[House Hearing, 115 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
PROTECTING NORTH KOREAN REFUGEES
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH,
GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS, AND
INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
DECEMBER 12, 2017
__________
Serial No. 115-98
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida BRAD SHERMAN, California
DANA ROHRABACHER, California GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
JOE WILSON, South Carolina GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida
TED POE, Texas KAREN BASS, California
DARRELL E. ISSA, California WILLIAM R. KEATING, Massachusetts
TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania DAVID N. CICILLINE, Rhode Island
MO BROOKS, Alabama AMI BERA, California
PAUL COOK, California LOIS FRANKEL, Florida
SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii
RON DeSANTIS, Florida JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas
MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois
TED S. YOHO, Florida BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania
ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois DINA TITUS, Nevada
LEE M. ZELDIN, New York NORMA J. TORRES, California
DANIEL M. DONOVAN, Jr., New York BRADLEY SCOTT SCHNEIDER, Illinois
F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, Jr., THOMAS R. SUOZZI, New York
Wisconsin ADRIANO ESPAILLAT, New York
ANN WAGNER, Missouri TED LIEU, California
BRIAN J. MAST, Florida
FRANCIS ROONEY, Florida
BRIAN K. FITZPATRICK, Pennsylvania
THOMAS A. GARRETT, Jr., Virginia
JOHN R. CURTIS, UtahAs of
12:44 pm 11/29/17 deg.
Amy Porter, Chief of Staff Thomas Sheehy, Staff Director
Jason Steinbaum, Democratic Staff Director
------
Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and
International Organizations
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey, Chairman
MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina KAREN BASS, California
DANIEL M. DONOVAN, Jr., New York AMI BERA, California
F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, Jr., JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas
Wisconsin THOMAS R. SUOZZI, New York
THOMAS A. GARRETT, Jr., Virginia
C O N T E N T S
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Page
WITNESSES
Ms. Hyeona Ji, North Korean defector, co-chairperson, Worldwide
Coalition to Stop Genocide in North Korea...................... 5
Ms. Han Ga Hee (alias), North Korean defector, announcer and
sound engineer, Free North Korea Radio......................... 14
The Honorable Robert King, senior adviser, Korea chair, Center
for Strategic and International Studies (former U.S. Special
Envoy for North Korean Human Rights Issues).................... 28
Mr. Greg Scarlatoiu, executive director, The Committee for Human
Rights in North Korea.......................................... 34
Ms. Suzanne Scholte, president, Defense Forum Foundation,
chairwoman, North Korea Freedom Coalition...................... 43
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
Ms. Hyeona Ji: Prepared statement................................ 10
Ms. Han Ga Hee (alias): Prepared statement....................... 18
The Honorable Robert King: Prepared statement.................... 31
Mr. Greg Scarlatoiu: Prepared statement.......................... 36
Ms. Suzanne Scholte: Prepared statement.......................... 47
APPENDIX
Hearing notice................................................... 66
Hearing minutes.................................................. 67
The Honorable Karen Bass, a Representative in Congress from the
State of California: Material submitted for the record......... 68
PROTECTING NORTH KOREAN REFUGEES
----------
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2017
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health,
Global Human Rights, and International Organizations,
Committee on Foreign Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:00 p.m., in
room 2200 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Christopher H.
Smith (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Mr. Smith. The subcommittee will come to order, and good
afternoon to everybody.
At a recent House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing, North
Korea defector Ambassador Thae Yong-Ho testified about the
strategic value of both disseminating information into North
Korea and the protection of North Korean refugees in China.
Drawing on an analogy about the fall of the Berlin Wall,
Ambassador Thae claimed that there may be a similar result if
China stopped repatriations of refugees in the United States
and the international community, expanded soft power news and
information flows into North Korea.
He was very dramatic in his testimony and couldn't be
clearer just how much of a game changer it would be if the
refugees could find a place of refuge in China, and then on to
other places like South Korea and other places where freedom
flourishes.
This hearing will explore the current situation facing
North Korean asylum seekers and assess both the Chinese legal
obligation to protect refugees and the effectiveness of global
efforts to stop what the U.N. Commission on Inquiry on Human
Rights in North Korea called crimes against humanity
experienced by refugees.
As the Congress continues to look at ways to best apply
maximum diplomatic and financial pressure on the regime of Kim
Jong-un, this hearing will explore the strategic relevance of
further pressing the Chinese Government to protect North Korean
refugees and evaluate the impact of surging outside information
into North Korea will have.
Amid escalating tensions on the Korean Peninsula, we cannot
forget those suffering under the North Korean regime and those
North Korean refugees who are in China.
North Korean asylum seekers are in imminent risk of
repatriation, torture, sexual violence, forced abortions, hard
labor, and even execution.
China's repatriations of the North Koreans is a stark
violation of both the spirit and the letter of the Refugee
Convention and the 1967 protocol to which China has acceded.
The Chinese Government has a lot to answer for. It is no
wonder that the U.N. Commission on Inquiry for North Korea
Human Rights concluded that the Government of the People's
Republic of China is aiding and abetting in crimes against
humanity by forcefully repatriating North Korean refugees.
I would note that as many as 90 percent of North Korean
women refugees in China today fall prey to traffickers who will
sell the refugees into sexual slavery or forced marriages.
Suzanne Scholte, who will testify during this hearing,
previously brought women who were refugees from North Korea--
Mrs. Ma and others--who for the first time told the story about
how they were exploited inside of China and forced into sex
trafficking.
It was just horrific testimony, but an eye opener about how
they went from an exploitation in North Korea into exploitation
into China.
Labor trafficking is also pervasive. The Government of
North Korea and the government and businesses in China, Russia,
and elsewhere in the world profit from the trafficking of North
Korean laborers.
In recent months, Chinese authorities reportedly deported
hundreds of South Korean missionaries and NGO workers who have
provided crucial help to the North Korean refugees in China.
The people providing that assistance have been ousted as
well. The international community, especially the United
Nations, Trump administration, and the U.S. Congress must
insist that China honor its treaty obligations and end its
egregious practice of systematic repatriation of North Korean
refugees.
I would note parenthetically I have raised this repeatedly
with now the Secretary General and the former head of the UNHCR
and never got a good answer. So the U.N. really needs to step
up to the plate here.
Chinese officials and businesses complicit in repatriation
of North Korean refugees or those who profit from labor
trafficking should also be held accountable.
The Congress has given the administration the sanction
tools that, if used, would send the right message and
especially hold people to account. Whether it be through the
North Korean Sanctions Enforcement Act, the Global Magnitsky
Act, or those sanctions attached to China's Tier 3 designation
for trafficking in persons.
All should be used strategically and swiftly to send a
clear message. For too long the world has tolerated China's
failures to protect refugees, and those complicit in
repatriations of refugees who profit from the trafficking of
North Koreans should be held accountable.
The annual repatriation should be a bellwether for judging
China's willingness to curtail Kim Jong-un's nuclear ambitions.
In addition to the protection of North Korean refugees, this
hearing will also assess global efforts to surge news and
information into North Korea.
Expansion of existing efforts to disseminate information
into North Korea is especially important, if for nothing else
than to tarnish and undermine the Kim family cult of
personality where they are lifted up as gods.
The Kim family cult must be taken seriously as a national
security threat and a barometer of Kim Jong-un's power. The
cult of personality, sometimes called Juche, has inspired
devotion from the North Korean people because of the cradle to
grave propaganda that they endure.
We must undermine the Kim family cult and the big lies upon
which it is based and the propaganda that grants Kim Jong-un
almost godlike status.
This status has allowed three generations of the Kim family
to starve and abuse the North Korean people and divert scarce
resources to the military and to their nuclear programs.
We must have an information surge into North Korea. Human
rights groups are smuggling DVDs and USB sticks with video
about the Kim family's sins into North Korea right now.
Balloons are launched across the border with promises of a
better life in South Korea. Radio programs broadcast daily
messages and news urging North Korea's elite to defect and turn
against Kim Jong-un.
We know some of these efforts are having an effect. We saw
several high-level defections of diplomats, military officers,
and the families of North Korea's elites in the last year
alone.
The number of asylum seekers depressed for several years by
upgraded security efforts in China have begun to rise. Efforts
to get information into North Korea must be expanded
dramatically and Washington should be leading this effort,
working primarily with North Korean defector groups in South
Korea and other human rights organizations.
The North Korean defector groups should be front and center
in this effort. They know North Korea and they know the minds
of the people. They know what information is needed to
permanently tarnish the Kim family cult and what will motivate
military leaders to defect.
Today's hearing takes place among growing tensions on the
Korean Peninsula. We must seek all available options to deal
with and resolve the issues at hand.
I now yield to my good friend and colleague, Ms. Bass, for
any comments she might have.
Ms. Bass. As always, thank you, Mr. Chair, for your
leadership on this issue and so many other issues, particularly
involving human rights.
We know that this is an important hearing on the plight of
refugees fleeing North Korea and the leadership role that we
can play in protecting their human rights.
I also want to thank our witnesses for being here today and
I look forward to your insight. I would especially like to
thank them for their courage and their resolve to testify.
We know that North Korea is home to one of the most
repressive governments in the world. The U.N. Commission on
Inquiry on Human Rights has called for an investigation into
violations that may amount to crimes against humanity, and it
is common knowledge that the quality of life for everyday North
Koreans is deplorable. They face widespread malnutrition, acute
food shortages, and extreme poverty.
When it comes to these human rights abuses, Democrats and
Republicans agree that the atrocities taking place in North
Korea must be stopped.
We must continue to pursue bipartisan policies that promote
human rights and work with the U.N. and our international
partners to hold North Korea accountable.
While our military options in North Korea area limited, we
can still advance human rights and respect the aspirations of
the people there.
One way to do so is through information. North Koreans have
limited knowledge of the outside world but increasing their
access to information can help create an informed populace
which will in turn benefit them as well as the international
community.
I would like to point out that although the number of North
Koreans seeking asylum in the U.S. is low, it behooves us to
welcome and support those refugees who do reach us, given how
much they have already suffered.
The people attempting to escape North Korea face
insurmountable odds, mostly to China where they are likely to
be repatriated to North Korean officials and forced in the
labor camps.
Given the human rights crisis in East Asia, we need to act
decisively. This is why I am deeply troubled that despite the
egregious reports concerning North Korea and the national
security threat it poses, the administration has still not
appointed a U.S. Ambassador to South Korea.
It is critical that we have American diplomats on the
ground. I also continue to be deeply troubled and critical of
the administration and in particular President Trump's juvenile
and unprofessional verbal attacks on the North Korean
leadership.
Like the chair said, the regime--the cult has to be taken
seriously and my concern is that these attacks, especially the
nature of them--calling the North Korean leader names--these
attacks diminish our ability to bring about change and, in my
opinion, only reinforce the regime's propaganda that the U.S.
is waiting to attack.
With that, Mr. Chair, I yield my time.
Mr. Smith. Thank you very much, Ms. Bass.
I would like to now turn to Dan Donovan.
Mr. Donovan. Mr. Chairman, I'll yield my time so as to
allow the witnesses more time to testify.
Thank you very much.
Mr. Smith. Thank you very much, I'd say, to my friend.
Let me begin by welcoming our first panel. We have two
panels today. Ms. Hyeona Ji, who is a North Korean defector,
human rights activist, and writer. Her entire family decided to
escape North Korea in 1998. Ms. Ji was soon arrested and
repatriated to North Korea during the first repatriation in
February 1998 and was harshly interrogated and beaten, and
witnessed other repatriated North Koreans, including adults,
children, pregnant women, undergo beatings and invasive
searches for hidden money.
Ms. Ji escaped North Korea again in April 1998, leaving
behind her younger brother, to search for her mother and sister
in China. She was caught by sex traffickers and sold for
$25,000 Chinese yuan.
In April 1999, she was arrested by Chinese authorities
again and forced to be repatriated again for the second time.
In November 2000, she escaped North Korea for the third
time. In 2002 she was arrested and forcibly repatriated to
North Korea again. This time, while 3 months pregnant upon her
arrival in North Korea, she underwent a forced abortion without
anesthetics, almost dying from blood loss at the hands of North
Korean authorities.
Ms. Ji was about to be sentenced without a fair trial. But
thanks to a compassionate security officer, she was able to
avoid further incarceration and in October of that same year
escaped North Korea again.
Since her arrival in South Korea in 2007, Ms. Ji has been
very active as a human rights activist in South Korea and
abroad, telling the world of her experience, of multiple
escapes and forced repatriation. She is currently co-
chairperson of the Worldwide Coalition to Stop Genocide in
North Korea. We welcome her and are honored to have her testify
today.
Our second witness will be Ms. Han Ga Hee, who was born in
1980 in North Korea. She studied at an ag college and worked as
a laborer at a collective farm.
While in North Korea, she listened to the radio broadcast
of Free North Korea Radio. The difficult conditions in North
Korea and her curiosity led her to cross the border to go to
China in 2002.
She worked various jobs in China but was always in constant
danger of repatriation to North Korea. After 6 years in China,
she saved up enough money to hire a broker to get her to South
Korea.
After she paid him the money, the broker dropped her off at
the border of Mongolia and handed her a compass and told her to
head north across the grassland and the Gobi Desert.
Alone, she walked for several days without knowing where to
go and finally was found by Mongolian police. Once she reached
South Korea in '08, she went to visit the Free North Korea
radio station and learned the truth.
All the people working there were defectors who fled North
Korea. She has been working ever since for Free North Korea
Radio--that's 8 years now--and has become a news announcer and
is a producer of a gospel program.
We welcome her and are honored to have her testify as well.
STATEMENT OF MS. HYEONA JI, NORTH KOREAN DEFECTOR, CO-
CHAIRPERSON, WORLDWIDE COALITION TO STOP GENOCIDE IN NORTH
KOREA
[The following statement and answers were delivered through
an interpreter.]
Ms. Ji. Hello, my name is Hyeona Ji and I would like to
express my appreciation to Members of Congress for your
interest and concern for North Korean human rights.
In North Korea, the fact that 3 million people starved to
death didn't seem out of the ordinary. The determination to
escape from a country that denies its people freedom and human
rights was stronger than the will to survive.
So I decided to leave North Korea, my close friends,
neighbors, and my lovely hometown, and I left my fate up to the
Tumen River at the border between China and North Korea.
In 1963, 3 years before the height of China's Cultural
Revolution, my ethnic Korean-Chinese father, at the young age
of 16, crossed the border into North Korea to find freedom.
In December 1997, he heard radio programs aired on the
Korean Broadcasting System--KBS--while visiting family in
China. Realizing that he had been duped his entire life, he
came back to North Korea and persuaded the rest of us to leave
North Korea.
So in February 1998, my father crossed the border in search
of freedom again into China and by way of going upstream in the
Tumen River, and with my mother and my two younger siblings we
escaped via a lower part of the river downstream.
We were supposed to meet him at a predetermined location in
China. But he was soon arrested--that's what we determined--and
we have not known of his whereabouts for the last 19 years and
my mother and two siblings and I were also immediately arrested
and repatriated.
Afterward, I witnessed my mother being kicked with hard
shoes for defecting and we were forced to sit down and stand up
nearly 100 times doing the squatting motion in the process of
being inspected for any illegal contraband, especially money,
and we were subject to very severe thought criticism at the
numerous agencies of the North Korean Government.
And, of course, our neighbors and friends gave us the cold
shoulder. I was taken to and tortured at the Ministry of State
Security for keeping a small Korean language Bible given to me
from my mother, because in North Korea they don't allow freedom
of religion.
I was released only after lying that I found it on the
ground after severe beating and torture, and my mother and
younger sister went to China and were supposed to return in a
couple days. But they were kidnapped and sold.
And they went to China in search of food to bring back to
the family but they were arrested and sold into this human
trafficking situation. And my youngest sister, who was only 17
at the time, was sold and forced to marry an ethnic Chinese man
who was over 40 years old.
I myself was also trafficked and so my brother lost all of
us when he was only 10 years old when he was left back in North
Korea. When I was repatriated a year later, that was when I
began to witness the worst of North Korea's human rights
atrocities.
At the Jeungsan Detention Facility, pregnant women were
forced to do hard labor all day long. Because North Korea does
not allow for mixed ethnicities, they made repatriated women
who became pregnant in China to miscarry by forcing them to do
hard labor.
At night we heard pregnant mothers screaming and babies
dying without being able to see their mothers. I was reunited
with my mother, whom I had not seen for a year, when I was sent
to the provincial police jail because she herself was also
repatriated, and because of the abuse and torture that I
received at this facility, my bones and my rib were not healed
properly and as a result I still suffer from that beating.
I was soon separated from my mother and then sent to the
Jeungsan Re-education Camp Facility Number 11. This is the
place where people that went in did not come out alive.
This is the place where people were forced to do hard labor
and because of lack of food given to the inmates they were
forced to eat locusts or skin live frogs and reptiles and rats
and eat that to make up for the deficient food that was given
to them, and many inmates died from malnutrition and from
suffering from diarrhea.
Almost everyone who died was buried at a place that we
inmates called Flower Hill. But everyone knew that the dead
bodies ended up being food for the dogs belonging to the guard
that kept watch over the burial site and these dogs belonged to
the guard that was placed there to watch over the dead bodies.
At the Jeungsan Re-education Prison Camp Number 11, I was
beaten with a wooden bar and kicked for not obeying commands on
time and as a result of this beating and other mistreatment,
not only did I suffer broken ribs that didn't heal properly,
but to this day I suffer from chronic illnesses like epilepsy
and fibromyalgia.
I was given a 1-year sentence but was pardoned after 8
months on Kim Jong-il's birthday on February 16th, 2000, and I
escaped again, knowing that I had to tell the world about North
Korea's human rights realities.
However, I was arrested and repatriated in China again for
the third time and sent back to North Korea, this time 3 months
pregnant, and I was forced to undergo an abortion without any
medication at the police station in North Korea.
So my first child passed away without ever seeing the world
and without any time for me to even say sorry to my child. Even
though I was haemorrhaging to death, they were filling out
papers to send me to the Hamheung Re-education Prison Camp
without even a fair trial.
Thankfully, there was an officer on my case who took pity
on me and let me be released from the prison due to my
condition. Even though I was in terrible health, I crossed the
Tumen River yet again to go into China.
I had to do this because I vowed to myself and I made a
promise to the people that I saw at Jeungsan Prison Camp that I
would survive and live the life that they never got to live.
And I made this vow crossing into China because I wanted to
tell the world what the experience and to tell the people that
I would survive and live the life that they, prisoners in
Jeungsan, never got to live.
Between my first escape from North Korea in February 1998
and 2007, I was repatriated three times and escaped North Korea
a total of four times.
I spent 8 months in a re-education center and some time in
China, which was a foreign place to me, before finally reaching
South Korea in 2007.
As soon as I arrived, I arranged for my mother and her
daughter to come to Korea via Myanmar. But I had no news about
my two younger siblings and father.
And then one day my brother arrived in South Korea and my
brother had been on the street for--alone for 13 years and we
could not do anything but hold him, embrace him and cry.
And the following year in 2011, my little sister, who was
only 17 when I last saw her, made it to South Korea via
Thailand at the age of 31. So we were reunited after 14 years
of separation and we wept with joy and we vowed that we will
never be separated again.
Right this moment, I miss my father terribly and this
longing is not unique just for myself. It is a longing of all
North Korean defectors. The recent case of the running of the
defector soldier across the joint security area represents a
dash toward freedom. That is the dream of 25 million North
Korean people.
North Korea is one terrifying prison and the Kim regime is
carrying out crimes against humanity in North Korea, and it is
only a miracle that people and I, myself, survived the hellish
experience of the prison camp.
However, the Chinese Government continues to send North
Koreans seeking freedom back to this prison. On November 4th of
this year, a mother and her child were detained on their way to
meet their father in South Korea--in China.
The excitement of meeting his father was momentary because
the Chinese Government sent them back on a deadly path back to
North Korea.
China, which has lived through a so-called ``Cultural
Revolution,'' is well aware of what happens to repatriated
defectors and how they will be treated. Yet, it continues to
send North Koreans back.
How is this different from murder? I strongly urge the
Chinese Government to discontinue and stop the forcible
repatriation of North Korean refugees.
Much like the Apostle Paul, who says in the Gospel that he
is indebted for the Gospel, I confess to my father and to those
who have died in prison after repatriation and to all North
Koreans that I am in debt for my freedom.
And so yesterday I asked the U.N. officials and today I ask
Members of Congress and other people gathered throughout the
world to fight for the freedom and human rights of North
Koreans and repatriated defectors who do not even have the
right to know or the right to own anything and who have no
freedom at all in North Korea.
I will now read a poem that I wrote for a book of poetry
that I wrote in memory of the prisoners that dies in the prison
camp, and it is titled, ``Is Anyone There?''
I am afraid. Is anyone out there?
This is hell. Is anyone out there?
Despite my urgent pleas, no one is opening the door for me.
Is anyone there?
Please hear our cries.
Hear the pain of us getting stepped on.
Is anyone there?
Is anyone there?
People are dying. My friend is dying also.
I am calling and calling. Why is there no answer?
Is there really no one there?
There's a poet--Dutch poet by the name of Job Degenaar and
he said, ``The doors to prison must be opened from the
outside.''
And so I appeal to you, to the United States, to South
Korea, to all of us here to find many ways we can open the
doors to North Korea.
And when you meet people from North Korea once it becomes a
free country and the people of North Korea ask you, what have
you done as earlier beneficiaries of freedom that we do not
have, all of us will have a good answer in reply to those North
Koreans.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Ji follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
----------
Mr. Smith. Ms. Ji, thank you very much for that very moving
and inspiring testimony and also your challenge to each of us
to do more.
There are all of us out there but there needs to be more of
us and we need to raise our voices even more effectively and
louder as we go forward. So thank you for that call.
Ms. Hee.
STATEMENT OF MS. HAN GA HEE (ALIAS), NORTH KOREAN DEFECTOR,
ANNOUNCER AND SOUND ENGINEER, FREE NORTH KOREA RADIO
[The following statement and answers were delivered through
an interpreter.]
Ms. Hee. Hello. Thank you very much for this opportunity to
be a witness in this hearing.
My name is Han Ga Hee. I escaped from North Korea into
China and in China I was human trafficked, and while being
trafficked I was given a Bible and the Bible became my light,
and eventually I found my way to South Korea and I am here
before you.
I am still living the fears that I had back in China. I had
a knife put to my neck and the choice was either that I get
married to a Chinese man living in the countryside or else.
Those were the choices I had and those are the fears that I
still live every night.
I was caught three times and I was sold three times, and
after the third time that I was human trafficked I found an
escape.
Since this was during winter time at minus 30 Celsius, I
had escaped to ensure that my footprint would not be found. So
I had to walk in the little stream that was there and as a
result I had frostbite, and the frostbite keeps on reminding me
of what happened. Every winter I get them back.
However, this is not something that I myself am the only
one living with. It's something that many of the refugees from
North Korea are living with and also especially true for
children from North Korea.
What I had led was a very harsh life and what I had to
endure was very dreadful. But for me, there was hope. The hope
came in the name of freedom, Free North Korea Radio.
When I had initially heard the broadcasting on Free North
Korea Radio, initially I had thought actually this was sort of
a propagation by South Korea, possibly by the National
Intelligence Service of the South Korean Government in order to
lure North Koreans into South Korea.
There is a movie that's widely shown in North Korea. It's
called ``Psychological Warfare.'' Basically, the story goes
South Korean Government lures North Korean people into South
Korea, takes their intelligence, and kills them all.
When I watched the movie, I truly believed this was what
was taking place, and not just me but I believe other North
Koreans also believed that to be true.
Well, one of the programs that was quite impressive to me
when I heard in China broadcasted by Free North Korea Radio was
about Seong Hye-rim. The title of the program was, ``I am
Friend of Seong Hye-rim.''
Seong Hye-rim is a wife to Kim Jong-il, and in that program
I heard about all the women that Kim Jong-il and Kim Il-song
around them and all the womanizing that took place. It was a
shock to me because these are the very people that we had
worshipped while we were in North Korea but I came to realize
that they were trash of human beings.
And also, we had been told that Hwang Jang-yop, the
Secretary, had been killed by commandoes sent by North Korea to
South Korea. However, through the broadcasting we learned that
he was alive and well and I heard his voice and many of the
messages that he had sent for us.
While I was living in China, hiding from the authorities, I
really wanted freedom and I realized freedom was not free--that
I could not just sit still and try to get freedom. I had to
find my way to freedom.
So what happened was in August 2008, I was given a compass
and just a compass--that's all I had--and I walked across the
deserts of Mongolia. I believe it was Gobi Desert that I
crossed and eventually ended up in South Korea.
Even today, there are many North Koreans who are living in
China and they want freedom. However, these people are in fear
of the Chinese authorities who are repatriating these people to
North Korea.
And when these North Koreans are repatriated back into
North Korea, what is waiting for them is not all that pleasant.
Many would be sent to political prisons. Others would be
tortured and some may even be executed.
One time I was cut by the authorities and I was sent to a
state security prison, and in the prison I stayed there for
about 15 days. I recall there was a woman who was repatriated
from China.
She was pregnant and the guards yelled out that she was
pregnant with impure blood, and I believe that she was beaten
to the point where the pregnancy was terminated.
However, the actual beating was not by the guards but at
the command of the guards the North Korean men who were
repatriated, these were the people who were forced into beating
the woman, and what choice did these men have?
Well, it's laughable that on the World Human Rights Day
that North Koreans would come out and say that they do respect
human rights.
Well, these are the people who still, to this date, are
carrying out public executions and also they consider their
residents less than logs or coals.
Perhaps the biggest abuse of human rights by North Koreans
would be starvation that North Korean people are having to
suffer and also the nonprovision of the bare necessities that
these people need to have as human beings.
And let me speak briefly on my father, who had to have his
legs amputated. He went to China looking for food for us.
However, he was caught and later had to amputate his legs for
some reasons.
And why was it that he had to lose his legs? Well, after
having been caught by the military, he was sent to a prison and
at the prison actually he was facing the Tumen River on a
certain night and he did not have anything on him.
He was completely naked and he was forced to kneel looking
toward the Tumen River. It was minus 30 degrees Celsius and he
was beaten by a leather belt and thereafter he was left
kneeling, looking toward the river, for the night and as a
result he had frostbite and his legs had to be amputated.
And after the amputation it didn't take long for his life
to be ended. It is laughable that they would have a declaration
of human rights when the regime itself is carrying out all
these atrocities including stratification of people into
classes based on who they were born or based on their lineages
and not even providing the basic necessities required for human
beings.
The ruthlessness of the North Korean regime has gotten even
worse since Kim Jong-un has come into power in 2011. However,
this tyranny cannot last forever. We know that.
And the very reason why he carries out these politics of
fear is because there is collapse that's taking place
internally in North Korea and this is very apparent by hearing
from North Koreans who have escaped. One would be the very
soldier who had escaped through the joint security area not too
long ago and then there are other North Korean refugees who
have been interviewed by our radio.
And what we do at the Free North Korea Radio is to listen
to the refugees. We use their voices and we compare the lives
of North Koreans and South Koreans and also tell the truth
about what takes place outside of North Korea.
And what we do is we have network of people in North Korea
including elites of North Korea who would be provide
intelligence and information to us and those information are
disseminated through broadcasting.
Included in our activities are not just the broadcasting
but also sending materials into North Korea by way of crossing
the border between China and North Korea.
We have sent many USBs, SD cards, CD players, and radios to
North Korea, and of the refugees that have been surveyed, 5 to
10 percent of the people have stated that they have actually
heard broadcasting through Free North Korea Radio.
When we are talking about North Korea, they are completely
eliminating flow of information from outside. When you say 5 to
10 percent of people have heard, that's a lot of numbers.
And also for 10 minutes per day we have music that's
played. But this is actually a play on words because we use the
North Korean music but we change the lyrics so that it's not
about Kim Jong-un or Kim Jong-il any longer.
For example, there would be music titled, ``In My Father's
Footsteps'' and we would switch the word father into Jesus, and
also that ``We trust in the general'' the general would be
changed into ``in our God.''
By using the tunes that are familiar to North Koreans but
changing the lyrics, it's gotten easier for us to get the
information into North Korea and into the heads of these
people.
My mother still remains in North Korea and I have heard
through certain people that she's doing okay and that she's
also worshiping the God that I believe in.
So the sarcastic saying is that amongst North Korean people
North Korea is known as a capitalistic society with a twist,
and what that tells us is that there is tremendous internal
collapse that's taking place in North Korea.
And that is why Kim Jong-un is ruling by fear. He knows
that his control and grasp on North Korean people is slipping.
Mr. Smith. If I could just interrupt 1 second, and I would
ask you to continue your testimony momentarily.
Just to ask a couple of questions--I have to leave. One of
my bills, H.R. 3655, is on the floor in about 5 or 10 minutes.
I will come back as soon as it's over.
Dan Donovan, thankfully, has agreed to take the chair. So
please come back. But I would want you and Ms. Ji to address,
if you would, you have said that Kim Jong-un--it's even worse.
Suzanne Scholte, who is the sole Peace Prize Laureate who
has testified numerous times before this and other committees
of Congress, points out that it's even worse under Xi Jinping
because of his policies.
So it's worse in China. It's worse in North Korea under Kim
Jong-un. If you could elaborate on that it would be very
helpful.
If we were a panel of Chinese leaders, what would you say
to them, especially it is illegal for them to forcibly
repatriate North Korean defectors pursuant to the Refugee
Convention to which, as we all know, they are signatories to.
And finally, if you could speak to the issue of the cult of
Kim--the godlike cult that they--and Juche that they inculcate
beginning from the earliest years. How did you break out from
that, since the propaganda is ever present and all--other than
the great work you're doing, the information flow almost never
happens during all of those formative years. So people come to
believe that Kim is God--if you could speak to that.
And I will have to read your answers on the transcript as I
run off to this hearing.
Voice. Can she finish her prepared statement?
Mr. Smith. Of course. Please finish it. Exactly.
Ms. Hee. And in times like this, it's more important that
we get the right information into North Korea so we need to
make sure that there is a steady flow of information into North
Korea so the people in North Korea would come to realize what
is really taking place out there.
And so my focus is really on information flow. We need to
have more information, more truth be told to the people of
North Korea, to have this information flowing into North Korea,
and in this regard we seek help from the U.S. Government and
the U.S. Congress.
And I hope and I believe, once we have this information
going into North Korea that the collapse of North Korea would
be not in the distant future but tomorrow.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Hee follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
----------
Mr. Donovan [presiding]. Thank you, Ms. Hee.
I am not too sure if you remember the chairman's questions.
He wanted those answered. So he could read the transcript.
So I'd ask Ms. Ji if you would answer the chairman's
questions first and then, Ms. Hee, you can answer the questions
as well.
Ms. Ji. So I'll answer the congressman's second part of the
question, which was if Chinese leaders were sitting in front of
me how I would address them, and the first thing I would tell
them is that the Chinese Government must stop the policy of
forced repatriation of North Korean defectors back to North
Korea.
And North Korean defector women have become sort of a
commodity in the sense that when they are being led away by
unscrupulous Chinese brokers, the Chinese security apparatus
members, some of them they will intercept this transaction and
they themselves will get involved with the human trafficking
and, in turn, sell the women to the highest bidder to other
brokers. So this is happening in China right now among the
security people of China.
And I myself explain exactly that. I was actually in the
process of being sold by the Chinese security officials. But
because I was screaming and resisting so much, that's how I was
able to escape when they were sort of stunned at my resistance
that I showed to them when I was undergoing this treatment.
North Korean defector women are not commodity. They are not
material goods. They are human beings. And the fact that the
Chinese Government officials--security officials--are--some of
them are being involved with this is something that the
international community should not forget or forgive.
And the second thing that I would tell the Chinese
officials if they were sitting in front of me in this room
would be that the North Korean defector women who are forced to
marry the Chinese men, the mothers themselves are basically
stateless.
But when they become pregnant by the so-called Chinese
husband, the children that they bear they are stateless too.
They have no identity. They don't exist, according to the
Chinese Government. And in China right now, the mothers of
these children, many of them have been repatriated back to
North Korea.
So you have a lot of kids who are either orphans or who do
not have mothers or they basically are not cared for. So a lot
of these children born to Chinese fathers and North Korean
defector women are living in a very difficult situation in
China right now.
And what I would desire is that either process these
children to be sent to South Korea or grant them some sort of
identification or citizenship in China to these children born
to Chinese husbands and North Korean defector mothers.
And lastly, I would urge the Chinese Government to keep its
promise as a signatory to the convention relating to status of
refugees and to faithfully carry out its duties as a signatory
to that convention by protecting the North Korean defectors
that come into China instead of repatriating them.
Lastly, I would say, as I mentioned in my testimony, North
Korean defectors, when they are repatriated from China to North
Korea, they face unspeakable inhumane treatment, sometimes even
death, at the hands of the North Korean authorities.
So the Chinese Government should accept the North Korean
defectors that come to China and process them to be sent to
South Korea.
Mr. Donovan. Thank you very much.
Ms. Hee, would you mind answering the chairman's questions?
Ms. Hee. You ask how the current Kim Jong-un regime is
different from the previous Kim Jong-il regime.
Well, he is ruling by fear and it's very much of a fear
that's being put into the minds of North Koreans. Kim Jong-un
is a child who does not know the season and who in their right
mind would want to go up against a superpower that is the U.S.
and threaten the U.S. with nuclear capabilities that are not
even completely mature?
Well, my mom tells me when Kim Jong-il was in power, when
celebratory occasions, on holidays, that there would be
rationing provided by the government. But now that Kim Jong-un
is in power, we don't have any rationing at all on any
occasion.
And the rule of fear or rule by fear is one strike, you're
out. There are no generosities to be exhibited. We are not
aware of any government upon change of power to have over 300
elites of the government be publicly executed by way of air
guns. Actually, that would be anti-aircraft artillery. And why?
Why does he do that? Because he wants to rule by fear and this
is the way he does it.
And Kim Jong-un will continue to rule by fear. The way we
will be able to stop the rule by fear is not by restraining him
but alerting and raising the awareness amongst North Korean
people as to what's taking place outside, epically true about
South Korea--how much of a freedom and economic prosperity that
we live in.
And tying into the question about China, well, in order for
us to be able to stop this ruling by fear, the pressure should
not be on North Korea alone. The pressure should also be on
China.
What is true before is also true now, that China and the
Chinese people would say that they are pressuring North Korea.
No pressure there.
Do you know why Chinese authorities repatriate North
Koreans back to North Korea? For each person that's repatriated
there is a return. They get logs and they get coal.
The way I was caught by the Chinese authorities was an
informant talked about me and I understand that that informant
was getting 2,000 Chinese yuan. So per report that they make,
they get 2,000 yuan.
So when I was caught by the Chinese authorities, who are
known as Gong An, I asked them why do you have to take me and
why do you need to send me back to North Korea and what one of
the officers had told me was that he had to make a living and
this was an agreement between the governments.
They know very well that once we are repatriated we will be
suffering at the hands of North Korean guards. So the basic
idea--there is a math--that we may die once we get back to
North Korea but Chinese people would be getting the logs and
coal.
So about 70 percent of the North Korean territory and the
seas are really actually mined by the Chinese people. So when
that is true, would Chinese people really want to put the
pressure on North Korea and would they really want unification
on the Peninsula?
So we can talk all day and we can have all these slogans
asking for Chinese to put more pressure on North Korea. But
these would be empty slogans. Nothing would come of them. We
need to have real pressure that can be felt by the Chinese
people.
Thank you.
Mr. Donovan. Thank you very much. Thank you, both of you,
for your opening statements. Thank you for sharing your
horrific experiences with us.
I'd just like to ask one or two questions and then we have
a second panel, and you've been sitting there graciously for
over an hour for us.
About 70 percent of the people, refugees from North Korea,
are women. Why is that? Why do you feel most of the refugees
are women?
Ms. Hee. It's a strange question to answer but it's a good
question nevertheless, because we don't know why. But in North
Korea we have more women than men.
And also men are serving in the military. It's mandatory.
They have to serve for 13 years. So when you are stuck in a
system for 13 years you're not getting out easy.
For a woman, once we escape to China we have other means
for making a living. We can work in restaurants and we may even
be trafficked. But still, we get to eat. But that does not
happen for men. There are not a lot of things that they can do
in China and also once they go to China they get captured a lot
easier. It's just simply very hard for men to hide in China.
Mr. Donovan. Thank you very much.
I would just ask you, you were talking about when women
refugees then marry a Chinese man and have a baby, is the baby
repatriated back with the mother back to North Korea once
you're captured and if so, is there a difference if the child
is a boy compared to if the child is a girl?
Ms. Ji. I myself personally did not witness the children
born to defector women and Chinese fathers being repatriated
together with the North Korean defector women.
However, I am aware that there are cases where the children
born to--even though I haven't seen it myself, I am aware that
that does happen where the children born to the defector women
and the Chinese fathers are--if they are arrested together are
sent back--repatriated back to North Korea.
And regardless of whether that child is a boy or girl,
there is no difference in the eyes of the North Korean regime,
and usually they are sent to an orphanage and the mothers are
sent to a re-education prison camp for punishment.
Mr. Donovan. I was curious if the Chinese saw a difference
between a boy being born to a Chinese man.
Ms. Ji. The Chinese family members of the husband, if the
mother--the defector woman--gives birth to a boy, they prefer
sons, obviously. So they would prevent the mother from getting
pregnant again because if they have a boy then they are
satisfied.
That's what they would want, to just keep it at that in
terms of the viewpoint of the Chinese family and the Chinese
husband.
Mr. Donovan. Before I yield to Mr. Castro, if I could just
ask each of you--I think you touched on it in your opening
statement, Ms. Hee--but what would you like to see the United
States Government do?
Ms. Ji. Well, first of all, I would like to thank the U.S.
Government for its great interest and concern for the North
Korean human rights issue and also for, in recent days,
pressing for the increase and stronger sanctions to punish the
North Korean regime.
So I would like to express, first of all, my appreciation
for that position taken by the U.S. Government in terms of
dealing with the North Korean regime.
But I believe a stronger sanctions enforcement should be
put in place by the U.S. Government toward the North Korean
regime.
And in addition to strengthening sanctions against the
regime, the U.S. Government should expand and increase the
activities of information dissemination into North Korea, and
the latest ways that the U.S. can do that is to provide
internet by using satellite, for example, and that's one way
that the U.S. Government can help bring outside information to
the North Korean people directly, bypassing the regime's
control.
Mr. Donovan. Ms. Hee.
Ms. Hee. Would it be okay if I were to address an earlier
question about repatriation of kids?
Mr. Donovan. Yes. Certainly.
Ms. Hee. Yes, that does take place in China. So under two
separate scenarios, one would be if, as a mother, you are
caught on the streets with your child, then you would both get
repatriated. And also, if there is a raid and the child does
not want to detach itself from the mother, then they both get
repatriated.
And who actually does the repatriation? The Chinese
Government. That's what they do. They are smiling behind their
curtains, and we have all these slogans--all these empty
slogans that are not heard by anybody in China.
Mr. Donovan. My last question the committee would like to
have at least on the record about reports recently that the
Chinese Government is building at least five refugee camps
along the border. I am curious whether your sources can confirm
that and what you think that may mean.
Ms. Hee. I believe that's in the news but I don't believe
that was confirmed yet and through our sources we have not been
able to confirm it. So maybe it's not happening.
Ms. Ji. So I myself, even though I've heard of those
reports of the Chinese Government supposedly building these
facilities, I don't know for sure but I do know for a fact that
through people that have contacted me from inside China and
other sources that the Chinese Government, they fear a rush of
North Korean people escaping from North Korea in case there is
a war or some sort of major event happening.
So to prevent that that the Chinese Government on the
Chinese side of the border they have reinforced the
surveillance and the security in the region, for example,
putting up more electrified fences and strengthening on the
Chinese side their mechanisms to prevent North Koreans from
crossing over in case of a major event.
Mr. Donovan. I thank you both for your diligence and the
chair now recognizes the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Castro.
Mr. Castro. Thank you. Thank you for your courage and your
bravery and also for coming here to testify today.
I have a question about the families that are left behind
after people leave North Korea, after they defect. How are
those family members treated after people leave North Korea?
Ms. Hee. I escaped alone. I have my family still in North
Korea. I think my family is still safe. That's because North
Korean authorities do not really know that I am here.
So I have also feared for the safety of my family and so I
have thus far not worked in the open. So in November of this
year, I had a teleconversation with my mom and I told mom that
I would like to do more activities in the open regarding human
rights, and this would bring about unification on the Korean
Peninsula sooner, I told her.
But I also told her I was very much in fear for her
welfare. And what my mom told me was that each day it's
becoming harder for her to breathe and that she would die one
way or another.
She didn't care, and she told me that I should do what I
thought was the right thing to do. And that is why I am now in
the open for 8 years working for Free North Korea Radio. No one
knew of my identity. Now, perhaps, they do.
Mr. Castro. And you live in South Korea now?
Ms. Hee. Yes.
Mr. Castro. Okay. I have a follow-up question but I wanted
to give you an opportunity to answer the same question.
Ms. Ji. So as I mentioned in my testimony, all my family
members are with me in South Korea except for my father, who
has been missing for the past 19 years, and I have been able to
get in touch with my aunt, who is still in North Korea. I have
been able to send her money and also every once in a while call
her as well.
But it's been about 10 years since I've been an active
human rights activist out in the open. I've written two books
already.
But it's been more than a year that I have had trouble
trying to get in touch with my aunt. So perhaps the regime has
finally caught up to what I am doing and perhaps did something
to my aunt. I don't know. But it's been hard for me to get in
touch with my aunt.
Mr. Castro. You don't know if she's been punished or what
happened?
Ms. Ji. So I was able to send somebody through, using
brokers and through sending money to send somebody to my aunt's
house in her village. But the report I got back was that the
house was empty. There was nobody at the house. So something
happened to my aunt. I just don't know exactly what happened to
her.
Mr. Castro. And are you living in Seoul now or in South
Korea?
Ms. Ji. Yes, I am living in South Korea.
Mr. Castro. Well, I have a question for both of you.
One of the goals for a long time for the people of South
Korea and, I imagine, many people in North Korea has been for
unification of what for decades now has been two separate
countries.
And I asked the same question of another defector when we
did a larger Foreign Affairs panel--the main committee panel--a
few months ago.
Is reunification realistic, given the fact that these
countries have been separate countries now for many decades and
you have now seen both societies--both North Korea and South
Korea.
How significant are the differences? Can those differences
be bridged for reunification?
Ms. Ji. So as you mentioned, I did experience both life in
North Korea and now I am living in South Korea, and North Korea
is a Communist regime and South Korea is a free market
capitalist society.
And for me, upon my first time being in South Korea as I
started my resettlement it was very difficult for me to adjust
to a life of freedom and a free market capitalist environment.
However, after some time I was able to adjust very well
into this democratic free society in South Korea and so far
there have been up to around 32,000 North Korean defectors that
have resettled in South Korea and out of the 32,000 defectors I
would say about 80 percent of those defectors in South Korea
like myself are able to send money to our relatives and family
members in North Korea.
So I have heard from not only the sources in North Korea
but from other sources as well that many North Korean people in
North Korea who have family members in South Korea have been
aware that South Korea is a country that is rich, that is
abundant, and that South Korean products are sought after, and
that in some cases the high-ranking officials even want to
marry off their children to family members of North Koreans who
have people that have escaped to South Korea because that means
they are able to get money from their relatives in South Korea.
So that's been the sort of shift that's happened in North
Korea regarding their views on South Korea and South Koreans.
And you mentioned the differences between North Korea and
South Korea. So I would say that even though North Korea may be
a Communist system on the outside, but inside the people,
because of the emerging markets and because of the capitalist
ventures started by many citizens in North Korea, many North
Korean citizens are more aware of and they have become very
well attuned to the free market capitalist ideals that we would
find in South Korea, for example.
And I personally believe that this may lead to a quicker
fall of the regime and an even faster reunification of the two
Koreas in the Korean Peninsula.
Mr. Castro. I yield back. Thank you.
Mr. Smith [presiding]. Thank you.
I want to thank our very distinguished and courageous panel
for your testimony and, above all, for your life's work, which
has been extraordinary.
And some day, when North Koreans are free you will be among
the true heroes who helped make it happen. So thank you so very
much.
Ms. Ji. Thank you very much.
Mr. Smith. Dan, thank you.
I would like to now welcome our second panel, if I could,
to the witness table, beginning first with Ambassador Robert
King, and I want to say a big welcome back to Dr. King, who,
for so many years, sat over here with Tom Lantos as his top
chief of staff. So it's great to have Ambassador King back.
He, as I think most will know, was our special envoy for
North Korean human rights issues from 2009 to 2017. Since
leaving the department he is senior advisor to the Korea chair
at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
For 25 years--a quarter of a century--from '83 to '08
Ambassador King served as chief of staff to Congressman Tom
Lantos when Mr. Lantos became ranking minority member and then
chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Dr. King served as committee staff director, and that was
from '01 to 2008. In addition to his full time jobs, Dr. King
has taught courses in U.S. foreign policy and international
relations at the University of Southern California German study
program, Brigham Young University study abroad program,
American University in Washington, DC, New England College in
New Hampshire.
Ambassador King is the author of five books and over 40
articles on international relations topics. We welcome him back
again to the committee.
I would like to then welcome and introduce Greg Scarlatoiu
with the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea. He's the
executive director of the committee.
He has coordinated 20 HRNK publications addressing North
Korea's human rights situation and the operation of its regime.
He is a visiting professor at the Hankuk University of Foreign
Studies in Seoul as well as instructor and coordinator of the
Korean Peninsula and Japan class at the U.S. Department of
State's Foreign Service Institute.
Prior to HRNK, Mr. Scarlatoiu was with the Korea Economic
Institute. He has over 6 years of experience in international
development on projects by the U.S. Agency for International
Development, the World Bank, and the Asia Development Bank.
In 14 years he has authored and broadcast weekly in the
Korean language. It's called the Scarlatoiu Column and it's
with Radio Free Asia.
A seasoned lecturer on Korean issues, Mr. Scarlatoiu is a
frequent commentator for CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera, Voice of
America, Radio Free Asia, and other media operations. He has
appeared as an expert witness at several congressional hearings
on North Korean human rights and so we welcome him back today
as well.
And our third distinguished panelist will be Suzanne
Scholte, who is also making a trip back and in the past has
provided expert witnesses to this subcommittee and other
committees of Congress including, as I mentioned earlier, the
first women who were ever trafficked that came forward and
spoke at a congressional hearing--trafficked, that is, from
North Korea into China--and it was extraordinarily moving
testimony.
She is considered one of the world's leading activists in
the North Korean human rights movement. She has spent the past
two decades promoting the freedom and dignity of the North
Korean people and is currently president of the Defense Forum
Foundation, a nonprofit foundation promoting a strong national
defense and freedom, democracy, and human rights abroad.
In 1996, she began a program to host the first North Korean
defectors in the United States, giving them a voice to speak
out about atrocities being committed against the people of
North Korea including the political prison camps and the
horrific treatment of refugees.
She has led international efforts to pressure China to end
their horrific repatriation policy and has been involved in the
rescue of hundreds of North Koreans escaping their country.
Currently, she also serves as the chairwoman of the North
Korea Freedom Coalition, vice co-chair of the Committee for
Human Rights in North Korea, and honorary chair of the Free
North Korea Radio.
I welcome all three of our distinguished panelists and I
yield the floor to Dr. King.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE ROBERT KING, SENIOR ADVISER, KOREA
CHAIR, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES (FORMER
U.S. SPECIAL ENVOY FOR NORTH KOREAN HUMAN RIGHTS ISSUES)
Mr. King. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
It's a pleasure to be back with you again. Usually I sat on
the other side behind you and Mr. Lantos. It's a different
position to be down here today but I am glad to be ``home.''
I want to thank you for your focus on human rights and for
what you have done with the subcommittee in terms of calling
attention to these issues and problems.
I want to commend you on the caliber of the witnesses--the
other witnesses that have testified today. It was extremely
helpful to have these two women who have, at great difficulty,
been able to leave North Korea and talk about their
experiences, and again, it's a pleasure to be here with Greg
and with Suzanne to talk about these issues.
Refugees or defectors who have chosen to leave North Korea
is one of the key issues in the broader question of human
rights in the North.
There has been a steady flow of defectors from the North
since the famine of the late 1990s. Over the last two decades,
some 30,000 North Koreans have fled the country. The vast
majority have resettled in South Korea.
The concern of Americans to help these defectors from the
North was one of the principal factors behind the adoption of
the North Korea Human Rights Act in 2004.
Since the adoption of that legislation, the State
Department and other Federal agencies have helped some 250
North Korean refugees resettle in the United States.
Most refugees, however, have chosen to settle in South
Korea because of the familiarity of language and culture, as
well as to join family members who are already there.
The number of refugees leaving North Korea annually has
recently declined. The high point, in about 2011, was some
3,000 annually.
But tighter control of the borders by the North and
difficulty getting through China has caused that number to fall
to less than 1,500 last year. The numbers this year look like
they will be even lower.
Virtually all defectors who flee North Korea today do so
through China. Very, very few have been able to cross the
inner-Korean border.
A few weeks ago we saw a very rare exception when a North
Korean soldier was seriously wounded as he tried to escape and
fled through the DMZ.
This indicates both the danger and how uncommon it is for
defectors to go directly from the North into South Korea.
For those who escape through China, there are very serious
problems from being trafficked, sold as virtual slaves, or
being returned to the North.
In the past, when relations were good between China and
North Korea, most defectors captured in China were quickly
returned to North Korea where they were sent to brutal re-
education camps that earlier witnesses have talked about here.
A couple of years ago, I had a particularly memorable
conversation in South Korea with a young women who had fled the
North. She was finally able to reach the South.
I asked her if this had been her first attempt. She said,
``Oh, no. This was my sixth try.'' Five times previously, she
sought to leave. Five times she was captured either in North
Korea before she left or as she crossed into China.
She was returned to North Korean authorities and spent many
months each time in a re-education camp where she was brutally
treated.
On her sixth attempt, she and a friend who was going to
leave with her, decided to go but they also decided to take
with them poison tablets. Rather than be forcibly returned
again and sent to a re-education camp they would have taken
their own lives.
In the past, Mr. Chairman, when Chinese relations with
South Korea have been good and China's relationship with the
North has been strained, defectors have been allowed to go to
South Korea.
A couple of years ago in a very highly unusual arrangement,
China allowed some 13 or 14 North Korean restaurant workers to
fly directly from China to South Korea where they were
resettled.
A year or so ago, however, after the United States, with
the cooperation and approval of the South Korean Government,
established a THAAD missile battery in the South, this led to
strained relations between China and South Korea.
Since that time, it has, again, been more difficult for
defectors from the North to reach South Korea through China.
The United States Government has strongly supported South
Korean efforts to assist defectors reach the South. On many
occasions, I personally raised with senior Chinese Government
officials our concern that defectors be permitted to flee the
North, if that was their wish.
I know that other, more senior State Department officials
have also raised this matter with senior Chinese officials.
Mr. Chairman, it's important that the United States
continue to urge China to allow defectors to resettle elsewhere
and if they wish to go to the South, our Government should
continue to support South Korean Government efforts to help
those people.
Congressional support for refugees such as through the
reauthorization of the North Korea Human Rights Act is
important, and I urge approval of that reauthorization
legislation. It has already been adopted in the House. It's now
awaiting action in the Senate. But it's urgent and it's
important that the legislation be reauthorized.
A second matter that I was asked to talk about was the
issue of providing free and unfettered information to the
people of North Korea. The availability of accurate information
about events beyond the borders in the North is extremely
important to the North Korean people.
Information limits Pyongyang's ability to manipulate its
own citizens, and we must continue to encourage the free flow
of information into North Korea. Although it is illegal to own
a radio or television capable of being tuned to stations other
than the official government station, based on survey research
we estimate that as many as a third of North Koreans listen to
foreign radio broadcasts, particularly programs from Voice of
America and Radio Free Asia funded by U.S. congressional
appropriations.
These are extremely important. There are other creative and
innovative programs which we fund--the U.S. Government funds--
to get digital information to the North Korean people. These
efforts need to be fully funded, encouraged, and expanded.
Mr. Chairman, military options against North Korea are
severely limited. But one thing that we can do that will
encourage positive change in the North is to increase the flow
of accurate information from the outside world.
Our human rights efforts are an important aspect of our
policy toward North Korea. We must not underestimate the value
and importance of those efforts.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I look forward to any
questions that you have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. King follows:]
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Mr. Smith. Thank you, Ambassador King.
Mr. Scarlatoiu.
STATEMENT OF MR. GREG SCARLATOIU, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, THE
COMMITTEE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS IN NORTH KOREA
Mr. Scarlatoiu. Mr. Chairman, thank you for the invitation
to testify before you and the subcommittee today. It is a true
honor and a privilege.
The most critical challenge our country faces today is the
nuclear and ballistic missile threat posed by the regime of Kim
Jong-un.
Grateful for the subcommittee's unabated determination to
protect North Korean refugees in China, I respectfully urge you
to continue to consider the vital importance of formulating and
adopting a robust human rights policy including a North Korean
refugee protection policy that can be integrated into U.S.
security policy toward both China and North Korea's Kim regime.
In 2014, China received a warning by the U.N. Commission of
Inquiry that its policy of forcefully repatriating North Korean
refugees could potentially amount to aiding and abetting North
Korean perpetrators of crimes against humanity.
China has been put on notice that its policies, practices,
and support for North Korea are unacceptable. Yet, at the
fourth annual U.N. Security Council meeting on human rights
abuses in North Korea held yesterday, China called for a
procedural vote to stop the public meeting.
This effort failed but China persists in its efforts to
support the Kim regime as evidenced by its forcible
repatriation of North Korean refugees.
Up to 80 percent of North Korean refugees in China are
women. In the absence of any semblance of protection, they fall
victim to human traffickers and other criminals.
Many of those forced into sexual bondage under the guise of
marriage with Chinese men in rundown rural areas are often
abused by the would-be spouse and the entire family.
Their children's human security is beyond precarious. China
denies North Korean children the right to education, health,
and personal security as well as liberty when they are
detained, awaiting forcible repatriation.
Our 2015 HRNK report, ``The Hidden Gulag IV,'' documents
the particular vulnerabilities of North Korean women jailed in
a network of political prison camps--kwan-li-so--and labor
camps--kyo-hwa-so.
Increasingly, these facilities house women who have
attempted to flee the country and here rates of mortality,
malnutrition, forced labor, and exploitation are high.
China does not uphold its obligations under international
law, as evidenced by the forcible repatriation of North Korean
refugees in need of protection.
China denies many North Koreans the ability to apply for
asylum or have safe passage to the Republic of Korea or other
countries. China claims that North Koreans are illegal economic
migrants.
In reality, however, not only are North Koreans targeted
for escaping the totalitarian state, but they are targeted by
the Chinese Government and ultimately victimized again once
repatriated to North Korea and imprisoned. It truly is a
vicious cycle of political oppression and violence perpetrated
against countless innocents.
Mr. Chairman, I respectfully recommend the following.
First, the United States should urge China to immediately halt
its forcible repatriation of North Korean refugees and thus
fulfill its obligations under international treaties and
customary international law.
Second, the United States should call upon China to allow
the U.N. High Commission for Refugees unimpeded access to North
Koreans inside China to determine whether they are refugees and
whether they require assistance.
Third, the United States should call upon China to adopt
legislation incorporating its international obligations under
the Refugee Convention and the Convention Against Torture.
It should be expected to declare and uphold a moratorium on
deportations of North Koreans until its laws and practices are
brought into line with international standards.
Fourth, the United States should call upon China to
recognize the legal status of North Koreans who marry or who
have children with Chinese citizens and to ensure that all such
children are granted resident status and access to education
and other public services in accordance with both Chinese law
and international standards.
Fifth, in the absence of a Chinese response the issue
should be brought before international refugee and human rights
fora.
UNHCR's executive committee as well as the U.N. 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.
Sixth, the United States should promote a multilateral
approach to the problem of North Koreans leaving their country
based on the principles of non-refoulement and human rights and
humanitarian protection.
Building on the precedent of other refugee populations,
international burden sharing should be developed to protect
North Koreans seeking to escape the tyranny of the Kim regime.
Seventh, following the passage of the North Korean Human
Rights Reauthorization Act of 2017, which mandates the position
of the special envoy for North Korean human rights, I
respectfully urge the U.S. Congress to encourage the prompt
appointment of a qualified candidate.
I strongly believe that this particular issue merits the
full time high-profile focus across various agencies that the
special envoy has so effectively brought and would continue to
bring.
And eighth, and finally, additional funds should be
appropriated for clandestine information flows into North
Korea, for nongovernmental organizations working to improve
human rights in North Korea, and for the resettlement of North
Korean refugees in the United States.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Scarlatoiu follows:]
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----------
Mr. Smith. Thank you very much for your leadership and for
that very detailed set of recommendations.
Ms. Scholte.
STATEMENT OF MS. SUZANNE SCHOLTE, PRESIDENT, DEFENSE FORUM
FOUNDATION, CHAIRWOMAN, NORTH KOREA FREEDOM COALITION
Ms. Scholte. First of all, I know I am going to embarrass
you when I say this but I can't help it, Congressman Smith.
[Laughter.]
The last time we were together there were 18 North Korean
defectors in your office, and I have to tell you when we walked
out of there, those defectors said, ``That is the greatest man
we've ever met,'' because you were so great to them and you
have been focussing on this issue for decades.
And so I thank you so much for your leadership on this, for
your bringing this hearing together today and I just wanted to
say what a great, awesome person you've been.
I am also really happy to be here with Bob King, whose door
was always open, who was always ready to help us when found out
about a refugee that was in danger, always willing to speak out
in--from small towns to college campuses and really raise the
North Korean human rights profiles--issues as the special envoy
for President Obama.
And also for my colleague, Greg--one of the things on my
top 10 list of good things I've done in my life was insisting
that he become the executive director of HRNK. So I am really
glad to be with these gentleman.
So I have a very extended written testimony I've already
submitted so I am going to be really brief and try to stay
within the five--I think I got this down to 5 minutes 8
seconds.
So anyway, I want to make three main points. One, the
situation facing North Korean refugees in China is worse than
ever. Xi Jinping has brought us to a crisis stage because of
his support for the regime.
Today we are relying on China to help us make sanctions
effective to rein in Kim Jong-un's nuclear ambitions. But if
China continues to forcefully repatriate men, women, and
children back to North Korea to face certain torture, certain
imprisonment, and, in some cases, execution, what does that
tell us about Xi Jinping's sincerity?
The international community must insist that China and its
cruel, inhumane, and illegal repatriation policy--China's
policy as been--as been pointed out is a death sentence for
North Koreans and as Ambassador King pointed out, 80 percent--
and talked about the defectors poisoning themselves--we know 80
percent of North Korean defectors carry poison to kill
themselves and we saw that dramatically happen this summer when
the Korean Workers Party member, his wife, and three children
committed suicide when the Chinese, on orders by Beijing,
ordered them back to North Korea after they begged to be
allowed to go to South Korea.
The Chinese Government continues to not only forcefully
repatriate refugees but refuses to allow the UNHCR any access,
but also gives free rein to North Korean agents to hunt down
the refugees and those that try to help them.
We have seen the murder of Chinese citizens. We have seen
the abduction of South Koreans. And what do they have in
common? They have been involved in the North Korean refugee
movement.
So that's the point that we've reached right now with
China. China has only two choices. It can continue to support
the Kim dictatorship and this will ensure an escalating nuclear
arms race in Asia, which could have horrific and devastating
consequences, especially for the people of Korea.
Or the other choice, which is for China to work with South
Korea and the international community for peaceful unification
under South Korea's democratic policies.
And I just want to give one example. The gentleman
mentioned THAAD. I think both of you mentioned the THAAD.
Why did South Korea need THAAD? The only reason why South
Korea needed THAAD was because of Kim Jong-un's nuclear
threats, and this is an illustration of why China needs to
decide whether it's going to continue to support this regime or
work with South Korea and bring about the end of the Kim
regime.
Second point--this is very critical, too--we need to
recognize what the people of North Korea have done internally
and externally to change their circumstances and support the
work of the defector-led organizations.
They are our greatest allies for peaceful regime change. We
all see the pictures of the goose-stepping soldiers and the
fawning men and women in front of the Kim statues and we think
it's a hopeless situation.
But in this great darkness of North Korea, I see the light
of the North Korean people because those are the people I have
been working with for over 20 years.
The reality is--we must think of this--the reality is that
the people of North Korea have accomplished amazing things.
It's the people externally who educated us, first of all, about
the human rights tragedy--the crimes against humanity, the Kim
dictatorships. But it's the people internally who are also
educating themselves about the outside world.
It's the women of North Korea who internally created the
market system and the ones externally who are involved the most
in the rescue movement.
I know a North Korean woman who has rescued 7,000 North
Koreans. I call her the Harriet Tubman of North Korea.
North Korean defectors like Park Sang-hak of Fighters for
Free North Korea regularly sends in information through balloon
watches and he says, ``All I am doing is sending letters home
about the truth.''
The North Korean People's Liberation Front, men and women
who served in the North Korean military, are sending in
information and reaching out to the military in North Korea,
citing the examples of what happened in Romania when the
military sided with the people against the dictator.
Every North Korea Freedom Week we have a very emotional
ceremony with the North Korean People's Liberation Front
members, men and women who served in the military, raised to
hate Americans, think we caused the war.
They go to the Korean War Memorial to lay a wreath and they
pledge to honor the sacrifice that the Americans made for South
Korea's freedom by dedicating their own lives to North Korea's
freedom.
As you heard from Ms. Han from Free North Korea Radio, a
radio station founded by North Korean defector Kim Sung-min and
staffed by defectors, it is broadcasting every day. It is the
most popular single program broadcasting into North Korea.
And one of the exciting things we do for Free North Korea
Radio is create programs for them to communicate to the people
of North Korea that we are not their enemy.
One program includes messages from Members of Congress in
which we simply asked members to send their hopes and dreams to
the people of North Korea.
The response from North Koreans to this program was
absolutely amazing. During this year's North Korea Freedom
Week, defectors brought portraits made of Members of Congress,
including our distinguished chairman here today--Congressman
Smith, and Congressman Royce, the chairman of the full
committee.
These portraits were smuggled out. They were made in
Pyongyang by two brothers. It took them 3 months, and the
portraits came out with the message, ``Tell the American
politicians who deliver the messages my brother and I spent 3
months making them late into the night. Please tell them there
are some people in a dark place who still have hope.'' And you
know how beautiful--they were the most beautiful artwork I've
ever seen. They shimmered.
The defectors tell us that if they had the resources to
carry out their work of getting information in and out of North
Korea, the regime could end in 3 years or less.
Otherwise, it could survive for another 5 to 10 years.
My third and final point, we must keep the human rights
issues at the forefront, and Greg mentioned the importance of
the human rights up front approach. We have to keep our
concerns for the people of North Korea at the forefront,
especially now--especially now with the escalating threats of
Kim Jong-un.
Otherwise, we play directly into Kim's propaganda that
justifies his nuclear ambitions--that we are their enemy and
the enemy of the people of North Korea.
We must communicate to the people of North Korea that what
the United States wants for them is to enjoy the same freedoms
that South Korea Americans enjoy.
The defectors keep repeating--repeating this to us. The
truth will set them free. Support the work of the defectors.
Help them get the information to North Korea.
And I am presenting to you this book today called, ``The
Accusation.'' This is the only dissident book from North Korea.
It was smuggled out at great risk to those involved. It was
smuggled out.
It was published in English earlier this year. The author
is still living in North Korea and he chose to use the
pseudonym Bandi--B-A-N-D-I, Bandi--because Bandi is the Korean
word for firefly. And he says he is the firefly shining a light
out of the darkness of North Korea.
He's just another example of the people of North Korea who
are another light shining out of this darkness. He's just
another example of another North Korean risking his life just
to get this message from his homeland to you.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Scholte follows:]
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----------
Mr. Smith. Ms. Scholte, thank you very much for your
extraordinary leadership over the course of over two decades.
It really has made a difference.
I do have a number of questions but I'll try to keep them a
little bit brief. If any of you would like to speak to the
issue of the cult of personality, which I think is grossly
underappreciated by the Pentagon and by many of the people
within our own military.
We know that when people believe that they are serving a
god--in this case, a demigod, someone who is actually doing
horrific things but claiming to be God--certainly, his
grandfather did--that the sense of extremism and obsession
almost knows no bounds.
I know a lot of Americans, when they see documentary
footage of people crying so profusely they think it's
orchestrated, people tell me, including experts like
yourselves, it's not.
They really do--okay, they can gin some of that up but so
much of it is from the earliest years inculcated into the minds
and hearts.
And I did ask our two previous witnesses, how do they break
free of that, and the truth does set you free but it has to be
applied over time which is why broadcasting and other means of
communication are so important.
But if you could speak to that whole issue of Juche. I've
read one book about it by a Christian who said you've got to
understand why they are so fanatical and why they will die in
large numbers for Kim, whoever the Kim might be at that time,
which we, again, under appreciate. The sense being able to
reason effectively goes out the window.
So I just ask you if you could speak to that first and then
I'll get to some other questions.
Mr. Scarlatoiu. Yes, Mr. Chairman.
Indoctrination begins at a very early age in North Korea.
It begins at the precognizant age. Babies in the cradle are
taught to point fingers to the pictures of Kim Il-song and Kim
Jong-il on the wall.
Laws are on paper. North Korea has a constitution that even
provides for freedom of religion and freedom of expression,
labor legislation, a criminal code.
But in practice, none of these laws are applied. North
Koreans do not know the international obligations that North
Korea has assumed by ratifying, for example, the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International
Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights or their own
legislation.
The only principles that govern each and every aspect of
life in North Korea are the Ten Principles of Monolithic
Ideology as evidenced in our recent research and publications
by Robert Collins. Each and every North Korean has to
participate in weekly ideological training sessions, self-
criticism sessions.
This is very much part of life. During those long years
that all men and many women spend in the military,
indoctrination is taken to the next stage. One has, of course,
to remember that the age of revolution in Budapest 1956, Prague
1968, or Bucharest 1989 was late teens, early 20s, mid-20s.
That's the age when each and every North Korean man is in a
military uniform. By the time they are done the age of
revolution has passed.
Juche--of course, this is North Korea's self-reliance
ideology. On the surface, it sounds very different from
Marxism. Marxism basically preaches that ownership of the means
of production is the main driver of history. Juche claims that
the individual is the main driver of history.
We had a senior fellow--resident senior fellow, very nice
lady, born and raised in North Korea. She used to be a
professor of Juche thought in North Korea. Now she's a
university professor in South Korea.
She would tell us every time we asked her about Juche,
don't worry about Juche. The only--the sole purpose of Juche is
to worship the leader, to solidify the leader's personality
cult.
Basically, the individual makes sense, individual life only
makes sense for as long as it's lived as part of the
commonwealth. Life makes sense only if it's lived for the sake
of the Supreme Leader.
As to information campaigns, the critical information
campaigns that we launched into North Korea must surely be
cognizant and fully knowledgeable of the different cognitive
processes in North Korea.
We must be fully cognizant that education is very
different. World views are very different. The way North
Koreans approach ideas is very different. So we are much better
off if we have former North Koreans in charge of working on
content and delivering this content perhaps in collaboration
with other organizations. But they must definitely be involved
in this process.
Mr. King. Mr. Chairman, one of the things that I think we
need to be careful about is that I am not sure the North
Koreans are as indoctrinated as we would sometimes think.
Barbara Demick, in her book, ``Nothing to Envy,'' talks
about what life was like in North Korea. One of the very
telling incidents she cites is about a particular family and
how they dealt with the death of Kim Il-sung in 1994.
The mother told the daughter, ``At school today you're
going to have a memorial service for Kim Il-sung. You have to
cry. You must have real tears. If you can't cry, spit in your
hand and wipe it on your eyes so that everyone will know that
you're crying.''
They understand and they can see that. It's a society where
to deviate becomes so difficult that people who may have
different views or see things differently don't talk about it
because of the nature of the society.
I think this is not a place where you've got to convince
people that other things are true. This is a place where people
need to have an opportunity to do that.
The key thing is making sure that we get information into
North Korea that provides an alternative explanation of what's
going on in the world and that, again, is the importance of
news broadcasting and information dissemination.
That is where we need to make sure that there is funding
for Voice of America, Radio Free Asia, and for the programs
that are being developed to do that.
Mr. Smith. Ms. Scholte.
Ms. Scholte. Well, first of all, I just want to tell you, I
totally agree with you that this--the understanding of the
Juche ideology is something that is completely under
appreciated.
The--one of the witnesses we had during North Korea Freedom
Week this last year was from Pyongyang. She was part of the
elites. She and her mom ran a restaurant, had the good life.
She was--she said that when Kim Jong-il died, they thought
they were all going to die, and I think maybe the Juche police
system is probably more powerful in Pyongyang because it's the
elites that are there and they are not--and they are more--
actually more isolated than people, like, for example, in the
border regions.
But I think it's a very important controlling system in the
brain, with the brainwashing from the start. But it's really
focused on the fact that the Kim family are God and Juche has
really become the worship.
Not the self-reliance that Hwang Jang-yop, who's the author
of Juche, established but the worship of the Kim dictatorship.
And Hwang Jang-yop interestingly pointed out when he
defected, he said the way to break the Juche ideology is with
the Holy Spirit. He actually became a Christian before he died,
and he was really involved with Free North Korea Radio and Ms.
Han cited the programs where they--these are programs that
are--that are done to worship the regime, the songs--I am
sorry, the songs that are meant.
They changed the wordings of the songs. And Greg mentioned
the importance of the messaging. That's exactly the kind of
thing to change to address that belief system directly with
truthful information, and this is one of the clever ways that
the North Koreans are being able to do it.
But I do think it's very important that we realize the cult
of personality that's part of this Juche and the brainwashing
that starts from the very moment they are children when they--
even math problems--``how many American GIs did you kill when
you threw a grenade.''
I mean, this starts at the very beginning. We need to be
aware of that.
And I'll finally say that the first defectors we brought
over, one was an army captain. It was back in 1997, an army
captain and a colonel, and they got up in front of the audience
and said, ``None of you guys look like wolves and your noses
are a lot smaller than I thought they were going to be''
because all Americans are supposed to have these long crooked
noses. But it's just part of that brainwashing that we need to
be aware of and that's why getting information is so important.
Mr. Smith. Mr. Scarlatoiu, you underscored that up to 90
percent of the North Korean women and girls in China fall prey
to traffickers in China who sell them into sexual slavery.
As you might know, I am the prime author of the Trafficking
Victims Protection Act and I tried for years to get China
designated as a Tier 3 country, an egregious violator, in part
because of the exploding sex trafficking within mainland China
but also in large part too because of so many North Koreans who
were so horrifically abused.
And, again, Ms. Scholte provided us with several witnesses
over the course of several hearings who were themselves
trafficked and told their stories again before this committee.
This year, the Trump administration has designated China
Tier 3, and in the narrative explaining that, great focus is
put on this trafficking problem.
They are not in freedom. They are in another kind of
slavery that they are trying to escape from in North Korea.
So my question would be, because we do have votes now so I
am going to ask a number of questions so that we can finish
before the voting is over, but if you could speak to that.
We are at the sanctions part now. Tier 3 has been
designated. At the time and place--anytime, any day now, the
administration could announce a series of sanctions toward
China.
What would you recommend that we do? There is a lot on the
plate that could be imposed and I think a designation without a
sanction weakens the designation significantly.
Secondly, on the issue of refoulement, which you spoke to
in your testimony, we know that the periodic review is coming
up in November 2018 under the Refugee Convention.
NGOs can begin submitting in the spring. But it seems to
me, this ought to be an engraved invitation for every one of us
to make China--China's sending people back to death--they are
taking poison to avoid it--and certainly to torture and
mistreatment in the gulag system.
This is an opportunity to begin even right now, and your
thoughts on that. And, of course, there are some--under
customary international law there are other obligations to
which China is obliged to. Any thoughts along those lines?
There was a report today of five refugee camps--you heard
it earlier mentioned to our two previous witnesses. Is that
because China thinks something is going to happen vis-a-vis a
war? Or is this just another modality of control that they are
seeking to impose?
The ICC, unfortunately, has had a very checkered--two
convictions in 14 years. The International Criminal Court has
not been that robust. But it seems to me, as you have been
saying, and as the U.N. Commission has found, or at least would
lead us to believe, when you're complicit in these crimes
you're complicit, and it would seem to me that not just North
Korea but the prosecutors should be looking at China's
complicity in this terrible death spiral that they are on now.
So if you could speak to that. I have many other questions
but we will run out of time, so please.
Mr. Scarlatoiu. Mr. Chairman, certainly, there is ample
evidence of the abuse that has affected North Korean women in
China for more than two decades now.
We have to take that leap--link China directly to the
egregious human rights violations affecting North Koreans and
in particular affecting North Korean refugees.
Perhaps we need to take a hard look at certain areas,
certain industries, certain areas of the economy that are more
closely related to this issue of North Korean refugees in
China--the lack of protection, the vulnerability of these
refugees, China's refoulement of North Korean refugees--take a
very hard look at areas that could be perhaps subjected to
sanctions.
In--as far as the refoulement issue is concerned, we often
hear the question as to why China is so reluctant to provide
protection to these North Korean refugees.
I would take the liberty of sharing a thought with you.
Perhaps China is afraid of a development similar to the
European picnic of the summer of 1989 when Hungary opened its
border to East Germans and this outflow of East Germans out of
East Germany was one of the fundamental factors that ultimately
brought about the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Clearly, if there is one step that China can take to make a
huge difference--a very significant difference, that would be
to stop the forcible repatriation of North Korean refugees.
The International Criminal Court--the referral of the Kim
regime by the U.N. Security Council to the International
Criminal Court was one of the fundamental recommendations made
in the February 2014 report of the U.N. Commission of Inquiry.
North Korea is not a party to the International Criminal Court.
Of course, the problem with the Security Council is that
the P5 members--the permanent members--have veto power and
China is one of them. The Russian Federation is, of course,
another one.
So we face the prospect of a Chinese or Russian veto. Where
we are right now is that for a fourth time yesterday, the North
Korean human rights issue was placed on the agenda of the U.N.
Security Council.
Now, placing the issue on the agenda is a procedural matter
that requires nine out of 15 votes of permanent and
nonpermanent members. Once the issue is taken up, it becomes
substantive and it becomes subject to a veto by one of the P5
members.
Another possibility that has been raised by international
human rights NGOs is the creation of a special tribunal through
the General Assembly.
The tool kit of accountability is a complex one and
pursuing the avenue of the International Criminal Court is just
one of many avenues we can consider.
Mr. King. You raised an interesting question about dealing
with the Tier 3 sanctions on China. The difficulty of looking
at sanctions as the key on these issues with the North Koreans
is that, again, we are in a situation where we are trying to
get the Chinese to solve the North Korean problem for us
because we have such limited abilities to do it.
This is our problem with sanctions on the nuclear weapons
and we are going to be in trouble if we take that same route on
human rights.
There is a real link between sanctions on trafficking and
repatriation. The reason why these women are trafficked is
because they will be repatriated if they don't have some way to
hide their presence there.
And if we can move the Chinese in a direction where they
allow the North Korean refugees to leave China, we don't have
to worry about sanctions for trafficking because there won't be
a trafficking problem. These women will leave. I think we need
to sort of look at it in a way that will allow us to work with
the Chinese and try to put some pressure on them to make some
progress on repatriation rather than saying, you know, let's
slap more sanctions on the Chinese.
It's an issue that's not easy. It's an issue that's
complicated. But it's an issue that's connected and we need to
figure out how to do it.
And I think that's the difficulty of dealing with China. We
don't like what the Chinese do. We don't like their human
rights record. We don't like their obstacles in dealing with
the North Korean human rights issue or the North Korean nuclear
issue.
The argument has been we are probably better to try to work
with the Chinese because they are suffering from the same
problem and if we can work with them maybe we will have some
progress.
It is helpful to have the threat of sanctions because it's
very clear that the sanctions on nuclear weapons are successful
because the Chinese are beginning to enforce them. The Chinese
are beginning to enforce them because we have imposed sanctions
on the Chinese for not enforcing them.
So we need to balance that process out. But I think we need
to focus U.S. Government policy not just on the nuclear weapons
issue but also on the human rights issue because that's the key
to opening up North Korea.
Mr. Smith. Before I go to Ms. Scholte, Andrew Natsios
testified before our subcommittee a couple years ago and that
was precisely his major point--that we have delinked human
rights from the nuclear issue in the same way we did it with
Iran. And when--if it's a sidebar issue or something that's
done out in the hallway, it doesn't get done.
And when we fail, as we have failed, unfortunately, on the
nuclear side, what do you have to show for it? People's human
rights have not been advanced----
Mr. King. Exactly. That's why we need a special envoy for
North Korea human rights to make sure that that is part of the
discussion. Yes.
Ms. Scholte. Well, for bringing up sanctions, I did want to
say one thing about North Korea sanctions, which has been
reported because you brought up the topic of sanctions, Free
North Korea Radio and other entities have reported that the
people of North Korea--one of the big worries that we all had
with the sanctions against North Korea is not wanting to hurt
the people of North Korea--that it be very carefully targeted
at Kim Jong-un and the elites.
And what we are hearing now is not only have the sanctions
not hurt the people of North Korea but they are actually doing
better, that the--because there is products that they can't
export that they are having to dump on the North Koreans.
So all these costs have gone down. So I wanted to talk
about that. But on the sanctions regarding China, first of all,
I want to start out by saying this.
I think we have really failed the people of China and I
hope that we don't continue to fail the people of North Korea.
But I think we have really failed the people of China
because we have turned back on the many horrific human rights
violations that are happening against the people of China at
all different levels, and this has been going on for decades
for all our, I would say, economic greed.
And I would cite two experts on this. Dr. Greg Autry, the
professor who wrote the book ``Death by China'' and explores
the intellectual property theft and the things that the
Chinese--and I am talking very specifically about the regime in
China--have done and profited at the expense of the American
people, and also Dr. Yang Jianli, who I know you have--who has
been just an amazing leader in the Chinese human rights
movement. But we have not--we have betrayed people like them
that are fighting for the human rights of the people of China
as well.
And so I think any kind of sanctions or pressure on the Xi
Jinping regime is critically important. He is culpable. He is
committing crimes against humanity.
And on the refugee camps, that was the rumors we have been
hearing off and on for decades. Why would we need refugee
camps? Just let the UNHCR go in there and start letting these
people go.
And I remember one time when there was a planeload of North
Koreans that the Chinese allowed leave. It was in the summer
because I remember I was on vacation. It was probably, like, 10
years ago.
But they let a planeload go and RFA called me up, tracked
me down on vacation and said, ``Suzanne, Suzanne, do you think
the Chinese are changing their policy? They are letting a whole
planeload of North Koreans back to South Korea.'' And I said,
``Not unless the planes keep flying,'' and there were not any
more flights.
So I am not sure about these refugee camps. There is not a
need for one. North Koreans are the only refugees in the world
that have a place to go for immediate resettlement because they
are citizens of South Korea under Article 2 of the South Korean
constitution.
They are unlike any refugees in the world. And I know we
have a refugee crisis going on because of tensions in the
Middle East and North Africa. But North Koreans don't--we have
Hanawon, that's the refugee camp.
Finally, on China fearing refugees, here's the thing. If
China fears being overwhelmed by refugees if it showed some
compassion, all it's doing is lifting off the pressure on Kim
Jong-un that's causing all the tensions to begin with and
relieving him of any reason to reform so that people don't want
to leave.
Talk to North Koreans. They don't want to leave their
homeland. They love their homeland. They are only leaving
because of the horrific human rights violations of a dictator
there.
So what China is doing is prolonging the dictatorship by
forcing them back and being complicit in crimes against
humanity.
And I think that more and more Chinese are recognizing
this. They are speaking out that the future is with South
Korea. I believe that China fears having a strong unified
democracy on its border and that's the reason why they are
continuing to send the refugees back. They just don't want to
see a Korea unified.
I always point out that if the regime collapsed there is
not going to be any refugee problem. The thing you're going to
have to control is people trying to go there. And I always
tease the pastors from--because the pastors, the Methodists and
the Presbyterians, are going to be fighting to plant their
churches there.
Hyundai and everybody else is going to be going there to
build plants. All the Korean Americans are going to be going
home because that's their ancestral homeland--and the real fear
is--what we will have to be concerned about is protecting the
development in North Korea and protecting the North Korean
people once that regime is gone from the flood of people coming
in.
Mr. Smith. Thank you.
We have heard instances of U.N. agencies approving
technology transfers to North Korea in violation of U.N.
sanctions and the World Intellectual Property Organization--
WIPO--has had problems with that, and we have raised them.
I actually had a hearing in February 2016 on that. We have
written letters. It's come to very little outcome. Your
thoughts on that?
It seems to me that for sanctions to work it's not just the
countries but it's also U.N. agencies that need to be in
compliance. Your thoughts?
Mr. Scarlatoiu. Chairman Smith, I believe you are referring
to an agent called Tabun that the North Koreans were actually
licensed to produce. It's one component needed in the
production of chemical weapons, I believe.
Our organization, the Committee for Human Rights in North
Korea, has focused more on the humanitarian arm of the U.N. and
one point that we have tried to make time and time again is
that U.N. agencies involved in humanitarian operations inside
North Korea should be fully cognizant of human rights concerns,
of the U.N. Commission of Inquiry report, the recommendations
of the U.N. Commission of Inquiry and apply a human rights up
front approach to their work.
And I will take the liberty of giving a very quick example.
Last year, we documented Prison Camp Number 12 in Chongo-ri,
North Hamgyong Province. In the aftermath of Typhoon Lionrock
the U.N. was conducting a fact finding mission in the vicinity
of the camp.
We managed to acquire satellite images through the cloud
cover proving that the camp had been affected by the flooding
caused by Typhoon Lionrock.
We urged U.N. agencies to include the most vulnerable
segments of the population, especially prisoners, in the fact
finding missions and humanitarian operations in North Korea.
For example, the World Health Organization has a program
called Health in Prisons applied throughout the developing
world. Why not seek ways to apply some of these programs to
North Korea?
One positive aspect here, although action on the ground is
lacking is that senior U.N. officials were very responsive,
including, at the time, the Deputy Secretary General, and in
his most recent report that U.N. Special Rapporteur on North
Korean human rights, on human rights in the DPRK. Mr. Thomas
Ojea Quintana did specifically mention the need to address the
most vulnerable in North Korea including prisoners.
Mr. King. Thank you for what you did, having a hearing to
focus on the U.N. problem. U.N. agencies are like any big
bureaucracy where you have people who aren't aware of what is
going on in other places.
They are, however, very attentive to what the U.S. Congress
has to say and I think your efforts are extremely useful in
dealing with these kind of problems with U.N. agencies not
being aware of sanctions and so forth.
Thank you.
Ms. Scholte. Ditto.
Mr. Smith. Ms. Scholte, you said it's worse now under Xi
Jinping. Ms. Hee said it's worse under Kim Jong-un. It seems
like it's been worsening since 2011.
Dr. King, if I could go back to your testimony where you
said it reached a high. Now it's gone down. It's less than
1,500 last year. It could be even worse this year.
How much worse can it get before the Security Council--
well, they may never do it because of the veto. But I am a
great believer in hybrid courts.
I've been pushing for 4 years that there be a special court
for Syria and Iraq. Got a resolution passed. Had a series of
hearings on it.
We had the former prosecutor for Sierra Leone testify at
two of those hearings and, of course, they put Charles Taylor
behind bars for 50 years. So, it shows that hybrid courts get
results.
There are imperfections but they do get results. The ICC
often doesn't. So I think your point was well taken, Mr.
Scarlatiou.
There are other alternatives and they have been put on the
table. I think we should pursue that aggressively. We still may
run into the Security Council problem. But even the effort
might have some mitigating effect on the Chinese barbaric
behavior and, of course, the parallel barbaric behavior by the
North Korean Government. Your thoughts on that?
Mr. King. The International Bar Association held a
proceeding a couple weeks ago looking at what information there
is about crimes against humanity being committed in North
Korea.
They concluded that there is sufficient solid evidence on
10 of 11 crimes against humanity to hold individuals in North
Korea responsible.
I think we need to focus on this idea of accountability. I
think we need to go as far as we can. I think it's useful to
have the Security Council debating and discussing the human
rights situation in North Korea.
Even if we aren't going to get a vote out of the Security
Council, it raises the issue to that level. It puts pressure on
the North Koreans and we need to continue that effort. I think
what you were trying to do with Syria is something that would
be worth trying to do with North Korea.
Ms. Scholte. I just--I met a young woman who escaped with
her 14-year-old daughter. This was about 7 years ago. And she
told me that when her 14-year-old daughter got repatriated--
they got--they got to China, they got arrested. Her 14-year-old
daughter got--they got separated.
The 14-year-old daughter got repatriated and beaten to
death by a border guard. And when I heard that story, I was so
horrified. How could any man beat a 14-year-old girl who was
simply trying to have a better life?
But at that point, I started pushing the South Korean
Government to convene a tribunal because at that point the
South Korean Human Rights Commission had already collected 532
cases of these types of abuses where--and the people knew, gave
testimonies.
But when they put that report together they never released
the names, and I think one thing was really encouraging that
Ambassador King was involved with during President Obama's
administration was starting to name names--naming names of the
perpetrators of these crimes, which I think is so important.
We are part of the U.N. Commission--I am sorry, the U.N.
Commission of Inquiry that's pushing for the ICC referral.
However, we can't wait, and even if he gets prosecuted at
the ICC and the ICC determines he was committing crimes against
humanity, well, he could still be dictator.
It might not have any impact. So we have got to look at
other ways and I've always believed that hybrid court,
whatever, there has to be a procedure to start talking about
these issues because I think we need to put people in the
regime on notice.
They've got to wake up every morning, the people that are
keeping this regime going--they have to wake up every morning
with two choices: Total devotion and loyalty to Kim Jong-un or
having their brains splattered along with their family by anti-
aircraft weaponry. I mean, that's what they face every day.
So how do you get that to stop? You've got to tell them,
``You're going to be held accountable for your crimes.'' But at
the same time, you've got to reach out to them through programs
like Freedom North Korea, through the defectors, because there
are defector elites who are reaching out to other elites and
showing them that there is another alternative--there is
another option.
But I think proceeding on these kinds of legal courts is
absolutely critical to put pressure on them to show them they
are going to be held accountable.
There has to be a way to stop that border guard from
beating to death a 14-year-old girl when his name gets
mentioned in a South Korean tribunal. But also Bob cited the
International Bar Association. They did release their report
this morning, which found that the crimes against humanity
meaning that almost every single statute--there was just one
they were lacking the evidence. But the evidence is there of
the crime against humanity being committed by Kim.
Mr. Smith. Let me ask you, and maybe it'll be the last
question. You've been very generous with your time. How would
you rate the effectiveness of the Human Rights Council toward
China?
I remember when it was called the Human Rights Commission.
I traveled frequently to Geneva, would try to lobby people on
particular issues including China. I actually went to a China
press conference and asked some questions about human rights
and they shut it down.
They were so unwilling and so brittle when it comes to
criticism. They just ended the press conference because they
didn't want to answer serious questions about human rights.
I've met with Prince Zeid, the high commissioner for human
rights. I am deeply disappointed, and I would appreciate your
thoughts, one way or the other. Maybe you think he's doing a
good job.
When it comes to Israel they are obsessed with holding
Israel to account for things, for instance, settlements.
Security Council Resolution 2334 makes it criminal--illegal for
certain settlements, and Abbas is now petitioning the ICC to
open up a case for prosecution.
Are you kidding me? Then you have gross violations of human
rights being committed every day with complicity by the Chinese
but also with complicity with the Chinese. And, there is very
little--a statement made here or there but it's never offensive
in terms of trying to hold them accountable.
I think it makes the credibility of the Human Rights
Commission suspect. They cannot be politicized. We know that
there are rogue nations who make a beeline to sit on the
council in order to run interference to their own
accountability being held and they work in tandem with each
other to keep the rogue nations not focused upon.
So if you could speak to that and particularly to Prince
Zeid, because his black list is coming out very shortly of
companies doing business with entities in what they falsely
call occupied territory, and I say falsely because I believe
it's false.
But it's a very, very bad omen, I think, for the council to
be so politicized and then look askance when it comes to China.
Your thoughts?
Mr. King. There is nothing more frustrating than trying to
deal with the Human Rights Council. On the one hand, they have
a very high-minded goal and objective. On the other hand, the
realities of politics are constantly getting in the way.
Israel is one of the most troubling of issues because the
votes are in the wrong place and it becomes a very difficult
problem.
The one bright light with the Human Rights Council is the
treatment of North Korea. North Korea has not sat on the Human
Rights Council; it has never been elected a member of the
council.
North Korea has gone through the Universal Periodic Review
process. They've been under some pressure because of that
process and there have been some indications of improvement in
noncontroversial areas like assistance for people with
disabilities and that kind of thing.
We have been able to get out of the Human Rights Council
every year since 2004 a tough strong resolution that is
critical of North Korea. We have been able to refer things to
the General Assembly. We have been able to get tough strong
resolutions.
As far as North Korea Policy is concerned, the Human Rights
Council is a good instrument. As far as Israel is concerned,
it's not. [Laughter.]
Mr. Smith. I mean, even today, December 11th, Prince Zeid
has called for North Korea to be referred to the ICC.
Mr. King. Yes.
Mr. Smith. That is easy lift. That's not all that hard to
say that.
Mr. King. No. [Laughter.]
Mr. Smith. But what about its accomplice, China? And I
appreciate your thoughts, too.
Mr. King. The issue with China is more complicated. China
is a permanent member. It can veto anything of substance in the
Security Council.
Mr. Smith. But his recommendation--I mean, they can reject
it----
Mr. King. Yes.
Mr. Smith [continuing]. But the credibility and gravitas
that the high commissioner would bring to saying, ``Hey, you
too, China.''
Mr. King. Yes.
Mr. Smith. ``We are not letting you off the hook. You are
complicit in these horrific crimes.''
Mr. King. Yes. It's a tough one. You're a politician. These
countries are dealing with politics. We are making progress. We
are not there yet.
I think we need to continue the effort and we need to
continue to criticize--the way you and other colleagues in
Congress have done--to put pressure on the U.N. agencies for
what they are not doing.
But I think we should also be careful not to throw the baby
out with the bath. Praise them for what they've done in areas
like what they've done on North Korea. I think we have made
real progress on that.
Mr. Smith. Before we go to Greg, we ought to remind
everyone and begin assembling lists. We just recently passed
the Frank Wolf International Religious Freedom Act. I did
sponsor it, and it calls for designated persons, people that we
can hold to account.
The Magnitsky Act and, certainly, the Global Magnitsky Act
gives us an incredible tool on a vast array of human rights
issues to say so and so, so and so, so and so, and begin honing
in on the individuals who commit atrocities all over the world.
We got the CPC designation, both China and North Korea,
under the Religious Freedom Act. So sanctions can be levied
there. And then, of course we know that, we have the
Trafficking Victims Protection Act sanctions, Tier 3, where
they can be levied there as well.
So we have got all these tools. Let's use them.
Please, Greg.
Mr. Scarlatoiu. I fully agree with Ambassador King that
there is serious tension between the lofty goals, ideals, and
principles and standards that the U.N. Human Rights Council is
supposed to uphold and the politicization of the council.
It's highly politicized, of course, as a human rights NGO
dealing with the U.N. and U.N. agencies. My colleagues and
board members know that it's extraordinarily frustrating many
times--most of the time to deal with U.N. agencies and yet, as
Ambassador King said, if there is one success story of the U.N.
Human Rights Council that was the establishment of the U.N.
Commission of Inquiry through a resolution that didn't even go
to a vote. It was passed by consensus by all 47 members of the
Human Rights Council.
So North Korea is, after all, the saving grace of the Human
Rights Council, if I may say so, and we do hope to continue to
see good action on North Korean human rights issues.
Mr. Smith. Ms. Scholte.
Ms. Scholte. Yes. I think we need tremendous reform at the
U.N. I think it's, in some cases, it's a joke. The Human Rights
Council--why can't we have a Human Rights Council where the
membership is based on the countries observing the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights--just a few of them?
I mean, let's reestablish what the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights stood for and let's have, you know, you can be on
the Human Rights Council if your country, well, maybe--maybe at
least 60 percent.
How about just 60 percent, and I'll give you a D minus to
be on the council. It's ridiculous what's happening. And while
it's a bright light on North Korea, I am not sure that it's
done anything. It's done nothing, actually, to improve the
lives of the people of North Korea.
The lives of the people of North Korea have not improved.
We just know more about it. That's all that's happened. We just
know how much they are suffering. The reality is it's because
of the people of North Korea, not because of the dictatorship
and certainly not because of anything that the U.N. has done.
So it may be a good mouthpiece on North Korea but it's failing
on the human rights and suffering of so many other people.
Mr. Smith. You know, I thought in your prepared testimony
you made an excellent point as to how we should honor the fact
that the North Koreans themselves, whether they be in country
or in South Korea or anywhere else, are really making the
difference and we need to get behind them as never before in
those efforts. Maybe you might want to elaborate on that.
Ms. Scholte. Well, why don't I show them the portrait? They
smuggled it back in. They smuggled it back into the hearing.
This is an example, okay. Once again, this was made in
Pyongyang. This is the response to messages broadcast on Free
North Korea Radio, smuggled out at great risk. Two brothers
took 3 months to make this.
If they had been caught making this, they and their
families would have been executed. So this is just a testament
to the importance of reaching out to the people of North Korea.
Mr. Smith. Thank you.
And what Ms. Scholte is not saying is that there is a
portrait of herself and one of Chairman Ed Royce as well.
Is there anything else you would like to add before we
conclude? And again, thank you for your insights. It gives us a
lot of actionable things to do and I always appreciate that.
Mr. King. Thank you for this hearing.
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Ambassador King.
Mr. Scarlatoiu. Thank you for the hearing. Thank you for
your dedication and the inspiration that you provide to all of
us.
Mr. Smith. You inspire us. Believe me.
And Ms. Scholte, thank you.
Ms. Scholte. Thank you.
Mr. Smith. The hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:41 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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Material Submitted for the Record
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Material submitted for the record by the Honorable Karen Bass, a
Representative in Congress from the State of California
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