally agree with
you. I think it was a real tragedy that George Bush, who cared
and actually met with defectors, actually met with the head of
Free North Korea Radio, who I quoted in my testimony, actually
met with Kang Chul Hwan, a survivor of a political prison camp,
actually met with the Hanmee family, one of the families that
we helped rescue, had a heart for this issue, but he ended up
becoming a money launderer for Kim Jong-il, using our own
Treasury Department to return the money from the Bank of Delta
Asia scandal.
Representative Royce. I will close with this: how can we
better deploy Radio Free Asia [RFA] and Voice of America [VOA]?
We have heard the defectors now tell us that there are people--
including governmental defectors, right? Now we are getting
officers and high-ranking civil servants that are listening to
VOA and RFA. Are there other ways that we can get information
into North Korea, just as we did into the East Bloc, that sort
of changed the paradigm? What do you think would be most
helpful?
Ms. Scholte. Well, absolutely continuing to support the
defectors' broadcasts, like Free North Korea Radio. But also,
we do balloon launches regularly. We can tell, by how the
regime reacts, the things that are most effective. They
absolutely cannot stand the balloon launches. They do not like
the defector's radio programs--they have been trying to
assassinate Free North Korea Radio director Kim Seong-min for
years.
I also think that helping and getting as much information
as possible into North Korea through every means possible. We
have cell phone technology now. There are a lot of North
Koreans that have cell phones. We are trying to get things in
through China.
On the food aid, and I tried to articulate this to the
Obama administration, Obama is in a unique position because he
can articulate--he should be saying, we know you are hungry. We
know that most North Koreans spend their days trying to figure
out how they are going to feed their families. Obama can send a
very strong signal that we want to get food aid, we want to
help you, but we are not going to give you the food aid unless
we know we can stay there to see it consumed.
The critical thing is being there at the point of
consumption. If we are not there at the point of consumption it
is 100 percent diverted. We have got to see it utilized by that
orphan or by that starving elderly person. We should not
provide any food aid unless we can see it at the point of
consumption. We can certainly send that message and that is
certainly something that President Obama should do.
Representative Royce. Thank you. I thank our other very
brave witnesses here today.
Chairman Smith. Let me just ask, if I could, and maybe to
you, Ms. Scholte, what has the United Nations, the UNHCR, for
example--what is Ban Ki-moon--a Korean, former member of his
own government in South Korea who obviously must know, or must
be painfully aware of exactly what these refugees go through.
What have they done? We know that President Lee [of South
Korea] has raised it. He has raised it with the Foreign
Minister of China.
I am wondering if there have been any appreciable or
discernible changes since that conversation, or no. Why hasn't
the UNHCR responded? I would just point out, and you might
respond to this, Michael Horowitz, who is one of the architects
of the North Korean Human Rights Act of 2004, has underscored
and stressed the importance of, if the UNHCR continues to be
denied full access to the North Korean refugees, the UN High
Commissioner could initiate a binding international arbitration
proceeding against the Government of China, as authorized by
the UNHCR China Treaty of December 1, 1995. So there is a
mechanism. It is ripe, like low-hanging fruit, standing there
and waiting to be utilized. What accounts for the apparent lack
of interest? Why hasn't it been used?
Ms. Scholte. Well, I am not an expert on that issue, but I
know you're going to be talking about it in the next panel.
Chairman Smith. Yes.
Ms. Scholte. But my understanding is you have to have a
country that is willing to pursue that in the United Nations,
like to carry the water on the binding arbitration.
Chairman Smith. Like the United States?
Ms. Scholte. To take the lead on it.
Chairman Smith. Like the United States?
Ms. Scholte. Like the United States. My understanding is,
any country can do that but no one has taken the lead.
As far as UNHCR and Ban Ki-moon, they have been completely
ineffectual.
Chairman Smith. Say that again. Completely what?
Ms. Scholte. Ineffectual. No effect. They have done
nothing. They have done neither. I think the UNHCR, though--I
will say this, that I know that whenever we have called out to
them and appealed to them for help, they have tried to help.
The problem is, as long as China refuses to acknowledge that
these are refugees and not economic migrants, then the UNHCR's
role is minimized because they have to have the permission of
the host government to do something. That is why, even though
there was funding that was provided in the North Korean Human
Rights Act, nothing was ever authorized because you have to
have the permission of the host government. So the real problem
is China.
Congressman Royce is right, the campaign by the
parliamentarians, this is another important thing. They
responded. China and North Korea--you can see their reactions,
they don't want to make this an international problem. That's
why we have to do this, and that's exactly what you're talking
about. The international community has to be involved
aggressively on this, as well as South Korea and the United
States, in taking a lead.
Chairman Smith. Ms. Jo, you mentioned how the North Korean
officials, the security agents, had suggested that the woman
was a ``bitch'' who carried Chinese seed. I am wondering if you
detected racial bigotry on the part of North Korean officials
toward the Chinese and why the Chinese Government is not upset
over that kind of racial bigotry.
Ms. Jo. To answer your question, yes, those North Koreans
who went to China just to seek food and come back would be less
severely treated because they just went to search for food and
to lessen the hunger situation.
But those who went to China and became pregnant are deemed
by the state as ones who gave up North Korea, who went to
China, got pregnant, and are deemed to have wanted to settle
down in China and give up North Korea. So that is why they
would be seen as a traitor and be even more harshly treated and
severely punished.
Chairman Smith. Do Chinese officials and North Korean
agents work together and target refugee communities in China?
Yes, Suzanne?
Ms. Scholte. Yes. Absolutely. The North Korean security
agents and the Chinese security agents are in total collusion.
That is why, for China to deny them refugee status when they
full well know that these North Koreans are going to be
subjected to horrible abuse when they get sent back--this has
been a steady problem. North Korea actually has been using
spies that pose as defectors to try to break up these escape
routes, the underground railroad.
That is what happened with this latest group. There were
North Korean agents that were posing as defectors and that is
how this last group got arrested, because the group got sent to
detention but some of the defectors got released because they
were North Korean agents. So they are definitely working very
closely together.
Chairman Smith. Let me just ask you, in total candor, has
the United States raised the issues of these defectors in a
robust manner? And that would be the Secretary of State Hilary
Clinton, President Obama. We recently had the Vice President of
China here in the United States. Was it on the agenda?
Ms. Scholte. I don't know. I was kind of hoping somebody
would ask Secretary Clinton that question last week when she
testified before the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Chairman Smith. We ran out of time.
Ms. Scholte. We did call very strongly on Vice President
Biden, President Obama, and Secretary Clinton when the Vice
Premier of China was here to raise this issue with China, and
we know from friends in the Senate, we know this was raised
with them but we don't know whether they raised the issue with
the Chinese.
Chairman Smith. Without revealing any methods--and I'll
just ask two more questions--how do family members in China
communicate to their family members in North Korea, or do they
communicate? If it is going to, in any way, compromise any of
those methods, please don't answer it.
Ms. Jo. There are basically two methods. Ethnic Chinese-
Korean, or ``joseonjok'' traders or merchants who are able to
travel from China to North Korea, would be the ones who would
carry cell phones. Through these merchants or traders, they
would be in touch with family members in North Korea. Of
course, they would be paid, given money to go to carry on these
transactions of giving the phones to the family members.
Through that method they would be able to communicate with
family members in China, with the family members in North
Korea. Another method is, North Korean defectors who resettled
in South Korea or the United States would send money or they
themselves would actually send the phones to the people, their
contacts in China, and that would be another method of being
able to communicate with family members in China and North
Korea, between the two.
However, now because the North Korea regime knows about the
prevalent use of the cell phones, the North Korea regime has
brought in cell phone surveillance equipment and is catching
these North Korean citizens talking with their relatives back
in China. There are known instances of North Korean citizens
who have been arrested by the state and incarcerated for the
crime of speaking and using a cell phone illegally.
Chairman Smith. Thank you.
Before going to the second panel, just let me thank you,
Ms. Scholte, Ms. Han, Ms. Jo, for your extraordinary
testimonies. I would like to ask if there is anything you would
like to say before we go to our second panel?
Ms. Han. Our family of eight was reduced to just three,
myself and my two daughters. We are now here. We came to
America and we are living in freedom. We are so grateful and
thankful for that. While we were in China, the three of us, we
were repatriated four times.
That fear, that dread that I felt at that time was that my
family, that was reduced to just two daughters, I might even
lose my remaining two daughters now. That is the fear and the
dread that I felt at that time. I know that the 30 or so North
Korean refugees that are being held by China right now, I know
that they are feeling the same feeling of dread, fear, and
terror. I know that they are looking to the United States to
help them and to rescue them.
I just want to conclude by saying that the U.S. Government
should forcefully raise this issue and pressure the involved
people, the Chinese Government, so that repatriation will not
occur and that these refugees will be able to go to South Korea
or the United States, and many years down the road that these
refugees, these defectors who start new lives in freedom, in
free countries, will be able to grow and become successful
people, and later on that they in turn will go back to a free
North Korea and make that country prosperous just like the
other free nations of the world. Thank you.
I would like to conclude by saying that many people
throughout the world have signed the petition, as can be seen
in this stack of papers here, and many people are fighting for
and caring about this issue. So, thank you very much.
Ms. Scholte. I just wanted to thank you very much,
Congressman Smith, for your continuing focus on North Korean
human rights, and for the media that's here. This is a huge
embarrassment to China that more and more people know about
this issue, and this is the pivotal time when we can convince
the Chinese to change this.
If we do not do it now, there are going to be more and more
horror stories as they have told more and more people. It is
literally a matter of life and death for those refugees that
are being held by China right now. So, I just want to thank you
for your continual focus on this.
I did want to mention, on a very positive note, and I just
want to share with you that your two witnesses are going to be
part of the American delegation for North Korean Freedom Week,
which will be in Seoul in April. So for the first time we are
going to have North Korean defectors that are part of the
American delegation, and I think it is going to send a very
positive sign to the people of North Korea.
Ms. Jo. Representative Smith, I would like to conclude by
saying that, as Suzanne mentioned previously, the balloon
launches, radio broadcasts by stations like Free North Korea
Radio, those are important. But the third thing I would like to
add is that in Chinese cities, there are many North Korean
refugees.
If the U.S. Government, and especially the Korean-American
churches in America, can find ways or means to help them to be
able to resettle in South Korea or the United States, that
would be of great help. In my personal case, Pastor Philip
Buck, a Korean-American pastor, was instrumental. He, along
with other Korean-American pastors, was instrumental in saving
my family and bringing us to the United States. Thank you.
Chairman Smith. Thank you. Appreciate it so much.
I would like to now ask our second panel to make their way
to the witness table, beginning first with T. Kumar.
T. Kumar is Amnesty International's Director for
International Advocacy. He has testified before the U.S.
Congress on numerous occasions to discuss China's and North
Korea's human rights abuses. He has served as a human rights
monitor in many Asian countries, as well as in Bosnia,
Afghanistan, Guatemala, Sudan, and South Africa.
We will then hear from Mr. Greg Scarlatoiu, who is
Executive Director of the Committee for Human Rights in North
Korea in Washington, DC. He plans, coordinates, manages, and
conducts research and outreach programs to focus world
attention on human rights abuses in North Korea. He has
authored a weekly radio column broadcast by Radio Free Asia to
North Korea for nine years, and numerous English and Korean
language articles on Korean peninsula issues.
We will then hear from Mr. Michael Horowitz, who is Senior
Fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington. He is also the
Director of the Hudson Institute's Project for Civil Justice
Reform, and Project for International Religious Liberty. He has
written frequently on North Korean issues and human rights
topics and is regularly called to testify and consult with
Congress. As I said earlier, he was one of the principle
architects of the North Korea Human Rights Act of 2004, and
that is putting it mildly in terms of his role. So, thank you,
all three, for being here.
We will begin with Mr. Kumar.

STATEMENT OF T. KUMAR, DIRECTOR FOR INTERNATIONAL ADVOCACY,
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL USA

Mr. Kumar. Thank you very much, Chairman Smith.
First of all, Amnesty International is extremely pleased to
be here to express our concern and the information we have
about the plight of a group of people in China who have been
not only abused by one country, but by two countries--in this
case, China and North Korea.
Above all, the people who have fled North Korea have fled
out of desperation, out of desperation because of famine,
because of political oppression. When they flee, instead of
getting protected, they have been abused by the Chinese and
also by the North Koreans.
So I would like to, first, give you a glimpse of what is
happening in North Korea, for the people of North Korea, for
them to be so desperate to flee to a country where they get
abused themselves. The famine situation is extremely dire
there. Thousands have died.
Even the food distribution system has been staggered into
who are supporters of government, then who are not hostile, and
hostile to government. So the lowest bottom of the hostile to
government category, they do not get enough food. As a result,
we have seen famine and death. Also, we have documented
numerous abuses in prison camps there, a large number of prison
camps there.
So as a result, we have seen thousands crossing over to
China to flee this persecution and economic hardship. When they
flee, they go through two difficult aspects. The first one is,
they are illegals there. Basically, China never accepts them,
that they are fleeing because of political persecution or any
other reason. So they consider them as economic migrants and
their policy is to expel them.
So these people are pretty much illegals, so they survive
by the help of some ethnic Koreans in the border areas, working
in farms, working in other odd jobs, and some people even beg
to survive. Above all, since they are illegals, they get abused
by everyone, including the employers, including by the Chinese
authorities.
Above all, Chinese authorities have special units that go
after these people and track them down to find out who these
people are, then deport them. That is one piece of it. The
second piece that disturbs everyone is that the Chinese
Government also allows North Korean agents to cross into their
country and do their arrests and detention and abduct them back
to North Korea.
So these people, when they come, they go through hardships
on one side and then abuse by North Korean agents, as well as
the Chinese agents. China never allows UN groups and also human
rights organizations like Amnesty International, or anyone,
even to visit or to monitor what is happening to these groups
of people.
So these people are kind of left to themselves and fearful
anytime of what will happen to them when they get returned. So
when they get returned, usually they are considered traitors
and people who have betrayed their motherland, in this case,
North Korea. So, they have severe punishments.
So imagine before they leave they were normal people, but
when they leave out of desperation they become refugees and the
Chinese Government never recognizes them as refugees. When they
kick them out, they become criminals in their own country.
Now, as you mentioned earlier in your opening remarks,
there are new statements coming out from the current new
Government of North Korea that anyone who flees will be
persecuted more intensely. So when these people return they get
detained, tortured, and we have also documented executions.
They are sent to labor camps, and we have documented and we
have interviewed people who have certified to us that they have
seen public executions because of the only crime that they
crossed into China just to basically survive.
Coming back to China, the Chinese Government is able to do
these things for a couple of reasons. One just relates to North
Korea. They have an agreement, a bilateral agreement with North
Korea, which is an illegal agreement whereby they agree--both
countries have this agreement so that they will return anyone
who is here.
The other aspect is the most disturbing fact--the
international community's silence on this issue--silence, for
different reasons. Above all, the silence of our country, the
United States, is also disturbing. You mentioned earlier about
the vice president's recent visit. We are not aware of the
Obama administration raising this in a vigorous manner. That is
extremely disturbing.
So we have some proposals immediately to the Obama
administration. There are two dialogues coming up. One is the
U.S.-China Security and Economic Dialogue. We want this issue
to be one of the other issues--you know, there are other human
rights issues in China--to be discussed in a very high-level
manner during this Security and Economic Dialogue with China.
Second is, of course, the Annual Human Rights Dialogue. So
unless the United States makes this a priority we are going to
see that the group of people who have fled and are getting
abused by two countries are going to continue being faced with
more abuses because of no fault of them. These people are
pretty much victims, so we are seeing the victims get
victimized through no fault of their own.
The other thing that the United States can do is to raise
it in the UN system. I am sure other panelists will be able to
discuss that. They should raise it in a more vigorous manner.
Thank you again, Mr. Chairman, for inviting us and we
appreciate it. I want our testimony to be on the record.
Chairman Smith. Mr. Kumar, thank you very much for your
testimony.
I would like to now call on our second witness, Mr.
Scarlatoiu.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Kumar appears in the
appendix.]

STATEMENT OF GREG SCARLATOIU, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, COMMITTEE FOR
HUMAN RIGHTS IN NORTH KOREA

Mr. Scarlatoiu. Chairman Smith, on behalf of the Committee
for Human Rights in North Korea, thank you for inviting me to
speak with you at this hearing today.
Our committee considers it essential to draw attention to
the case of 30 to 40 North Koreans who have been arrested by
China and who now risk being forcibly returned to North Korea,
where they most assuredly will be subjected to severe
punishment, in violation of international refugee and human
rights law.
The fundamental rights to leave a country to seek asylum
abroad and not to be forcibly returned to conditions of danger
are internationally recognized rights which China and North
Korea must be obliged to respect.
Mr. Chair, the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea is
a Washington, DC-based non-governmental organization [NGO]
established in 2001. Our committee's main statement has been
prepared by Chair Roberta Cohen, who is unable to be here
today. I will draw upon the statement in my oral remarks.
Over the past two decades, considerable numbers of North
Koreans have risked their lives to cross the border into China.
They have done so because of starvation, economic deprivation,
or political persecution. It is estimated that there are
thousands, or tens of thousands, in China today.
Most are vulnerable to forced returns, where they will face
persecution and punishment because leaving North Korea without
permission is a criminal offense. Yet, to China, all North
Koreans are economic migrants and over the years it has
forcibly returned tens of thousands to conditions of extreme
danger.
We, therefore, submit that North Koreans in China merit
international refugee protection for the following reasons:

(1) A definite number of those who cross the border
may do so out of a well-founded fear of persecution on
political, social, or religious grounds that will
accord with the 1951 Refugee Convention.
(2) The reasons why the North Koreans flee to China
go beyond the economic realm. Those who cross the
border into China for reasons of economic deprivation
are often from poorer classes without access to the
food and material benefits enjoyed by the privileged
political elite.

Subject to Korea's songbun social classification system, their
quest for economic survival may be based on political
persecution. Examining such cases in a refugee determination
process might establish that certain numbers crossing into
China for economic survival merit refugee status.

(3) By far the most compelling argument why North
Koreans should not be forcibly returned is that most,
if not all, fit the category of refugees sur place. As
defined by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees
[UNHCR], refugees sur place are persons who might not
have been refugees when they left their country, but
who become refugees at a later date because they have a
valid fear of persecution upon return.

North Koreans who leave their country for reasons including
economic motives have valid reasons for fearing persecution and
punishment upon return. Accordingly, UNHCR has urged China not
to forcibly return North Koreans and has proposed a special
humanitarian status for them so that they can obtain temporary
documentation and access to services and not be repatriated.
China, however, has refused to allow UNHCR access to North
Koreans in border areas where it could set up a screening
process. It considers itself bound by an agreement it made with
North Korea in 1986, obliging both countries to prevent illegal
border crossings, which replaced an earlier 1960 agreement.
It also stands by its local law in Jilin Province which
requires the return of North Koreans who enter illegally. Both
documents stand in violation of China's obligations under the
1951 Refugee Convention, which it signed in 1982, and its
membership in UNHCR's Executive Committee and the human rights
agreements it has ratified, including the Convention Against
Torture and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Most North Koreans in China have no rights and are
vulnerable to exploitation, forced marriages, and trafficking,
as well as to forced returns, where they will face persecution
and punishment. Our committee's report, ``Lives for Sale:
Personal Accounts of Women Fleeing North Korea to China''
(2010), documents the experiences of North Korean women in
China and the extreme lack of protection for them.
To encourage China to fulfill its international obligations
to North Koreans in its territory, our committee puts forward
the following recommendations:

(1) The U.S. Congress should consider additional
hearings on the plight of North Koreans who cross into
China to keep a spotlight on the issue and try to avert
forced repatriations to conditions of danger.
(2) Members of Congress should consider supporting
the efforts of the Parliamentary Forum for Democracy,
established in 2010, so their joint inter-parliamentary
efforts can be mobilized in a number of countries on
behalf of the North Koreans endangered in China.
(3) The United States should encourage UNHCR to raise
its profile on this issue. It further, should lend its
full support to UNHCR's appeals and proposals to China
and mobilize other governments to do likewise in order
to make sure that the provisions of the 1951 Refugee
Convention are upheld and the work of this important UN
agency enhanced.
(4) Together with other concerned governments, the
United States should give priority to raising the
forced repatriation of North Koreans with Chinese
officials, but in the absence of a response should
bring the issue before international refugee and human
rights fora.
(5) The United States should consider promoting a
multi-lateral approach to the problem of North Koreans
leaving the country.
(6) The United States should consider ways to enhance
its readiness to increase the number of North Korean
refugees and asylum seekers admitted to this country.
Other countries should be encouraged as well to take in
more North Korean refugees and asylum seekers until
such time as they no longer face persecution and
punishment in their country.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the Commission. I
look forward to answering any questions you might have.
Chairman Smith. Mr. Scarlatoiu, thank you very much for
your testimony and for your insights, as well as your very
specific recommendations, and Mr. Kumar's as well. That was an
extraordinary testimony.
Now I would like to welcome Mr. Horowitz and ask him to
present this testimony.

STATEMENT OF MICHAEL HOROWITZ, SENIOR FELLOW, HUDSON INSTITUTE

Mr. Horowitz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
At this hearing there's been much focus, and rightly so, on
the conduct and evils committed by the Government of China and
by the Government of North Korea. What I hope to provide and
what I think is very much called for is further thought on how
to make those protests, how to make those complaints, more
effective in ways that reach China.
My own experience with China, and I think you will confirm
it, Mr. Chairman, is that it is in many ways the least
ideological country in the world. It is all an issue of cost
and gain. There are ways of imposing costs on China for its
conduct toward these refugees that I think need exploration.
Let me set out some that I think will be the most
effective. The first is really to thank you, Mr. Smith and
colleagues like Congressman Wolf, Congressman Royce, who live
and die these human rights issues. I wish there were more of
you in Congress. This is an occasion to lament the death of Tom
Lantos. I think, had he been alive, Congress would have spoken
on a bipartisan basis and much more clearly. And former
colleagues like Tony Hall are as well deeply missed in not
having made this a much more bipartisan issue than it ought to
be.
I do hope in that regard that we can reach Minority Leader
Nancy Pelosi, because when she was a mere Member of Congress
her voice was one of the loudest, and clearest, and bravest on
human rights violations by the Chinese Government.
If somehow Minority Leader and former Speaker Pelosi can
regain that voice, I think China will sit up and listen because
there really will be a bipartisan coalition. So, reaching Nancy
Pelosi seems to me one way of rescuing these 33 people and
changing China's policies.
In the Senate, we need to make up for the loss of Sam
Brownback and Evan Bayh, who spoke so clearly and on a
bipartisan basis. And I am hoping that Senator Brown, that
Senator Rubio, that others join and that we have this kind of
bipartisan strength that China will recognize and respond to.
The second, and it has been mentioned, is the Korean-
American community. I have spent the last five years trying to
engage that community, as the Jewish community was engaged on
the campaign for Soviet Jewry, as the African-American
community was engaged on the campaign against the apartheid
regime.
I am absolutely convinced that in this Nation of
immigrants, which always hears the cries of Americans who speak
of the torture of their brothers and sisters in their home
countries, that the Korean-American community, unbeknownst to
itself, has the power to change China's mind and shift American
policy and create a paradigm shift on China's part and in the
treatment of these refugees.
Let me put it this way: Neither the Democratic nor the
Republican Party would be willing for a second, no matter what
China's pressures would be, to risk the loss of the votes in
support of the Korean-American community over the next 25 or 30
years. The leadership of the Korean-American community must
make this its signature issue: The murder of their brothers and
sisters. And we have ways of reaching that community, as Scoop
Jackson reached a reluctant Jewish community.
So there's another leadership role for this Commission and
for you, again, Mr. Chairman. I would have Members of Congress
call in the leaders, the church leaders in the Korean-American
community, as Scoop Jackson called in the leaders of the Jewish
community, and tell them to have a prayer Sunday for North
Korea at 3,000 Korean-American churches with voter registration
booths outside the churches.
That will change things dramatically within the
administration and China will see that it cannot use the
business community, it cannot leverage the political community
because America will listen to an aroused, engaged Korean-
American community, which has not yet happened.
Third, of course, the administration. And it's been
mentioned, food aid should be distributed on a needs basis.
This new deal that was made has got to be made with careful
attention to the fair distribution of the food on a needs
basis.
But the core of it all, and it's a problem of both this
administration and the prior one, is the lack of a Helsinki
Strategy approach to dealing with China and North Korea issues.
A Helsinki Strategy would, as Suzanne and others have said,
put human rights issues right in the basket of things that are
negotiated as we talk of all weapons issues with North Korea.
It has been relegated to a so-called second track. The Chinese
get it: It doesn't matter.
Whenever an American official speaks, as the Vice President
did during the Xi visit, the Chinese understand that that's for
domestic political consumption and it doesn't really reflect
the policy of the United States to prioritize issues of human
rights. Let me say, Ronald Reagan understood all this.
You know why, Mr. Chairman? Because he had been president
of a union. I think if we had the AFL-CIO replacing the State
Department in these negotiations there would be this
understanding: That raising human rights issues is important
not only for moral reasons, but it would make us far more
powerful on the weapons issues, where we offer and sell the
same product and get the same promises and give money and get
no response, as will be the case this time.
And any union negotiator would understand that if the only
thing on our table is the weapons issue, we are signaling to
China and to North Korea, ``You've got something we want, how
much do we have to pay you for it? '' All the leverage goes on
the other side. Anybody from the Teamster's union would get it
in a second, Mr. Chairman; and that's what we need, the kind of
shrewdness in bargaining that I find lacking here and the power
of a Helsinki Strategy.
From that follows--and I want to get specific about the
33--Bob King is a very decent, caring man, who is our Special
Envoy for North Korean Human Rights, but as I have said, he's
on the second track. It's so low as not to count, really. And
the Chinese take Bob King's assignment as the negotiator for
the 33, I fear, as a signal that they can deport those 33 and
nothing will happen to U.S.-China relations. We need to get--
and I hope this Commission will ensure this--the Secretary to
become engaged in the negotiation over the lives of those 33
and the others. That's the signal that this administration has
not sent but needs to send.
And I think Michael Posner, a friend and a good man, needs
to throw around his weight a little bit more and pound his shoe
on the table because he's been ignored, as Frank Wolf pointed
out at the last hearing, over the Xi visit. And I think Michael
needs to seriously indicate to his colleagues in the State
Department that he's ready to resign if those 33 are deported.
I think he has a moral obligation to resign, frankly, if any of
those 33 are sent to death camps and if this administration
sends the kind of low-interest, low-priority signal it has
sent.
And finally, Mr. Chairman, the United Nations. There is the
key leverage point. I have set it out in a memo that I
distributed that I hope will be part of the record, and it was
also set out in a remarkable letter sent by Senator Brownback
and Congressman Wolf to former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan:
All refugees, as everybody has said, are migrants because they
are persecuted on their return. You don't need to know anything
else. The United Nations has the right to access those refugees
the second they cross the Tumen River, and the obligation to
insist upon it. But as you pointed out, Mr. Chairman, there is
Article 14 of the China-UNHCR treaty, which is a powerful tool
that I call on this Commission, and everybody who cares, to
begin exploiting. That's true of the South Koreans who are
protesting against China. They ought to be protesting to Ban
Ki-moon, himself a Korean, because the United Nations has the
ability to change the whole ball game.
Let me just state, Section 14 of the treaty says that,
``Any dispute between the Government of China and the UNHCR,
arising out of or relating to this agreement, dealing with
refugees, shall be settled amicably or by negotiation or other
mode of settlement. But if this fails, such a dispute shall be
submitted to arbitration at the request of either party.''
And Suzanne Scholte, for whom I have the most profound
respect, said that some other country needs to negotiate it.
That's not even accurate in that regard. The UNHCR can do it.
Here's the last sentence: ``If, within 30 days of the request
for arbitration, neither party has appointed an arbitrator''--
and we're talking about China here--``Either party may request
the president of the International Court of Justice to appoint
an arbitrator. The arbitral award shall contain a statement of
the reasons on which it is based and shall be accepted by the
parties as the final adjudication of this dispute.'' Imagine
the price China would have to pay if they were getting sued by
the United Nations.
And let me say, Mr. Chairman, in conclusion, that the North
Korea Human Rights Act is explicit. It said that the failure of
the United Nations to bring that arbitration proceeding
provided under Article 14 of the treaty was, and I quote, ``An
abdication by the UNHCR of one its core responsibilities.''
Now, Mr. Chairman, we finance the United Nations and the
UNHCR. China doesn't put any money in, we do. It's time we got
our money's worth. It's time we really protected the lives of
those 33 and the others, and we have the means to do it. And I
am hopeful that this Commission, and frankly, members of the
Appropriations Committee who provide that support for the
United Nations and for the UNHCR, will call in the High
Commissioner, will call in Ban Ki-moon, will call their
colleagues in the South Korean National Assembly, and begin
putting the heat on the United Nations to stop being passive
and, frankly, stop appeasing China and begin enforcing their
treaty obligations and responsibilities.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for permitting me to testify.
Chairman Smith. Thank you very much, Mr. Horowitz, for your
testimony, and very valid--and I think very effective--
recommendations as to what all of us should be doing, including
this Commission.
I just want to thank all three of you for reminding us that
whatever the intent was originally for leaving North Korea--as
Ms. Han pointed out, her husband went across the Tumen River to
bring back a sack of rice because their family, his family, was
starving--for that he was imprisoned and killed, and then they
became marked persons themselves. It is what you are going to
be forcibly repatriated to that dictates whether or not you're
a refugee, and I think for some to miss that very obvious point
needs to be underscored.
All three of you pointed that out, that whatever the
original intent, if they go back they're marked people. They
have a huge target on their backs and they either go to
execution or to hideous torture that awaits them. So, thank you
for reminding us of that, all three of you.
Let me just ask, again, you heard Michael Horowitz talk
about the importance of focusing on the United Nations, and all
three of you did make mention of that as well, and the UNHCR.
But invoking this mechanism that he spoke of, do you find that,
Mr. Kumar and Mr. Scarlatoiu, to be something that needs to be
pursued as well? Do you find that a very effective mechanism?
Mr. Kumar?
Mr. Kumar. I am not aware of this. I mean, not in depth,
like Mike is aware. But that mechanism, as he explained, should
be exploited. The United States can play a role, by the way.
The UNHCR has to be pressured by the U.S. administration. I am
sure there are representatives who are there in the UN High
Commission, and they have a mechanism in their body to exploit
this. I have never heard of it.
I even asked Mike before the hearing, is there any
precedent for this when we discussed this. Otherwise, this will
become a precedent. That would be a great thing, by the way. So
I will recommend that the U.S. administration--we should urge
the United Nations, but you know how the United Nations
operates.
They need member countries to exert pressure--the United
States, along with other countries, South Korea as well--and
put some pressure on the UNHCR to exploit this mechanism to see
whether that's something achievable. If that can be achieved,
that would be a ground-breaking avenue to protect North Korean
refugees, as well as other refugees who may be in the same
plight.
Mr. Scarlatoiu. Chairman Smith, in the fourth
recommendation that I respectfully brought to your attention
today we suggest that we should give priority to raising the
forced repatriation of North Koreans with Chinese officials,
but also absent a response we should bring the issue before
international refugee and human rights fora.
Certainly UNHCR's Executive Committee, the UN Human Rights
Council, as well as the General Assembly of the United Nations,
should all be expected to call on China by name to carry out
its obligations under refugee and human rights law and enact
legislation to codify these obligations so that North Koreans
will not be expelled if their lives or freedom are in danger.
I have also mentioned the need for a multi-lateral approach
to the issue of North Koreans leaving the country. Their exodus
affects more than just China, it concerns South Korea--the
Republic of Korea, most notably, whose constitution offers
citizenship to North Koreans; countries in east and southeast
Asia, eastern and western Europe, as well as Mongolia and the
United States, are also affected.
A multi-lateral approach should be designed, an approach
that finds solutions for North Koreans based on principles of
non-refoulement and human rights and humanitarian protection.
Chairman Smith. Thank you.
Mr. Horowitz?
Mr. Horowitz. I have spoken with the High Commissioner for
Refugees. It just boggles my mind, Mr. Chairman. He talks about
the pressure from the Chinese. He doesn't talk about pressure
from the United States, which pays his electric bills. It is
time now to put the heat on the United Nations and, frankly,
with the Secretary General himself being Korean and a former
Foreign Minister of Korea, we've got the leverage to apply.
Our complaining, even if the State Department were as
committed as I hope they would be, won't move China as much as
the notion that they were isolated and the United Nations and
the UNHCR were suing them for what everybody acknowledges,
including the United Nations, is a clear violation of all of
the applicable treaties. So I think the time has come to put
the heat on and put the focus on the United Nations, and that
would be true even if there wasn't an arbitration proceeding in
the China UNHCR treaty.
Chairman Smith. To the best of your knowledge have the
picketers and the protesters who rightfully have focused on
North Korea and certainly on China, but to the best of my
knowledge they have not focused on the leverage that the United
States could bring, and I don't think they have sufficiently
focused on the leverage they could bring to bear on the United
Nations itself.
Mr. Horowitz. Exactly. I think that we need to focus on the
United States. As I've said, we need to focus on moving the
negotiations from the level--good as he is--of Bob King to the
level of the Secretary. I think we need to make Michael Posner
understand that his tenure and the respect he earns will be
contingent on the United States elevating, by orders of
magnitude, the priority of this negotiation.
But I think most of all we need to put the onus on the
United Nations, whose treaties are being violated and whose
response has been literally non-existent. That must change and
the United States has the leverage to make it happen, I
believe.
Chairman Smith. You know, we've called this hearing as an
emergency hearing precisely because, for those individuals
affected--maybe it's 33, it might be a few more, nobody knows
for sure--their lives are in imminent danger of persecution or
execution. It seems to me that with the focus--and I do thank
the media for being here, for amplifying the concern and the
message of all of our very distinguished witnesses.
But from hearing from Ms. Jo and Ms. Han earlier, we heard
from people who lived, are survivors, and shame on us, frankly,
in the Congress, shame on us in the United States and at the
United Nations, and every other body that cares about human
rights and the rule of law if we don't make this the case. This
is the case. I think the three of you have very eloquently
underscored why this is the time to act. I deeply appreciate
your testimonies because they couldn't come in a more timely
fashion.
So I would like to just ask you if there's anything else
either of you would like to add to the record before we
conclude this hearing.
Also, Roberta Cohen, who you, Mr. Scarlatoiu, spoke
somewhat from her testimony, that her full statement be also
made a part of the record.
So if there's anything you'd like to add, to our
distinguished witnesses. Yes, Greg?
[The written statement of Ms. Cohen appears in the
appendix.]
Mr. Scarlatoiu. Congressman Smith, thank you very much for
continuing to pay attention to this very important set of
issues. Our two main challenges as North Korean human rights
experts and advocates are that North Korean issues are
extraordinarily important, but they always compete with other
extraordinarily important issues.
Even when we pay attention to North Korea's military
provocations, missile launches, sinking of South Korean ships,
it is very difficult to keep North Korean human rights at the
top of the agenda. So, once again, thank you so much for your
efforts.
Additionally, I would like to conclude by reminding
everyone, this point has been made here today, that we the
people of the United States of America pay for one-third of
UNHCR's budget, and thus we should have tremendous leverage
when it comes to this issue of the North Korean refugees in
China.
Chairman Smith. Excellent point.
Mr. Scarlatoiu. Thank you, sir.
Chairman Smith. Mr. Kumar?
Mr. Kumar. Thank you, Chairman. I would recommend focusing
on what Mike mentioned about the specific UN mechanism in
place, which, as I understand, there is no precedent. So, it is
better to explore that. I wonder whether the Commission, or any
other committee, can explore it as a study to see whether there
is something there. Then if that's agreeable, then it can start
moving in that direction. Thank you.
Chairman Smith. Mr. Horowitz?
Mr. Horowitz. Mr. Chairman, I am about to flatter you, and
I think you know me well enough to know that I am not doing it
for any other reason but that I so deeply believe it. But I
will say that in Japan there is this tradition of declaring
living human beings as national treasures. I put you in that
category for your persistence on human rights issues and I
cannot thank you enough.
I want to say just one other thing. Again, I want to get
back to the Reagan point. When Ronald Reagan dealt with the
former Soviet Union, there are these stories of how the Russian
Ambassador came to the American Secretary of State and said,
``You know, I want to talk to the President about missiles and
all these real issues. Every time I come into his office, all
he wants to talk about are Pentecostals and Jewish refuseniks.
Is he really serious? What's going on here? ''
Secretary Schultz said, ``Listen, I've got the same
problem. That's what he talks about. If you want to deal with
the United States you're going to have to come to term on these
human rights issues.'' Reagan cared. But as I said, he was also
a union negotiator and he understood that that was the means of
putting the other side on the defensive. He didn't brag about
success, but it's that sense of priority.
So I want it understood, Mr. Chairman, that your passion
for human rights is not ``merely'' because you care about
vulnerable human beings; it is a shrewd, strategic means of
getting better deals on the weapons side. Because once we start
raising those issues, they'll do anything to keep the issues
off the table. That's where they're vulnerable.
If we can have, not just voices in the wilderness, but this
being the real priority interest of the United States in terms
of policies, as Ronald Reagan dealt with the Soviet Union or
Scoop Jackson understood, I think we will get better deals on
weapons. I think we will begin to have a means of peacefully
imploding the regime in North Korea, of sending a signal to
China that keeping this regime in business costs them more than
it gets them.
And I will say one last thing about China. Every leader
there lived through the Cultural Revolution. In personal terms,
they understand the evils of North Korea better than anybody
else does because they lived through it. Only, what they
understand further is that this has gone on for 65 years, not
for a couple of years.
The only problem is we haven't made them pay a price for
that. Once we begin escalating that price, as Reagan understood
in dealing with the Soviet Union, I think they will find it
counterproductive in terms of their national interests to
continue supporting this regime. So, keep it up, Mr. Chairman,
and we will have peaceful change in North Korea. Thank you.
Mr. Kumar. Congressman, I have just one last thing.
Chairman Smith. Yes, Mr. Kumar?
Mr. Kumar. Is it possible for the Commission to urge the
U.S. Ambassador to China, Ambassador Locke, to visit this body
and submit a report about the plight of North Korean refugees?
That will add pressure on China and also get an official line
from the U.S. administration on what they think and what should
be done.
Thank you.
Chairman Smith. A very good point, Mr. Kumar. We will
explore that and ask him if he will do that. All of you have
made extraordinary contributions to what we ought to be doing,
next steps, as well as an understanding of where we are now. I
would agree with you fully, Mr. Horowitz. I broke my eye teeth
on human rights on the Soviet Jewry issue. My first trip was to
Moscow and Leningrad in 1982, the second year of my first term,
and I learned very quickly every since then that when human
rights are subordinated, put on the back bench, that all the
other issues, whether it be intellectual property rights or
trade agreements of any kind, and especially arms control, they
all are weaker, or they are ineffective in terms of
implementation.
Get the human rights piece right and all the others follow,
not the other way around. Unfortunately, the genius of the
North Korean Human Rights Act was to mainstay and mainstream
the human rights issues in North Korea, as we ought to be doing
everywhere else, and its implementation has been far less, both
under Bush as well as under Obama. That needs to be corrected.
All of you have made very eloquent statements and we will act
upon them.
This hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:27 p.m. the hearing was adjourned.]

A P P E N D I X

=======================================================================

Prepared Statements

----------

Prepared Statement of Suzanne Scholte

march 5, 2012

Senator Sherrod Brown and Congressman Chris Smith and Members of
the Commission, thank you for so quickly responding to the urgent
crisis facing North Korean refugees recently arrested in China.
Congressman Smith, you will remember that in September you hosted a
hearing with a North Korean defector, Kim Hye Sook, the longest serving
survivor of the North Korean political prison camps. She spent twenty
eight years in a political prison camp. I mention her today because the
reason she was jailed at the age of 13 with her entire family in
Bukchang political prison camp, where her brother and sister are still
imprisoned, was simply because her grandfather allegedly had escaped to
South Korea. She is a living example of how the regime retaliates
against three generations of a family if just one family member flees
North Korea.
As draconian as these measures have been, the current situation is
even more critical for the North Korean defectors recently arrested in
China, most face execution because of three factors. First, the Kim
Jung Un regime announced in December that the entire family and
relatives should be annihilated if any family member fled during the
100 day mourning period following Kim Jong Il's death.
Second, among the group of over thirty that were arrested in
February are defectors who have family members who have successfully
defected to South Korea. In fact, the parents of a 19 year old girl
arrested in China have pleaded that their daughter be allowed to commit
suicide rather than be repatriated to North Korea. There is also a 71
year old mother, who has a daughter in South Korea, and a mother and
her 20 day old baby, as well as a 16 year old boy whose brother is in
South Korea. In many cases, these refugees are trying desperately to be
reunited with each other as they are the only survivors of families
destroyed by starvation and persecution.
Third, China is providing information to North Korea about the
intentions of the refugees it has arrested informing the North Korean
security agents if these refugees were trying to flee to South Korea.
Because of this collusion, the Chinese government is complicit in pre-
meditated murder because it knows that those refugees, when repatriated
to North Korea, face execution.
By refusing to honor its international treaty commitments and
colluding with North Korea to repatriate these refugees, China has
created a violent and lawless situation where eighty percent of North
Korean females are subjected to human trafficking and North Korean
agents are allowed to freely roam around China assassinating
humanitarian workers and hunting down refugees.
Imagine this for a moment: the Chinese government, which wants to
be seen as a responsible international leader, refuses to allow the
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, whose sole purpose is to
help nations address refugee problems, access to these refugees but has
no problem allowing North Korean spies and assassins free reign.
This collusion between North Korea and China proves most definitely
that China cannot hide behind its claim that these refugees are
economic migrants, and not subjected to the international treaties
China has signed.
China knows full well--and has known for decades--that when they
force these North Koreans back to North Korea they face certain
torture, certain imprisonment and increasingly execution for fleeing
their homeland.
According to Kim Seong Min of Free North Korea Radio, which has
informants in both North Korea's and China's security operations, China
began separating North Korean defectors into two groups based on
whether they were trying to escape to South Korea starting in at least
2008. We suspect this was part of the crack down before the Beijing
Olympics and the enormous fear China had about the world coming to know
about their cruel treatment of North Korean refugees.
Ju Seong-ha, a reporter for Donga-Ilbo and Kim Yong-hwa, the
Representative of North Korean Defectors' Protection Association, both
defectors themselves, have described how China uses a different color
stamp on the interrogation papers for those defectors who were
attempting to get to South Korea.
China is literally marking these refugees for death before they are
repatriated.
We are at a critical point in this fight for the lives of the North
Korean refugees and urgent action and attention is needed. If we do not
convince China to reverse its repatriation policy and work with the
international community on this issue, the refugees in China's custody
face death.
In closing, I want to cite a number of arguments that should be
used to convince China that it is in their best interest to follow
their international treaty obligations and work with the international
community. In fact, China is not only causing this refugee crisis, but
prolonging it.
First, China fears an increasing flow of refugees if it allows
refugees safe passage to South Korea, but China's actions are ensuring
that there will always be refugees by relieving Kim Jong Un of taking
any measures that would improve conditions in North Korea. The fact is
that North Koreans are fleeing North Korea out of desperation. They
know the considerable risk they are taking to flee to China but they
keep risking their lives to pursue this action out of desperation.
Furthermore, most North Koreans who have resettled in South Korea and
other nations want to go back to North Korea once conditions improve in
their homeland. China has desired that the Kim regime adopt China-style
reforms but by forcefully sending fleeing North Koreans back to North
Korea, China relieves any pressure for Kim to improve conditions in
North Korea so the citizens do not want to flee.
Second, China's future will be much brighter for its people if its
government works with South Korea rather than kowtows to the dictator
in North Korea. The two countries celebrate the twentieth anniversary
of their diplomatic ties this year and enjoy a robust trade
relationship. South Korean culture is very popular in China, and many
Chinese tourists travel to South Korea. Working with South Korea on
this issue will have a positive benefit to their future relationship
because it is inevitable that Korea one day will be reunified. With the
increasing amount of information flowing into North Korea and more and
more North Koreans becoming aware of the truth, brutal dictatorship of
Kim Jong-Un is doomed to end.
Third, all the remedies for resolving this issue are immediately at
hand to ensure no burden on China including a UN sanctioned agency with
an office in Beijing, the UNHCR; a humanitarian network and a strong
commitment from South Korea and the United States to help resettle
refugees.
Finally, China needs to be reminded of what this regime really
thinks of the Chinese people. Kim Jong il had a long established policy
known as ``Block the yellow wind''--as he was resistant to adopting any
China style reforms. His racist contempt for the Chinese people was
evident in his ordering of his border guards to beat the bellies of
pregnant North Korean females who had been repatriated because their
unborn babies were half Chinese.
Now, that more and more people around the world are becoming aware
of the North Korean refugee crisis and calling upon China not to force
these refugees back to North Korea, this is a perfect opportunity for
China to show great leadership and work with the international
community, rather than kowtowing to a brutal dictatorship, frequently
cited as one of the world's worst regimes.
I want to close by recognizing one of your colleagues,
Assemblywoman Park Sun Young of the Korean National Assembly, who began
a hunger strike on February 21 across the street from the Chinese
Embassy in Seoul calling for China not to repatriate these refugees and
vowing to continue her vigil until death unless the North Korean
refugees are allowed safe passage to Seoul. This brave woman collapsed
on Friday and was rushed to the hospital. She understands the
consequences for these refugees, and we hope that parliamentarians as
well as governments around the world will join her in calling upon
China to end their brutal repatriation policy and stop sending North
Koreans to their death.

SUBMITTED WITH THIS TESTIMONY

(1) Letter to Hu Jintao by North Korean defector and reporter
Seongha Ju, The Donga Daily
(2) ``Kkot Dong San'' A Hill Filled with Flowers, an essay about
the reeducation camp where tens of thousands were sent and died
following repatriation from China
(3) Red stamps for those escaping to South Korea for freedom? The
behind-the-scene deal between China and North Korea

* * *

Letter to Hu Jintao by North Korean defector and reporter Seongha Ju,
The Donga Daily

[translation of letter published in donga ilbo on february 14, 2012]
Dear President Hu Jintao,

The heartrending cry of the family of North Korean refugees
arrested in China last week, encouraged me to write to you through this
newspaper. Now you are the only person that can save their life.
I am also a refugee from North Korea that fled via China to South
Korea through severe hardships. Feeling, with every fiber of my body
and soul, the fear and agony of the refugees facing impending
repatriation to North Korea, I am desperately writing this letter word
by word, hoping this will be the last lifeline to which the arrested
can resort.
China has, to date, repatriated arrested North Korean refugees to
Pyongyang, and will also do the same this time.
Mr. President, however, please be noted that Pyongyang's
punishment of the refugees has grown unprecedently and incomparably
severe. Of recent, Pyongyang deems defection as the most serious menace
to their regime, taking the most hawkish approach including on-the-spot
execution of the refugees on the border.
The punishment has got even harsher since Kim Jong-Il's death, and
Pyongyang reportedly even issued an instruction to annihilate the
entire family and relatives of the refugees that defected during 100
days' mourning period. Under such atmosphere, it is as clear as
daylight that the refugees will be subject to an exemplary execution or
imprisonment in the concentration camp for political prisoners,
immediately after being taken to North Korea.
China has been strengthening coordination with North Korea to
prevent defection in various areas including putting barbed-wire fence
on the border, tracking down refugees, patrolling the border, detecting
the radio wave, etc.
China's concern about Pyongyang regime's stability, is not
incomprehensible. No matter how it may be, however, by when will you
assume the villain role to drive refugees to death? By when will you
support the regime that cannot control its people without public
execution and deadly concentration camps?
Throughout the last decade, tens of thousands of refugees were
taken back from China to North Korea, many among whom have passed away
from harsh punishment and famine. China also stands liable to their
death. When will you realize the fact that China is losing North
Koreans' public trust whenever you fell the refugees off the cliff of
the death one by one?
Many of the arrested have their family in South Korea. Most of
them are sons, daughters, parents and siblings of South Koreans. Among
them is a teenager who has a brother and a sister in South but no other
family in North. The brother and the sister are shivering like wounded
deer in the corner of a room, off all food and drink, at the news that
their younger brother, who they were to bring to South with the money
they scraped up with hard shores at the cafeteria.
Parents of an arrested girl, crying bitterly in front of the South
Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, pleaded to send poison
to their daughter if her rescue is impossible. They want her to commit
suicide in China rather than to be killed by cruel punishment in North
Korea. Other family's feeling is just alike.
Their repatriation to Pyongyang will leave dozens of their family
in South Korea in lifelong agony, nightmare and sense of guilt. There
are tens of thousands of separated families in two Koreas already
living like that. How can I describe their pain in mere writing?
Mr. President, this year we have the 20th anniversary of the
establishment of diplomatic relations between China and South Korea.
Every Korean and the whole world are keeping keen eyes on you. Please
allow them to meet their family again with joy. I desperately ask your
generosity. Please let us all applaud you with deep appreciation.

Sincerely Yours,
Seongha Ju, Reporter of The Donga Daily

* * *

``Kkot Dong San'' A Hill Filled with Flowers, an essay about the
reeducation camp where tens of thousands were sent and died following
repatriation from China

[http://blog.donga.com/nambukstory/archives/23738]

Sung Ha Joo 2/14/2012 8:00AM
There is a certain ``Kkot-Dong-San.''
It is a hill by a reeducation camp in Jungsan-kun, Pyong-Nam in
North Korea. The reeducation camp is an imitation of the Soviet Union's
forced labor camps in the past. Those who are sentenced to several
years due to attempts at escaping must farm under the influence of
hunger and ruthless whipping that one can hardly imagine.
If the people in these camps die from hunger or beating, they are
buried in the Kkot-Dong-San. Tens of thousands of corpses are buried
there. Several corpses are buried in a single hole, and when it's full,
other corpses were buried over these graves. In the winter when the
earth is frozen, the burial process becomes merely a covering process.
The corpses are wrapped in a plastic wrap, and a penicillin bottle with
the name and birthday is hung around each corpse's neck.
The human skull protruding from the ground as well as pieces of
cloth and vinyl paper flapping with wind reminds one looking from afar
of a flower field, which is why the reeducation camp prisoners call the
hill ``Kkot-Dong-San.'' It also reflects the prisoners' desperate wish
to get away from hell at least in their deathbed.
Though often political prisoner camps are considered the epitome of
North Korea's human rights violations, the reeducation camps are
actually worse. Political prisoners are slaves for life. Slaves are
assets. If they only work under the influence of whipping, they become
very good workers. Products made from political prisoner camps are
considered to have the best quality of all products in North Korea.
On the other hand, when they are released from the prisoner camps
and enter reeducation camps, they are merely ``human trash'' to the
North Korean elites. They would prefer seeing these prisoners die from
persecution.
A woman who was arrested and taken to Jungsan reeducation camp in
2000 said that among 2000 people with whom she first entered the camp,
only 200 people were still living after 7 months. It is the same with
other reeducation camps. North Korean defectors who were in charge of
disposing corpses in 1998 for six months said that they disposed of 859
corpses in total.
The majority will die due to malnutrition. In a reeducation camp,
other living things such as rats and insects are on the verge of
extinction because the prisoners put whatever they see alive into their
mouths.
In reeducation camps, the day that one will finally die is
estimated by a fist. If a fist can go in between your crack vertically,
you are on your way to dying, if a fist can go in horizontally, you are
dying, and if a fist can go in in both ways, you will not survive.
Just like that, I know so well what it is to be dying. I had also
failed escaping and been classified as a political prisoner. As a
result, I frequented the security department's torture chambers,
prisons, and labor camps. Only when I was on the verge of death,
weighing only 90 lbs, was I released.
After I came to South Korea, I have been writing about North Korea
for 10 years. Many times I cried because I had experienced the same
pain that other North Koreans are experiencing. To me, North Korea is
pain and tears. I cannot step away from my keyboard if I think about my
fellow North Koreans who are suffering and dying.
I received a list of North Korean refugees recently arrested in
China. O, how painful. . .
Kim Jung Un declared that anyone defecting after Kim Jung Il died
will have his or her family killed down to three generations. China
does not feel guilty at all even after pushing the North Korean
refugees close to death. The picture of ``Kkot-Dong-San'' where crows
linger above the sad faces of those being sent back to North Korea is
vivid in my mind.
I plead to you not just as a reporter, but also as a person who has
experienced what a Hell is. If you happen to see an idol worship or
group gymnastics performance and waves of other flowers in Pyongyang,
please remember the labor reeducation camp ``Kkotdongsan.'' Please
don't forget the nameless dead who are being wrapped and buried in
``Kkoddongsan.''
Even if it's only once in a while. . . Please . . ..

* * *

Red Stamps for Those Escaping to South Korea for Freedom? The Behind-
the-Scene Deal Between China and North Korea

[http://blog.donga.com/nambukstory/archives/24333]

2012/02/22 8:00 am Sungha Joo
It is discovered that in the process of deporting the North Korean
refugees back to North Korea, the Chinese government has been informing
to the North Korean government whether the captured refugees had
escaped North Korea to head to South Korea or not.
There is a high possibility that the North Korean refugees who
intended to escape to South Korea will either be detained in a
political prisoners camp or be executed after they are deported. It was
the North Korean government that told the Chinese government to
determine the refugees' intended destinations.
The Tumen Public Security Bureau in China announced on the 21st
that the Chinese Public Security Bureau has been receiving natural
resources such as logs and minerals from North Korea in return for
deportation of the refugees back to North Korea.
They (Tumen Public Security Bureau) said that ``Recently China has
been informing North Korea about the refugees intending to head to
South Korea by using different colors of stamp on the files''.
China has been using different colors of stamp that they agreed
upon with North Korea each month, for example red in January and blue
in February, instead of writing down ``to South Korea'', in order to
avoid leaving obvious evidence that they have been assisting North
Korea.
It is reported that due to the enlarging issue about refugees
beyond the nation, China came up with this idea of using different
colors of stamp to inform North Korea if the refugees were heading to
South Korea.
When China had a good relationship with North Korea, they even
handed over all the interrogation files to North Korea and moreover,
during the late 1990's, it is witnessed that a North Korean
investigator, disguised as a Chinese investigator, came over to China
and interrogated the refugees.
The former North Korean lieutenant and the director of a North
Korean broadcasting station, Sungmin Kim, said on the 21st that when he
was being interrogated, ``I was criticizing the political system of
North Korea to a Chinese investigator who seemed to be compassionate
and understanding, but later when I was being deported back to North
Korea, the same man welcomed me back not as a Chinese investigator but
as a North Korean personnel agent''.
If China does not inform North Korea about the refugees' intent to
escape to South Korea, the refugees will have a better chance in living
even after they get deported. Since it is difficult for the North
Korean refugee investigators to go over to China to investigate, the
refugees only need to deny that they were intending on fleeing to South
Korea and endure the tortures but could still spare their lives.
However, it is relatively easy to find out about the destinations
of the refugees in China because the refugees hoping to head to South
Korea are taken under custody along with the people who help them to
their freedom.
It is reported that the Chinese government has been assisting in
capturing the refugees and handpicked those who are to be executed and
in return, they received logs and minerals from North Korea.
The bitter refugees witnessed that the compensations for the
refugees change from time to time, but usually they consist of logs
from Mt. Baekdu and iron ore from Musan mine. The exchange of the
refugees and the natural resources started since 1998 and has continued
until now like a tradition.
China sends back arrested North Korean refugees mainly through
Tumen (located on the opposite side of Du-Man River in On-Sung, North
Hamkyung Province) and Dandong (located on the opposite side of Ap-Nok
River in Shin-ee, North Pyong-An Province). They also use any other
bridges that connect China and North Korea.
Even at just Tumen, more than 3,000 refugees have been deported
back to North Korea within a year. From this, it is estimated that more
than 5,000 refugees are deported back to North Korea every year.
The Chinese government detains the refugees at the Tumen prisoner
camp and when the camp fills up, they transport the refugees back to
North Korea once or twice a week by buses. In the past, they used
military trucks for the transportation, but since a lot of the refugees
took their own lives by throwing themselves out the truck into the
river at the bordering bridges, they changed trucks to buses.
Typically, refugees who are captured around Tumen like Yanji are
deported back within two weeks, but if the refugees are captured
somewhere farther away, the investigation takes longer. Tumen prisoner
camp is meant for foreign criminals, but there are only refugees there
now.
In this camp, North Korean refugees are repeatedly beaten and
sexually harassed while they are stricken with fear before
repatriation. North Korean refugees who have already experienced this
prisoner camp said that at times, on the pretense of delaying
repatriation, the camp officials rape the prisoners.
______

Prepared Statement of Songhwa Han

march 5, 2012

Hello, my name is Song Hwa Han and I came to the United States with
my two daughters in 2008 as refugees, following the passage of the
North Korean Human Rights Act in the United States Congress in 2004.
The lowest class of people in North Korea have a most desperate and
earnest plea. That plea is to be freed and liberated to freedom of
human rights from the worst suffering and pain of starvation. I want to
thank God and the United States Government for hearing our plea for
hope and giving us freedom. I want to just describe very briefly my
reasons for leaving North Korea.
I escaped with my two daughters from North Korea for the first time
in 1998. Before defection from North Korea, my family consisted of
eight people. My mother and my two month old new-born baby son died
from starvation. My oldest daughter, who was 18 years old at that time,
left home to find food, and never came back; to this day I do not know
of her whereabouts, or what happened to her. I had another five year
old son, who I had to leave at an acquaintance's home before I escaped
to China. I promised my son, ``If you just sleep for five nights, I
will be back with rice and candy, and I will come back to get you.''
Afterwards, my five year old son, who was suffering from malnutrition,
was kicked out of the house I had put him in, and died while waiting
and crying out, `Mommy, sister! When are you coming back . . . '' He
cried and cried and died in a grass field; this news was delivered to
me by someone I had hired to go and bring my son to China.
My husband was arrested and sent to jail for the crime of crossing
the Tumen River and going to China and bringing back a sack of rice,
when what he had done was simply to go to China to find food for his
children and save them, who had slowly over time grown weaker and
weaker from starvation. He died while incarcerated in prison, from the
severe punishment he received. Afterwards, my family was labeled as
`anti-state' traitors, for having crossed over to China, and the North
Korean police and the ``bowibu'' (National Security Agency) agents came
to look for us in our countryside village home. They came to kick us
out of the village, for me to take the remaining family members and
move away to another place. Our family had devoted ourselves to the
Party and to the Dear Leader, but contrary to the police in the United
States, instead of protecting the citizens, the North Korean police
threatened to burn down our house if we did not move out. I could no
longer beg for help or for mercy. I decided right then and there.
Rather than staying put and starving to death, even if we die trying to
go find our way to freedom, I decided to seek out freedom! My one sole
wish was to feed my children just one meal of while rice, and decided
that I would never suffer from starvation or be unfairly mistreated and
therefore took my seven year old daughter who was malnourished and was
not growing up properly, put her in a sack and carried her, and held my
older daughter's hand and leaned on one another and crossed the waist-
high currents of the Tumen River and safely escaped from North Korea.
After escaping to China and living in fear for almost ten years,
during that period we were forcibly repatriated four times. During one
of those forced repatriations, I would just like to share about my
experience from the time I was forcibly repatriated during the summer
of 2003.
First of all, once a North Korean defector was handed over by the
Chinese police to the North Korean ``bowibu'', one had to become an
animal, and secondly, the defectors who are repatriated are ordered by
the North Korea guards that ``You are all dogs from now on, so
therefore lower your head and move around by only looking at the
ground.'' The prisoners are handcuffed and chained to one another, and
if the slightest noise is made, the prisoners are beaten with rifle
butts. After the interrogation is finished at the ``bowibu'', the
prisoners are taken to a reform labor camp. Where I was sent, we were
forced to work from 5 in the morning until late at night, and after
dragging our dead-tired bodies back from work we were given only a
fist-size corn-riceball to eat, and until 11pm in the evening we were
required to participate in self-reflection and self-criticism group
meetings. We would then spend the rest of the night sitting in front of
one another and picking off the ticks and lice from our clothes and our
hair, and then sleep for a few hours, and then wake up early in the
morning to the wakeup call and then get dragged out for more labor.
These punishments are repeated for as long as six months, and like
my husband who died from malnutrition and starvation and the women
prisoners who collapsed from fatigue and could not get up again, women
and men alike had to carry heavy logs up to the mountainside and if a
prisoner became injured there was no recourse for medicine or medical
care. In the wintertime, there were no proper footwear, so pieces of
cloth and strings would be used to cover up the feet and while working
in the snow many would come down with frostbite, but we could not stop
work and had to continue working, and also continue to work the
following day. Sometimes the men had to shovel human waste with their
own bare hands. The women prisoners would then carry the human waste
mixed with dirt on their back and carry the load onto the fields. So
for the crime of going to China for only wanting to live and not die
from starvation, North Korean refugees who are repatriated by China
become prisoners and end up suffering under crushing labor doing
construction work or coal mining work, and become sick or injured, or
worse, suffer in misery and pain and die while working under horrendous
conditions; the wretched and poor North Korean refugees continue to
suffer like this and the misery is never-ending.
For the crime of betraying the nation, in the ``bowibu'' prisons
the North Korean refugee men who were forcibly repatriated were beaten
with steel pipes, and countless people died from the beatings inflicted
on them where arms and legs were broken. I myself was beaten in the
head for the crime of having gone over to China, and I was beaten so
severely that my skull still has pieces of bone embedded in my head.
Besides this injury, because I was beaten so severely and punched
around so much my eyes became swollen, and one of my ear drums
ruptured, and to his day, I am hard of hearing in one ear. While we
were suffering from thirst there was no water to drink, and the
prisoners would end up drinking foul water from water tanks or wells,
and contract dysentery and die without any care or treatment given to
them.
North Korean refugees, if they are miraculously able to survive and
released from prison or from the reform labor camps, will attempt to
escape from North Korea even if it means death if caught again. Through
this Hearing today I earnestly plead and beg of you. Refugees of other
countries have been accepted in the U.S. numbering in the tens of
thousands of people, but after the North Korean Human Rights Act passed
in 2004, only about 130 North Korean refugees have been granted asylum
in the United States.
These defectors, who have been separated from their parents,
separated from their children--these defectors who have no place to
go--these North Korean refugees who are shuddering in fear in China
right now, are desiring freedom in the free world, whether it be South
Korea or the United States, and desire to be rescued and accepted into
freedom. Please help us North Korean refugees.
Thank you.
______

Prepared Statement of Jinhye Jo

march 5, 2012

Hello my name is Jinhye Jo and I am a North Korean defector.
I want to first extend my greeting of deep appreciation to God, the
United States Government, and the American people for allowing me the
freedom to speak before you at this place, and also for the fact that I
am living in America, a place which is like heaven to me. In North
Korea one could not dream of going to Pyongyang freely unless you were
a part of the inner circle of Kim Jong Il. However I am now living in
the Washington, D.C. area, the capital of the United States, and I am
here today to make an earnest request.
With a desire to fill our hungry stomachs, we escaped to China to
seek the freedom that my mother spoke of. However, what awaited us were
the Chinese police and security officials who were obsessed with
searching for and arresting North Korean defectors, and human
traffickers who did not see a mother of two children but rather a
source of money-making. My sister and I were young and naive and were
just so glad to be able to eat white rice, but we always lived in fear
that one morning when we woke up our mother would be taken somewhere to
be sold, or that she would abandon us and leave us. By chance I
happened to find God and became a Christian at a small countryside
church, and through the grace of God and his protection, even though I
was forcibly repatriated four times to North Korea, I did not die from
beatings, I did not die from starvation, and I was able to survive and
live.
The North Korean ``bowibu'', or National Security Agency officials,
strip search the defector women who are sent back, searching every
article of clothing to look for hidden money. If nothing of value is
found among the clothing, the prisoners who are standing are told to
put their hands on their head and forced to sit and stand up repeatedly
until they collapse from exhaustion, and if they do collapse, they are
relentlessly slapped. An elderly grandmother who was 65 years old and
next to me in the interrogation cell said she could not move any
further, and she was immediately and mercilessly slapped and beaten,
while another young girl and I had our heads bashed against the wall
repeatedly. After the interrogation was over and while in transit to
the prison cells, one of the prisoners had talked back to the security
guard and we were then mercilessly kicked by the guard, who was wearing
boots. We were placed in cells that were crawling with insects, and
while trying to sleep at night, because the space was so limited, we
literally had to sleep on top of other prisoners.
As a woman it is hard for me to describe what I saw and
experienced, but I want to speak out today with courage for the
countless North Korean refugees who have suffered under North Korea's
evil and its violation of human rights. North Korean refugees swallow
money wrapped in plastic when escaping to China. During arrest by the
Chinese authorities and forced repatriation to North Korea and going to
a prison, the money that is expelled naturally through defecation is
peeled of its soiled plastic and swallowed again. Another way of hiding
money for women is to hide the money in the womb or, in the anus. There
was an incident at the ``bowibu'' facility in Sinuiju, North Korea
where a 16 year old girl's hymen ruptured and she was hemorrhaging
blood. The ``bowibu'' agent used a rubber glove to check for money or
contraband in her vagina and due to the reckless searching the agent
had ruptured her hymen. In their quest to search for money and rob the
prisoners, they stopped at nothing, using all kinds of methods and
means to do so. A lot of the women prisoners also attempted to give the
money they took pains to hide to the security agents with the hope of
being shown leniency or being let go.
I remember vividly what happened to a North Korean refugee woman
who was pregnant with a baby conceived with a Chinese man, who was
repatriated. The head ``bowibu'' security agent cussed profanities at
her, yelling at this woman that she was a ``bitch who carried Chinese
seed''. He then proceeded to torture and beat her with steel hooks by
hitting her on the side and the head, and forcing her to sit and stand
repeated for five hundred times, until she collapsed. The North Korean
agents continue to pour out obscenities at the woman lying on the
floor, and after they picked her up and sat her down on the floor, the
agents then beat her in the head with a wooden block and caused her
nose to bleed, and her blood splattered all around her in the
interrogation room. I saw this with my own eyes. Besides this one
example, there were situations where we were bitten by bugs and we
suffered from inflammation; when the temperature got so cold and some
prisoners were crying out in pain from frostbitten feet, the security
guards would punish everyone in the cell.
When my family was repatriated for the last time, my mother was
hauled to be tortured. Hearing our mother's blood-curdling screams, my
sister and I froze instantly with fear, as if our hearts stopped. The
head ``bowibu'' agent began to torment and scare us by saying that if
we told the truth, our mother would not be hit. Despite this we didn't
dare open our mouths; he grabbed our heads by our hair and began
hitting us. The pain that was inflicted on us was so bad we could not
lay our head down properly to sleep for about two weeks.
Another form of punishment and torture I received in the
interrogation room was where I was forced to kneel down and a wooden
plank was placed between my thighs and between my bent legs; every time
I answered ``NO'' to a question I was kicked and that would cause me to
bowl over. The plank that was placed was tremendously painful, and this
was one way that I was tortured. Other forms of beatings and torture
that I received after being forcibly repatriated by the Chinese
authorities were in one instance, where I was forced to stand on tip-
toes and then mercilessly kicked and beaten; kicked and beaten to
unconsciousness while forced to kneel, and then the security agents
would wake me up with water splashed from an ashtray. My own mother was
beaten in the head with a log so harshly, pieces of her skull cracked,
and because she was also severely beaten with fists by the security
agents, her eardrum ruptured and to this day she is hard of hearing in
one ear. All these methods of severe and cruel punishment were to try
to find out whether the North Korean refugees had attempted to
eventually escape to South Korea, or whether they had attended church
or come into contact with Christians while in China. Our family I
believe was miraculously saved through God's special grace and mercy. I
also believe that God saved me so that I would be able to tell the
world the plight of the North Korean people's unfair suffering, and the
worst modern-day evil that is going on right now.
When I think of the almost three dozen North Korean refugees who
will be experiencing torture and fear on a far worse scale than what I
went through, I am filled with dread and fear, and my heart aches so
much. The North Korean regime under Kim Jong Un has declared that any
North Korean that attempts to escape during the mourning period for Kim
Jong Il will be dealt with most severely, and these refugees who have
embarrassed the regime and sought the world's attention to save them,
will surely be punished to three generations and be given the harshest
sentence, if they are repatriated by China.
I sincerely and earnestly request all of you here today, and for
those throughout the world who will hear this Hearing, that the good
fortune and privilege we have now of living in freedom, will become a
reality for those more than 30 North Korean refugees currently being
held by China, only through your combined attention and effort. I
sincerely and earnestly request that you will help save the precious
lives of these more than 30 North Korean refugees, lives that are more
precious than anything in this world, through talking with the
Government of China, even as they are pushing down people who are
drowning and reaching out their hands to be rescued.
China & North Korea, Stop Killing People!!!
Thank you.
______

Prepared Statement of T. Kumar

march 5, 2012

Thank you Mr. Chairman and member of the Congressional-Executive
Commission on China, Amnesty International is pleased to testify at
this important hearing on China's repatriation of North Korean
refugees.
Amnesty International have been closely monitoring the plight of
North Korean refugees in China for over a decade and have published
reports on the treatment of North Korean refugees by the Chinese
authorities, reasons why North Koreans flee their country and the
abuses faced by North Korean refugees forcibly returned to North Korea.
Despite China being a Permanent Member of the UN Security Council
and a state party to the UN Refugee Convention; with respect to North
Korean border-crossers residing without legal documentation, China
completely disregards its commitments to and obligations under the
international system. China denies these North Koreans the enjoyment of
full protection of their human rights and refugee rights in China.
Chinese authorities forcibly returns North Korean border-crossers
back to North Korea where they face risk to their lives. By its
actions, it intimidates North Korean border-crossers and those who are
helping them in China. China refuses to give access to the UN refugee
agency, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
Those individuals apprehended by Chinese border police and North
Korean authorities in China are reportedly detained in China for
several days and then forcibly returned to their country where they are
at risk of punishment including arbitrary detention, forced labor, and
in some cases, the death penalty for leaving the country without
authorization.

BACKGROUND

The acute food shortages in North Korea since the early 1990s have
forced tens of thousands of people to cross the border ``illegally''
into China's north-eastern provinces. According to NGOs, journalists
and aid workers who have visited the region, thousands of North Koreans
are currently residing in border areas.
Amnesty International believes that all North Korean in China are
entitled to refugee status because of threat of human rights violations
if they were to be returned to North Korea against their will.
The North Korean authorities criminalize the act of leaving the
country without State approval and consider it a political offence,
even though the motive for leaving the country may simply be one of
survival. This along with harsh punishments faced by those who are
returned would indicate that almost all North Korean who flee are at
risk of facing severe abuses once returned.
Their plight is made even more precarious by reports suggesting a
January 2012 announcement by the North Korean authorities condemning
border-crossers and threatening them with severe punishments. The
announcement comes at a time when North Korea's leadership is in
transition.
Amnesty International is concerned that this reported denouncement
of border-crossers could signal a crackdown against any potential
dissent at this key time in North Korea. Additionally, those who are
forcibly returned now may face even harsher punishment than usual.
North Korean authorities refuse to recognize or grant access to
international human rights monitors, including Amnesty International
and the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the
Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea).
repatriation and the principle of non-refoulement
Article 33 (1) of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of
Refugees, states that:

No Contracting State shall expel or return ('refouler') a
refugee in any manner whatsoever to the frontiers of
territories where his life or freedom would be threatened on
account of his race, religion, nationality, membership of a
particular social group or political opinion.

International law prohibits the forcible return, either directly or
indirectly, of any individuals to a country where they are at risk of
persecution, torture or other ill-treatment, or death.

CHINA-NORTH KOREA BILATERAL AGREEMENT

According to a White Paper published by the South Korean think-tank
KINU in 2011, ``North Korea's State Safety Protection Agency and
China's Public Safety Agency have been enforcing strict controls over
the movement of their citizens across the border based on the
``Bilateral Agreement on Mutual Cooperation for the Maintenance of
State Safety and Social Order'' (July 1998).

PLIGHT OF NORTH KOREAN REFUGEES IN CHINA

Despite significant risks, thousands of North Koreans illegally
cross the border into China every year. China considers all
undocumented North Koreans to be economic migrants, rather than as
asylum seekers, and forcibly returns them to North Korea if they are
caught.
North Koreans residing ``illegally'' in China live in appalling
conditions and are vulnerable to physical, emotional and sexual
exploitation. North Koreans living in China live in constant fear of
being caught detained by Chinese authorities and forcibly returned to
China.
North Korean border-crossers in China are in a very precarious
situation. Some find shelter in villages and farms where they are
supported by China's ethnic Korean community and ethnic Chinese people,
several work in the service industry but are vulnerable to exploitation
and discrimination given their lack of legal status to reside in China.
Others are forced into begging.
Surveillance and checking for ``illegal'' North Koreans in China
have intensified and there have been even reports of North Korean
authorities crossing the border to ``detain'' some North Korean border-
crossers and ``abduct'' them back to North Korea.
North Koreans in China are denied their right to seek and enjoy
asylum from persecution. Although China is a party to the Refugee
Convention, NGOs and other advocates for North Korean asylum-seekers in
China say that it is virtually impossible for North Koreans to access
refugee determination procedures with UNHCR, or be afforded protection
as a group.
According to several reports Amnesty International has received
from NGOs and contacts in Japan, South Korea, Europe and the USA, China
regularly returns North Koreans back to their country of origin without
giving them the opportunity to make a claim for asylum and without
making an objective and informed decision that the North Koreans would
be protected against serious human rights abuses in North Korea.
The Government of China have on occasion also arrested and
imprisoned NGO activists--most of whom are South Korean or Japanese
nationals--and others who have been attempting to help North Koreans to
leave China and reach South Korea.

WHAT HAPPENS TO THE NORTH KOREAN BORDER-CROSSERS REPATRIATED FROM
CHINA?

Detention
According to testimonies from North Korean border-crossers, all
those forcibly repatriated from China are detained and interrogated in
detention centers or police stations operated by the National Security
Agency or the People's Safety Agency. The detainees are often subjected
to torture.
There appear to be several factors that influence the severity of
the punishment meted out to North Koreans who have been forcibly
returned from China. After the interrogation, ``depending on the number
of times the person had been in China, depending on their background
(if the person had been serving in the military or was a government
official, then the interrogation and sentencing appear to be more
severe) and if the authorities have been convinced that the detainees
are not `politically dangerous', they are sent to a village unit labor
camp, where they spend between three months and three years in forced
labor.
If the North Korean border-crossers are considered to be
politically sensitive such as serving or retired government officials
or military personnel, they are at risk of being sent to a political
prison camp.
North Korean border-crossers who have been in touch with South
Korean nationals or with religious groups while in China are at great
risk of being sent to political prison camps.
Execution
In 2011, Amnesty International reported testimonies of former
detainees at political prison camp 15 at Yodok, that prisoners are
forced to work in conditions approaching slavery and are frequently
subjected to torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment.
All those interviewed had witnessed public executions.

WOMEN

Women suffer particularly because of the social roles ascribed to
them. Women are generally responsible for finding food for their
families, and in times of scarcity often have the last call on food
within a household. Many have been forced to roam the countryside in
search of food, medicine and other daily necessities. A large
proportion of those crossing the border into China for these purposes
are women.
In its 2003 concluding observations on North Korea, the Committee
on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights expressed its concern about
the: ``persistence of traditional attitudes and practices prevailing .
. . with regard to women that negatively affect their enjoyment of
economic, social and cultural rights. The Committee is concerned about
the lack of domestic legislation on non-discrimination against women
and about the persistence of de facto inequality . . .''
Information received by Amnesty International indicates that a
growing number of women have been forced to turn to prostitution to
feed themselves and their hungry families.
Amnesty International has also documented an increase in the number
of North Korean women being trafficked to China by Chinese bride
traffickers where they are sold on to ethnic Korean farmers of Chinese
nationality who have difficulty finding wives.

CHILDREN

The Committee on Rights of the Child expressed concern in June 2004
at reports of North Korean street children in Chinese border towns. It
was also deeply concerned at reports that children (and their families)
returning or forcibly returned back to North Korea were considered by
the North Korea government not as victims but as perpetrators of a
crime.

NORTH KOREAN LAW

North Koreans who flee their country are usually considered by
their government to be traitors and/or criminals if they leave North
Korea without official permission. Article 47 of the 1987 North Korean
Criminal Code states that:

A citizen of the Republic who defects to a foreign country or
to the enemy in betrayal of the country and the people...shall
be committed to a reform institution for not less than seven
years. In cases where the person commits an extremely grave
concern, he or she shall be given the death penalty . . .

Article 117 states:

A person who crosses a frontier of the Republic without
permission shall be committed to a reform institution for up to
three years.

The North Korean law which prohibits unauthorized departure is in
clear breach of the fundamental right to leave one's own country.
Article 12 (2) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights (ICCPR), to which North Korea is a state party, states that
``(e)veryone shall be free to leave any country, including his own.''
North Koreans who ``illegally'' cross or help others in crossing
the North Korean border face heavy penalties. Under Article 117 of the
Criminal Code, a person who illegally crosses ``a frontier of the
Republic'' faces a sentence of up to three years in a kwalliso (a
political prison camp).
In a 2006 media briefing, ``North Korea: Human rights concerns'',
Amnesty International stated that the large numbers of North Korean
border-crossers being forcibly repatriated back from China have caused
the North Korean government to ease sentences and change the penal
code. The 1999 version of the penal code distinguished between
``unlawful border crossing'' and crossing ``with the intent to overturn
the Republic''.
The 2004 revision of the North Korean penal code further
distinguishes between ``crossing'' and ``frequent crossings''.
According to the latter version, ``frequent crossing'' of the border
without permission is a criminal act punishable by up to two years in
labor camps (three years in the 1999 version).
Acts of treason, such as ``surrendering, changing allegiance, [and]
handing over confidential information'', are punishable by five to ten
years of hard labor, or ten years to life in more serious cases.

RECOMMENDATIONS

The Government of China should:

Stop immediately all operations by Chinese and the
North Korean officials aimed at apprehending and intimidating
North Korean border-crossers and those who are helping them in
China.
Respect its obligations under international human
rights and refugee law. This includes protecting the
fundamental human rights of all North Koreans on its territory.
In particular, asylum-seekers should have access to a fair,
satisfactory and individual refugee status determination
procedure.
North Korean asylum-seekers should be given access to
the UNHCR so that their claims for protection can be
independently and impartially assessed. Persons found to be
refugees under a fair and satisfactory procedure should have
access to effective respect for their fundamental human rights,
including their economic, social and cultural rights.
In accordance with the customary norm of non-
refoulement and its obligations under the Convention against
Torture and the Refugee Convention, the Government of China
should not forcibly return any North Korean to North Korea who
may be subject to serious human rights abuses, including
imprisonment, torture, execution or other punishment inflicted
for leaving the country without authorization.
Immediately end all bilateral re-admission agreements
[with North Korea] which deny asylum-seekers and refugees
access to a fair and satisfactory asylum-procedure and
effective and durable protection from refoulement.
Lift restrictions on access to the border areas with
North Korea for the UNHCR, independent human rights monitors
and other independent observers, agencies and organizations.

The Government of North Korea should:

Respect the right to freedom of movement for all North
Koreans, especially to ensure that they have adequate access to
food. The North Korean government should not punish individuals
whose only crime is to try and feed their family.
The North Korean government should, especially,
refrain from punishing its citizens who have moved to other
countries, in particular for humanitarian reasons, and refrain
from treating their departure as criminal or even as treason
leading to punishments of imprisonment, inhuman or degrading
treatment or the death penalty.
Stop all executions.
Respect the right of access to information--including
by allowing independent news media to publish and broadcast and
by granting free and unimpeded access to media outlets--so that
ordinary people are aware of the gravity of the food situation
and of their human rights.
Allow independent international human rights monitors.

The Government of the United States should:

(1) Raise North Korean refugee protection issues in all its
meetings with the Chinese Government, including during the
annual Security and Economic Dialogue and Human Rights
Dialogue.
(2) Ensure that the Government of China respects its
obligations under international law, including respecting the
fundamental principle of non-refoulement, by not forcibly
repatriating North Korean Refugees.
(3) Urge the Chinese Government to stop arresting and
intimidating North Korean refugees.
(4) Urge the Chinese Government to fulfill its obligations
under the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees,
including respect for the right of North Koreans to seek and
enjoy asylum.
(5) Urge the North Korean Government not to punish North
Korean refugees brought back to North Korea.
(6) Help resettle North Korean refugees.

Thank you for inviting Amnesty International to testify in this
hearing.
______

Prepared Statement of Greg Scarlatoiu

march 5, 2012

Good afternoon, Chairman Smith, Cochairman Brown, and members of
the Commission. On behalf of the Committee for Human Rights in North
Korea, thank you for inviting me to speak with you at this hearing
today. Our Committee considers it essential to draw attention to the
case of 30 to 40 North Koreans who have been arrested by China and who
now risk being forcibly returned to North Korea where they most
assuredly will be subjected to severe punishment in violation of
international refugee and human rights law. The fundamental right to
leave a country, to seek asylum abroad and not to be forcibly returned
to conditions of danger are internationally recognized rights which
China and North Korea must be obliged to respect.
Mr. Chair, the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea is a
Washington DC-based non-governmental organization, established in 2001.
Our Committee's main statement has been prepared by Chair Roberta
Cohen, who was unable to be here today. I will draw upon that statement
in my opening remarks.
Over the past two decades, considerable numbers of North Koreans
have risked their lives to cross the border into China. They have done
so because of starvation, economic deprivation or political
persecution. It is estimated that there are thousands or tens of
thousands in China today. Most are vulnerable to forced returns where
they will face persecution and punishment because leaving North Korea
without permission is a criminal offense. Yet to China, all North
Koreans are economic migrants, and over the years, it has forcibly
returned tens of thousands to conditions of danger. According to the
testimonies and reports received by the Committee for Human Rights, the
North Koreans returned to their country endure cruel and inhuman
punishment including beatings, torture, detention, forced labor, sexual
violence, and in the case of women suspected of become pregnant in
China, forced abortions or infanticide. Some have even been executed.
We therefore submit that North Koreans in China merit international
refugee protection for the following reasons: First, a definite number
of those who cross the border may do so out of a well founded fear of
persecution on political, social or religious grounds that would accord
with the 1951 Refugee Convention. Second, the reasons why these North
Koreans flee to China go beyond the economic realm. Those who cross the
border into China for reasons of economic deprivation are often from
poorer classes, without access to the food and material benefits
enjoyed by the privileged political elite. Subject to North Korea's
songbun classification system, their quest for economic survival may be
based on political persecution. Examining such cases in a refugee
determination process might establish that certain numbers crossing
into China for economic survival merit refugee status. Third, and by
far the most compelling argument why North Koreans should not be
forcibly returned is that most if not all fit the category of refugees
sur place. As defined by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR),
refugees sur place are persons who might not have been refugees when
they left their country but who become refugees at a later date because
they have a valid fear of persecution upon return. North Koreans who
leave their country for reasons including economic motives have valid
reasons for fearing persecution and punishment upon return.
Accordingly, UNHCR has urged China not to forcibly return North Koreans
and has proposed a special humanitarian status for them so that they
can obtain temporary documentation and access to services and not be
repatriated.
China, however, has refused to allow UNHCR access to North Koreans
in border areas where it could set up a screening process. It considers
itself bound by an agreement it made with North Korea in 1986 obliging
both countries to prevent ``illegal border crossings,'' which replaced
an earlier 1960 agreement. It also stands by its local law in Jilin
province (1993) which requires the return of North Koreans who enter
illegally. Both documents stand in violation of China's obligations
under the 1951 Refugee Convention (which it signed in 1982), its
membership in UNHCR's Executive Committee (EXCOM), and the human rights
agreements it has ratified. These include the Convention against
Torture, which prohibits the return of persons to states where they
could be subjected to torture, and the Convention on the Rights of the
Child, which prohibits the return of unaccompanied children to
countries where they could be irreparably harmed.
It is reported that some local Chinese officials have at times
provided documents to North Korean women married to Han Chinese, which
allows them and their children some form of protection and access to
medical and educational services. Such practices should be encouraged
but they are not Chinese policy or law. Most North Koreans in China
have no rights and are vulnerable to exploitation, forced marriages and
trafficking as well as to forced returns where they will face
persecution and punishment. Our Committee's report Lives for Sale:
Personal Accounts of Women Fleeing North Korea to China, 2010,
documents the experiences of North Korean women in China and the
extreme lack of protection for them.
To encourage China to fulfill its international obligations to
North Koreans on its territory, our Committee puts forward the
following recommendations:
First, the United States Congress should consider additional
hearings on the plight of North Koreans who cross into China to keep a
spotlight on the issue and try to avert forced repatriations to
conditions of danger.
Second, members of Congress should consider supporting the efforts
of the Parliamentary Forum for Democracy, established in 2010, so that
joint inter-parliamentary efforts can be mobilized in a number of
countries on behalf of the North Koreans in danger in China.
Third, the United States should encourage UNHCR to raise its
profile on this issue. It further should lend its full support to
UNHCR's appeals and proposals to China and mobilize other governments
to do likewise in order to make sure that the provisions of the 1951
Refugee Convention are upheld and the work of this important UN agency
enhanced.
Fourth, together with other concerned governments, the United
States should give priority to raising the forced repatriation of North
Koreans with Chinese officials but in the absence of a response, should
bring the issue before international refugee and human rights fora.
UNHCR's Executive Committee as well as the UN Human Rights Council and
General Assembly of the United Nations should all be expected to call
on China by name to carry out its obligations under refugee and human
rights law and enact legislation to codify these obligations so that
North Koreans will not be expelled if their lives or freedom are in
danger.
Fifth, the United States should consider promoting a multilateral
approach to the problem of North Koreans leaving their country. Their
exodus affects more than China. It concerns South Korea most notably,
whose Constitution offers citizenship to North Koreans. Countries in
East and Southeast Asia, East and West Europe as well as Mongolia and
the United States are also affected. Together with UNHCR, a
multilateral approach should be designed that finds solutions for North
Koreans based on principles of non-refoulement and human rights and
humanitarian protection. International burden sharing has been
introduced for other refugee populations and could be developed here.
Sixth, the United States should consider ways to enhance its
readiness to increase the number of North Korean refugees and asylum
seekers admitted to this country. Other countries should be encouraged
as well to take in more North Korean refugees and asylum seekers until
such time as they no longer face persecution and punishment in their
country.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and members of the Commission. I look
forward to answering any questions you might have.
______

Prepared Statement of Hon. Chris Smith, a U.S. Representative From New
Jersey; Chairman, Congressional-Executive Commission on China

China's Forced Repatriation of North Korean Refugees Violates
International Law

march 5, 2012

Dozens of North Koreans are today at imminent risk of persecution,
torture--even execution--owing to China's decision to forcibly
repatriate them in stark violation of both the spirit and the letter of
the 1951 Refugee Convention and 1967 Protocol to which China has
acceded.
The international community--especially the United Nations, the
Obama Administration and the US Congress--must insist that China at
long last honor its treaty obligations, end its egregious practice of
systematic refoulement, or be exposed as hypocrites
Article 33 of the Convention and Protocol Relating to the Status of
Refugees couldn't be more clear:

Prohibition of Explusion or Return (``Refoulement''): No
Contracting State shall expel or return (``refouler'') a
refugee in any manner whatsoever to the frontiers of
territories where his life or freedom would be threatened on
account of his race, religion, nationality, membership of a
particular social group or political opinion.

Today's hearing underscores an emergency that begs an immediate
remedy. Lives are at risk. The North Korean refugees--
disproportionately women--face death or severe sexual abuse and torture
unless they get immediate protection. China has a duty to protect.
In recent weeks we have had learned that Chinese authorities have
reportedly detained dozens--perhaps more than 40--North Korean
refugees. North Korea's leader, Kim Jong-un, has threatened to
``exterminate three generations'' or any family with a member caught
defecting from North Korea during the 100-day mourning period for the
late Kim Jong-il. I believe him.
It's unclear whether or not the Obama Administration's food aid to
North Korea--some 240,000 metric tons per year--contains any conditions
or links to the refugees. It should.
Forced repatriation by China of North Koreans isn't new. But that
doesn't make what is about to happen to dozens of new victims any less
offensive.
According to testimony submitted today by Roberta Cohen, Chair of
the Committee for Human Right in North Korea and Non-Resident Senior
Fellow at the Brookings Institution, ``China has forcibly returned tens
of thousands over the past two decades. Most if not all have been
punished in North Korea and according to the testimonies and reports
received by the Committee for Human Rights, the punishment has included
beatings, torture, detention, forced labor, sexual violence, and in the
case of women suspected of become pregnant in China, forced abortions
or infanticide.''
For the record, since 2005 alone, I have chaired four congressional
human rights hearings that focused in whole or in part on the plight of
North Korean refugees and China's ongoing violations of international
law. They include:

Human Rights in North Korea: Challenges and
Opportunities (Sept. 20, 2011)
http://foreignaffairs.house.gov/112/68443.pdf

North Korea: Human Rights Update and International
Abduction Issues (April 27, 2006)
http://democrats.foreignaffairs.house.gov/archives/109/
27228.pdf

Lifting the Veil: Getting the Refugees Out, Getting
Our Message In: An Update on the Implementation of the North
Korean Human Rights Act (Oct. 27, 2005)
http://democrats.foreignaffairs.house.gov/archives/109/
24202.pdf

The North Korean Human Rights Act of 2004: Issues and
Implications (April 28, 2005)
http://democrats.foreignaffairs.house.gov/archives/109/
20919.pdf

The Chinese government claims that the North Korean refugees are
``illegal economic migrants''--not refugees. Furthermore, the Chinese
government continues its policy of repatriating North Koreans in China
according to a bilateral repatriation agreement that requires it return
all border crossers. As we will hear today, in doing so, China is in
clear violation of its obligations under the 1951 Convention Relating
to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol, to which China has
acceded. Under international law and standards, these detained refugees
are entitled to protection if there is well-founded reason to believe
that they will be persecuted upon return. As our witnesses will attest,
we know what the detained refugees face. There are documented accounts,
as well as strong evidence. We know that persecution exists.
North Korea is certainly at fault. It must also be stated that
China has contributed to the humanitarian crisis through its policy of
gendercide--the killing of baby girls by forced abortion of
infanticide. China's one-child policy has led to the worst gender
disparity in any nation in history, and that is directly connected to
the issue we probe today. According to the 2011 CECC Annual Report,
NGOs and researchers estimate that as many as 70 percent of the North
Korean refugees in China are women. And some researchers have estimated
that 9 out of every 10 North Korean women in China are trafficked.
There is a high demand for wives in northeastern China where severe sex
ratio imbalances have fueled the trafficking of North Korean women for
commercial sexual exploitation and forced marriage.
Our focus today is China's role and responsibility in solving this
immediate problem. At this time, we call on China to uphold its
international obligations and take immediate steps to end this cruel
policy of sending North Koreans back to persecution or death. China
must conform to international norms and allow these refugees safe
passage to the Republic of Korea, or grant them immediate asylum. And,
we ask that the Chinese government take all necessary steps to meet the
requirements of the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and
its Protocol.
I welcome and thank all of our witnesses. It is an extraordinary
honor to welcome Ms. Han Song-hwa and her daughter Jo Jin-hye, former
North Korean refugees who are here to share their personal accounts of
detention, hardship and loss. I am sure that their reflections and
observations will deepen our understanding of this issue and strengthen
our insistence that China immediately address this crisis.

Submission for the Record

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Written Statement of Roberta Cohen, Chair, Committee for Human Rights
in North Korea, and Non-Resident Senior Fellow, the Brookings
Institution, on China's Repatriation of North Korean Refugees

march 5, 2012

On behalf of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, I would
like to express great appreciation to Congressman Christopher Smith and
Senator Sherrod Brown for holding this hearing today to highlight the
case of an estimated 30 to 40 North Koreans who fled into China and now
risk being forcibly returned to North Korea where they will most
assuredly be severely punished. We consider it essential to defend the
fundamental rights of North Koreans to leave their country and seek
asylum abroad and to call upon China to stop its forcible repatriation
of North Koreans and provide them with the needed human rights and
humanitarian protection to which they are entitled. The right to leave
a country, to seek asylum abroad and not to be forcibly returned to
conditions of danger are internationally recognized rights which North
Korea and China, like all other countries, are obliged to respect.
This particular case of North Koreans has captured regional and
international attention. South Korean President Lee Myung Bak has
spoken out publicly against the return of the North Koreans and
National Assembly woman Park Sun Young has undertaken a hunger strike
in front of the Chinese Embassy in Seoul. The Parliamentary Forum for
Democracy encompassing 18 countries has urged its members to raise the
matter with their governments.
The case, however, is situated at the tip of the iceberg. According
to the State Department's Human Rights Report (2010), there may be
thousands or tens of thousands of North Koreans hiding in China.
Although China does allow large numbers of North Koreans to reside
illegally in its country, they have no rights and China has forcibly
returned tens of thousands over the past two decades. Most if not all
have been punished in North Korea and according to the testimonies and
reports received by the Committee for Human Rights, the punishment has
included beatings, torture, detention, forced labor, sexual violence,
and in the case of women suspected of become pregnant in China, forced
abortions or infanticide.
Stringent punishment in particular has been meted out to North
Koreans who have associated abroad with foreigners (i.e., missionaries,
aid workers or journalists) or have sought political asylum or tried to
obtain entry into South Korea. The North Koreans currently arrested and
threatened with return are therefore likely to suffer severe punishment
should they be repatriated. Some might even face execution; the North
Korean Ministry of Public Security issued a decree in 2010 making the
crime of defection a ``crime of treachery against the nation.''
The Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, a Washington DC-
based non-governmental organization, established in 2001, has published
three in-depth reports on the precarious plight of North Koreans in
China and the cruel and inhuman practice of forcibly sending them back
to one of the world's most oppressive regimes. The first, The North
Korean Refugee Crisis: Human Rights and International Response (2006),
edited by Stephan Haggard and Marcus Noland, establishes that most if
not all North Koreans in China merit a prima facie claim to refugee or
refugee sur place status. The second, Lives for Sale: Personal Accounts
of Women Fleeing North Korea to China (2010) calls upon China to set up
a screening process with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
to determine the status of North Koreans and ensure they are not
forcibly returned. The third, to be published in April, Hidden Gulag
second edition, by David Hawk, presents the harrowing testimony of
scores of North Koreans severely punished after being returned to North
Korea.

REASONS NORTH KOREANS IN CHINA SHOULD BE CONSIDERED REFUGEES

Although China claims that North Koreans in its country are
economic migrants subject to deportation, we submit that North Koreans
in China should merit international refugee protection for the
following reasons:
First, a definite number of those who cross the border can be
expected to do so out of a well founded fear of persecution on
political, social or religious grounds. It is well known that in their
own country North Koreans suffer persecution if they express or even
appear to hold political views unacceptable to the authorities, listen
to foreign broadcasts, watch South Korean DVDs, practice their own
religious beliefs, or try to leave the country. Some 200,000 are
incarcerated in labor camps and other penal facilities on political
grounds. Moreover, North Koreans imprisoned for having gone to China
for food or employment often try, once released, to leave again. Some
conclude they will always be under suspicion, surveillance and
persecution in North Korea and therefore cross the border once again,
this time seeking political refuge, ultimately in South Korea.
Because China has no refugee adjudication process to determine who
is a refugee and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has no
access to North Koreans at the border, it has not been possible to
ascertain how many North Koreans are seeking asylum because of a well-
founded fear of political or other persecution. But those who cross the
border because of political, religious or social persecution will no
doubt fit the definition of refugee under the 1951 Convention Relating
to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol.\1\
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\1\ Under the Convention, a person is a refugee if he or she is
outside his/her country of origin because of ``a well-founded fear of
being persecuted'' for ``reasons of race, religion, nationality,
membership of a particular social group or political opinion'' and
unable or unwilling to avail him or herself of the protection of that
country. An exception is if the person has committed criminal acts
(although in the case of North Korea, the term criminal would be open
to discussion).
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Second, those who cross the border into China for reasons of
economic deprivation, probably the majority, may also qualify as
refugees if they have been compelled to leave North Korea because of
government economic policies that could be shown to be tantamount to
political persecution. These North Koreans are not part of the
privileged political elite and therefore have insufficient access to
food and material supplies. In times of economic hardship in
particular, food is distributed by the government first to the army and
Party based on political loyalty whereas many of the North Koreans
crossing into China during periods of famine are from the ``impure,''
``wavering'' or ``hostile'' classes, which are the poor, deprived lower
classes, designated as such under North Korea's songbun caste
system.\2\ Their quest for economic survival could therefore be based
on political discrimination and persecution. Examining such cases in a
refugee determination process might establish that certain numbers of
North Koreans crossing into China for economic survival merit refugee
status under the 1951 Convention.
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\2\ See Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, Marked for Life:
Songbun, North Korea's Social Classification System, 2012
(forthcoming).
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Third, and by far the most compelling argument why North Koreans
should not be forcibly returned is that most if not all fit the
category of refugees sur place. As defined by UNHCR, refugees sur place
are persons who might not have been refugees when they left their
country but who become refugees ``at a later date'' because they have a
valid fear of persecution upon return. North Koreans who leave their
country because of economic reasons have valid reasons for fearing
persecution and punishment upon return. Their government after all
deems it a criminal offense to leave the country without permission and
punishes persons who are returned, or even who return voluntarily.
North Koreans in China therefore could qualify as refugees sur place.
The High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres in 2006 while
on a visit to China raised the concept of refugees sur place with
Chinese officials. He told them that forcibly repatriating North
Koreans without any determination process and where they could be
persecuted on return stands in violation of the Refugee Convention. To
UNHCR since 2004, North Koreans in China without permission are deemed
``persons of concern,'' meriting humanitarian protection.\3\ It has
proposed to China a special humanitarian status for North Koreans,
which would enable them to obtain temporary documentation, access to
services, and protection from forced return. To date, China has failed
to agree to this temporary protected status.
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\3\ In September 2004, the High Commissioner announced before
UNHCR's Executive Committee that North Koreans in China are `persons of
concern.'' One reason why UNHCR used this term was that it had no
access to the North Koreans; another was that under the Refugee
Convention, persons of dual nationality could be excluded from refugee
status. (However it has been pointed out that in the case of North
Koreans, not all are able to avail themselves of their right to
citizenship in South Korea, some may not choose to do so, and South
Korea may not take in every North Korean. The United States and other
countries do not consider North Koreans ineligible for refugee status
because of the dual nationality provision.)
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While China has cooperated with UNHCR in making arrangements for
Vietnamese and other refugees to integrate in China or resettle
elsewhere, it has refused to cooperate when it comes to North Koreans.
Only in cases where North Koreans have made their way to foreign
embassies or consulates or the UNHCR compound in Beijing has China felt
impelled to cooperate with governments or the UNHCR in facilitating
their departure to South Korea or other countries. In the vast majority
of cases, China considers itself bound to an agreement it made with
North Korea in 1986 (the ``Mutual Cooperation Protocol for the Work of
Maintaining National Security and Social Order and the Border Areas'').
This agreement obliges China and North Korea to prevent ``illegal
border crossings of residents.'' Chinese police as a result collaborate
with North Korean police in tracking down North Koreans and forcibly
returning them to North Korea without any reference to their rights
under refugee or human rights law or the obligations of China under the
agreements it has ratified. Implementation of this agreement sounds
remarkably like the efforts made by the former Soviet Union to support
the German Democratic Republic's actions to punish East Germans for
trying to leave their country. It is an agreement that undermines and
stands in violation of China's obligations under the 1951 Convention
Relating to the Status of Refugees (which it signed in 1982), its
membership in UNHCR's Executive Committee (EXCOM), which seeks to
promote refugee protection, and the human rights agreements to which
China has chosen to adhere. So too do China's domestic laws contradict
its international refugee and human rights commitments. A local law in
Jilin province (1993) requires the return of North Koreans who enter
the province illegally.
China is bound not only by the Refugee Convention that prohibits
non-refoulement but the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel,
Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which China ratified in
1988. It prohibits the return of persons to states ``where there are
substantial grounds for believing'' that they would be ``subjected to
torture.'' Indeed, the Committee against Torture (CAT), the expert body
monitoring the convention's implementation, has called upon China to
establish a screening process to examine whether North Koreans will
face the risk of torture on return, to provide UNHCR access to all
North Korean persons of concern, and to adopt legislation incorporating
China's obligations under the convention, in particular with regard to
deportations.
Another UN expert body, the Committee on the Rights of the Child,
which monitors compliance by China and other states with the Convention
on the Rights of the Child, similarly has called on China to ensure
that no unaccompanied child from North Korea is returned to a country
``where there are substantial grounds for believing that there is a
real risk of irreparable harm to the child.''
China of course has legitimate interests in wanting to control its
borders. It is concerned about potential large scale outflows from
North Korea and the impact of such flows on North Korea's stability. It
also is said to be concerned about potential Korean nationalism in its
border areas where there are historic Korean claims. But China should
not become complicit in the serious human rights violations perpetrated
by North Korea against its own citizens. The reports of the United
Nations Secretary-General and of the Special Rapporteur on human rights
in North Korea as well as the resolutions of the General Assembly,
adopted by more than 100 states, have strongly criticized North Korea
for its practices and called upon North Korea's ``neighboring states''
to cease the deportation of North Koreans because of the terrible
mistreatment they are known to endure upon return.

RECOMMENDATIONS

To encourage China to fulfill its international obligations in this
matter, the following recommendations are offered:
First, additional hearings should be held by the United States
Congress on the plight of North Koreans who cross into China. A
spotlight must be kept on the issue to seek to avert China's forced
repatriation of North Koreans to situations where their lives are at
risk.
Second, members of Congress should lend support to the efforts of
the Parliamentary Forum for Democracy, established in 2010, so that
joint inter-parliamentary efforts can be mobilized in a number of
countries around the world on behalf of the North Koreans in danger in
China. Such joint efforts can also offer solidarity to South Korean
colleagues protesting the forced return of North Koreans.
Third, the United States should encourage UNHCR to raise its
profile on this issue. It further should lend its full support to
UNHCR's appeals and proposals to China and mobilize other governments
to do likewise in order to make sure that the non-refoulement provision
of the 1951 Refugee Convention is upheld and the work of this important
UN agency enhanced. China's practices at present threaten to undermine
the principles of the international refugee protection regime.
Fourth, together with other concerned governments, the United
States should give priority to raising the forced repatriation of North
Koreans with Chinese officials but in the absence of response, should
bring the issue before international refugee and human rights fora.
UNHCR's Executive Committee as well as the UN Human Rights Council and
General Assembly of the United Nations should all be expected to call
on China by name to carry out its obligations under refugee and human
rights law and enact legislation to codify these obligations so that
North Koreans will not be expelled if their lives or freedom are in
danger. Specifically, China should be called upon to adopt legislation
incorporating its obligations under the Refugee Convention and
international human rights agreements and to bring its existing laws
into line with internationally agreed upon principles. It should be
expected to call a moratorium on deportations of North Koreans until
its laws and practices are brought into line with international
standards and can ensure that North Koreans will not be returned to
conditions of danger.
Fifth, the United States should promote a multilateral approach to
the problem of North Koreans leaving their country. Their exodus
affects more than China. It concerns South Korea most notably, which
already houses more than 23,000 North Korean `defectors' and whose
Constitution offers citizenship to North Koreans. Countries in East and
Southeast Asia, East and West Europe as well as Mongolia and the United
States are also affected as they too have admitted North Korean
refugees and asylum seekers. Together with UNHCR, a multilateral
approach should be designed that finds solutions for North Koreans
based on principles of non-refoulement and human rights and
humanitarian protection. International burden sharing has been
introduced for other refugee populations and should be developed here.
Sixth, the United States should make known its readiness to
increase the number of North Korean refugees and asylum seekers
admitted to this country.\4\ Other countries should be encouraged as
well to step forward and take in more North Korean refugees and asylum
seekers until such time as they no longer face persecution and
punishment in their country.
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\4\ See Roberta Cohen, ``Admitting North Korean Refugees to the
United States: Obstacles and Opportunities,'' 38 North, September 20,
2011.
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Thank you.