[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 76 (Tuesday, June 11, 2002)]
[House]
[Pages H3412-H3418]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
SENSE OF CONGRESS REGARDING NORTH KOREAN REFUGEES DETAINED IN CHINA
Mr. LEACH. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the
concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 213) expressing the sense of
Congress regarding North Korean refugees who are detained in China and
returned to North Korea where they face torture, imprisonment, and
execution, as amended.
The Clerk read as follows:
H. Con. Res. 213
Whereas the Government of North Korea is controlled by the
Korean Workers Party, which does not recognize the right of
North Koreans to exercise the freedoms of speech, religion,
press, assembly, or association;
Whereas the Government of North Korea imposes punishments,
including execution, for crimes such as attempted defection,
slander of the Korean Workers Party, listening to foreign
broadcasts, possessing printed matter that is considered
reactionary by the Korean Workers Party, and holding
prohibited religious beliefs;
Whereas genuine religious freedom does not exist in North
Korea and reports of executions, torture, and imprisonment of
religious persons in the country continue to emerge;
Whereas the Government of North Korea holds an estimated
200,000 political prisoners in camps that its State Security
Agency manages through the use of forced labor, beatings,
torture, and executions, in which many prisoners also die
from disease, starvation, and exposure;
Whereas at least 1,000,000 North Koreans are estimated to
have died of starvation since 1995 because of the failure of
the centralized agricultural system operated by the
Government of North Korea;
Whereas the combination of political, social, and religious
persecution and the risk of starvation in North Korea is
causing many North Koreans to flee to China;
Whereas between 100,000 and 300,000 North Koreans are
estimated to be residing in China without the permission of
the Government of China;
Whereas in past years some Chinese authorities appear to
have tolerated quiet efforts by nongovernmental organizations
to assist North Korean refugees in China, and have allowed
the departure of limited numbers of North Korean refugees
after the advocacy of third countries, whose diplomatic
facilities granted these refugees sanctuary;
Whereas the Governments of China and North Korea have begun
aggressive campaigns to locate North Koreans who are in China
without permission and to forcibly return them to North
Korea;
Whereas North Koreans who seek asylum while in China are
routinely imprisoned and tortured, and in some cases killed,
after they are returned to North Korea;
Whereas the United Nations Convention relating to the
Status of Refugees of 1951, as modified by the Protocol
relating to the Status of Refugees of 1967, defines a refugee
as a person who, ``owing to well-founded fear of being
persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality,
membership of a particular social group or political opinion,
is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or,
owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the
protection of that country'';
Whereas despite China's obligations as a party to the
United Nations Convention relating to the Status of Refugees
of 1951 and the Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees
of 1967, China routinely classifies North Koreans seeking
asylum in China as mere ``economic migrants'' and returns the
refugees to North Korea without regard to the serious threat
of persecution faced by the refugees after their return;
Whereas the Government of China does not provide North
Koreans whose asylum requests are rejected a right to have
the rejection reviewed prior to deportation despite the
recommendations of the United Nations Convention relating to
the Status of Refugees of 1951 and the Protocol relating to
the Status of Refugees of 1967 that such a right be granted;
Whereas people attempting to assist North Korean refugees
inside China face danger because of their efforts, including
Chun Ki Won, a South Korean citizen detained inside China
since December 2001, and the Reverend Kim Dong Shik, a United
States permanent resident allegedly abducted by North Korean
agents inside China in January 2000; and
Whereas the Government of China recently has permitted some
North Koreans who have managed to enter foreign diplomatic
compounds to travel to South Korea via third countries, but
has forcibly repatriated to North Korea many others captured
inside China: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate
concurring), That Congress--
(1) encourages the Government of China to honor its
obligations under the United Nations Convention relating to
the Status of Refugees of 1951, as modified by the Protocol
relating to the Status of Refugees of 1967, by--
(A) halting the forced repatriation of North Koreans who
face a well-founded fear of persecution if they are returned
to North Korea;
(B) making genuine efforts to identify and protect the
refugees among the North Korean migrants encountered by
Chinese authorities, including providing refugees with a
reasonable opportunity to request asylum;
(C) providing North Korean refugees residing in China with
safe asylum;
(D) allowing the United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees to have access to all North Korean refugees residing
in China; and
(E) cooperating with the United Nations High Commissioner
for Refugees in efforts to resettle North Korean refugees
residing in China to other countries;
(2) encourages the Secretary of State--
(A) to work with the Government of China toward the
fulfillment of its obligations described in paragraph (1);
and
(B) to work with concerned governments in the region toward
the protection of North Korean refugees residing in China;
(3) encourages the United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees to facilitate the resettlement of the North Korean
refugees residing in China in other countries;
(4) encourages the Secretary of State to begin efforts
toward the drafting, introduction, and passage of a
resolution concerning human rights in North Korea at the 59th
Session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in
March 2003;
(5) urges the Government of China to release Mr. Chun Ki
Won; and
[[Page H3413]]
(6) urges the Governments of the United States, South
Korea, and China to seek a full accounting from the
Government of North Korea regarding the whereabouts and
condition of the Reverend Kim Dong Shik.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from
Iowa (Mr. Leach) and the gentleman from American Samoa (Mr.
Faleomavaega) each will control 20 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Leach).
General Leave
Mr. LEACH. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may
have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks
and include extraneous matter on the concurrent resolution under
consideration.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Iowa?
There was no objection.
Mr. LEACH. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H. Con. Res. 213, a
resolution expressing the sense of Congress regarding the plight of
North Korean refugees. In this regard, I would like to acknowledge the
leadership of three Members of the House who have been instrumental to
bring this resolution to the floor: The principal sponsor of the
resolution, the gentleman from California (Mr. Royce), the chairman of
the U.S.-South Korean Interparliamentary Exchange, the gentleman from
Illinois (Mr. Kirk), who traveled to North Korea as a staffer for the
Committee on International Relations and who recently chaired a
Congressional Human Rights Caucus briefing on the subject and, of
course, the gentleman from American Samoa (Mr. Faleomavaega), the
ranking member of the Subcommittee on East Asia and the Pacific.
The subcommittee has become increasingly concerned about a trio of
increasingly significant humanitarian and foreign policy issues that
have arisen as a direct consequence of North Korea's inhumane and
failed system of governance, all of which have important implications
for the United States and the international community: Refugees, acute
food shortages and human rights. This May the subcommittee held an
extensive hearing on the subject, including testimony from experts in
the field as well as from several North Korean defectors, survivors of
some of the most challenging rigors of the human condition.
Consideration of this resolution is particularly timely, given the
recent dramatic increase of North Korean asylum bids through Western
embassies in Beijing. It also takes place against the sensitive
diplomatic backdrop of renewed North-South dialogue, tentative steps
toward reengagement between Tokyo and Pyongyang, and the planned
resumption of high-level dialogue between the United States and North
Korea. Congress hopes and expects that North Korea will seize the
opportunity to demonstrate its sincerity through negotiations and begin
to alleviate the concerns of the world community.
As we have all come to understand, the world has increasingly become
aware that North Korea has been at the center of one of the greatest
human rights tragedies in recent decades. Beginning in the mid-1990s,
economic collapse and natural disasters combined to produce famine
conditions that have claimed as many as 2 million lives, perhaps as
many as 10 percent of the population. The food crisis, compounded by
repression and mismanagement, led many thousands of North Koreans to
cross into China, primarily into Jilin and Liaoning Provinces.
Estimates of the number of North Koreans illegally inside China range
from official estimates of 10,000 to 30,000, to unofficial estimates of
100,000 to 300,000. Similarly, the flow of North Korean defectors
making their way to Seoul also has increased dramatically in recent
years.
Even for those North Koreans able to escape into China, the struggle
to survive is far from over. On the shores of the Tumen River, which is
all that separates China and North Korea at one point along the border,
more hardship and sorrow await, including potential victimization of
human traffickers, unsympathetic neighbors, as well as the police.
The PRC's reaction to the influx of North Koreans appears to
fluctuate between placid tolerance and bouts of repression. As a matter
of principle, Beijing maintains that the North Koreans are economic
migrants. In practice, however, local authorities in the past have
allowed nongovernment organizations to assist refugees in China, and
even turned a blind eye to facilitate their asylum to South Korea
through third countries, provided such activities remain low profile.
But Beijing also orders periodic crackdowns against refugees and those
who assist them.
Repatriated North Korean migrants can expect to face a broad range of
maltreatment, which may involve beatings, incarceration, and torture.
Others, such as asylum-seekers, known religious believers, and high-
profile defectors, risk execution or internment in a labor camp for
political prisoners.
The United States can hardly ignore this situation. Our dilemma is
how we can make a modest contribution to this circumstance without
exacerbating the lamentable plight of North Koreans in northeastern
China. In this regard, and at the risk of presumption, I would like to
suggest a five-pronged strategy.
First, with regard to North-South relations, we must understand that
while attempts to negotiate with North Korea involve an experiment with
the bizarre, our unequivocal support for North-South rapprochement and
eventual reunification must be maintained as a primary strategic
objective in Northeast Asia.
In terms of diplomatic efforts and an effort to forge a more lasting
and humane resolution for North Korean refugees, the United States
should vigorously pursue bilateral and multilateral discussions on that
topic with relevant nations and international organizations, including
China, South Korea, Japan, Russia, Mongolia, and the U.N. High
Commissioner for Refugees.
The United States should increase humanitarian assistance to North
Koreans both outside and inside their country of origin.
In China, we should fully and visibly support the UNHCR in its
efforts to gain access to refugees in the northeast of China.
Humanitarian assistance to these refugees must be supported.
Outside of China, we should explore the possibility of establishing
short to medium-term facilities for North Korean refugees in other
countries in the region, such as Mongolia.
Inside North Korea, the United States should maintain and expand its
commitment to the World Food Program appeal. In this regard, the WFP
has announced that its North Korean program will run out of food in
July or August this year unless new pledges are made urgently. World
Food Program estimates that some 1.5 million people will not get food
because of the shortfall. At the same time, we and other donors should
continue strong support for the WFP's efforts to improve its access and
food aid monitoring within North Korea.
In addition, Congress and the Executive should be open to supporting
innovative, small-scale programs to provide food and other humanitarian
assistance through United States nongovernment organizations operating
in North Korea.
From a human rights perspective, we must continue to improve our
limited knowledge of human rights and humanitarian conditions inside
China, and we should consider funding efforts to systematically
interview and debrief the increasing number of North Korean refugees
and defectors inside South Korea and elsewhere.
From a resettlement perspective, North Korean refugees are currently
caught in a legal Catch-22, based on their claim to automatic South
Korean citizenship under the Constitution of the Republic of Korea.
Yet, except in high-profile cases, North Korean asylum-seekers are not
treated as South Korean citizens at South Korea's embassy and
consulates inside China, and thus are routinely turned away. In
addition to Chinese blockage, other embassies discourage refugees from
seeking asylum in their countries because they regard the refugees as
citizens of South Korea where they would not face a reasonable fear of
persecution. In this circumstance, where asylum claims are regularly
thwarted, we have an obligation to discuss with the South Koreans and
Chinese ways all interested parties can work to regularize the
treatment of North Korean refugees in China.
[[Page H3414]]
While the case for pursuing diplomatic approaches in a low-key way
may be compelling, the issue itself must be understood as one of the
seminal human rights issues of our time.
In this regard we have brought this resolution, and in bringing it I
would like to quote the words of President Bush. The President has
said, and he has been very succinct in this, that even though he
considers North Korea as a country which has starved its people while
developing weapons of mass destruction, he has been careful to observe
that America has ``great sympathy and empathy for the North Korean
people. We want them to have food. We want them to have freedom.''
This timely resolution appropriately expresses this sympathy and
concern from the people's House to the North Korean people. We urge its
adoption.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
(Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA asked and was given permission to revise and extend
his remarks.)
Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Mr. Speaker, as a cosponsor of H. Con. Res. 213, I
am honored to speak on behalf of this legislation which focuses on the
tragic plight of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of North Korean
citizens who have sought safety and refuge in the People's Republic of
China.
I deeply commend the primary authors of the legislation, the
gentleman from California (Mr. Royce) and the gentleman from California
(Mr. Becerra,) and also the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Kirk) for his
tremendous help on this legislation.
Their hard work is just another example of the tremendous leadership
they have demonstrated in chairing the U.S.-Republic of Korea
Interparliamentary Exchange. I would be remiss if I did not also
commend the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Leach), the chairman of the
Subcommittee on East Asia and the Pacific of the Committee on
International Relations, with whom I have the distinct pleasure to
serve as the subcommittee's ranking Democrat, for the attention he has
focused on the North Korean humanitarian refugees' crisis.
Our subcommittee recently held hearings on this troubling issue, and
has contributed significantly to the final text of H. Con. Res. 213. I
thank the chairman and ranking member of our Committee on International
Relations, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde), and the gentleman
from California (Mr. Lantos), for their vital leadership and support in
moving this measure for consideration on the floor.
Mr. Speaker, many have advocated the citizens of North Korea are
perhaps the least free of all the people living on this planet.
Suffering from the past 5 decades under one of the world's most
ruthless totalitarian regimes, the people of North Korea have been
denied the most basic of human rights, have been isolated from one
another, and have been cut off from the rest of the world by their
government.
{time} 1715
As assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and
Labor, Mr. Lorne Craner has recently testified regarding North Korea:
``The reports that make it out of North Korea paint a shocking, often
horrifying, picture of brutality, oppression, injustice and
deprivation. Individual rights are considered subversive to the rights
of the State and the Party, with no freedom of expression, assembly or
belief. The regime uses extreme suppression and a pervasive
surveillance network to intimidate and instill fear in the population.
It maintains control through terror, threat of severe punishment and
the manipulation of privileges.''
Mr. Speaker, due to the DPRKs disastrous agricultural and economic
policies, which have been compounded by natural disasters, the North
Korean people have been made to suffer through a brutal famine that has
killed well over a million, perhaps up to 3 million, of their fellow
citizens and left a generation of their children physically and
mentally stunted.
I recall recently a statement made by the Senator from Hawaii,
Senator Inouye, on his recent visit to North Korea, and the most
unusual thing that he observed when he visited the capital of
Pyongyang, there were no birds. He did not hear one bird noise ever in
the whole area. It is just really, really terrible to consider this
observation.
Given these terrible conditions in North Korea, Mr. Speaker, it is
not surprising that over 100,000 refugees, the vast majority of them
women and children, have fled their homeland for northeast China. As
many of us know, the plight of these North Korean refugees has received
intense international attention recently, with several high-profile
incidents where North Koreans have sought refuge in foreign embassies
and consulates in the People's Republic of China. Right now in Beijing,
17 North Koreans languish in the South Korean embassy and two in the
Canadian embassy after entering the diplomatic compounds and requesting
asylum.
In the past, China has attempted to turn a blind eye to the refugee
crisis created by its Communist neighbor and quietly tolerated NGO
efforts to assist the North Korean refugee community within its
borders. Unfortunately, in response to the recent media attention and
heightened international scrutiny, the People's Republic of China has
chosen to enforce a crackdown on the refugee community, and they are
being sent back en masse to North Korea to face certain imprisonment,
torture or even death.
Mr. Speaker, China's actions are highly regrettable and certainly in
violation of international rules. The heart of the resolution before us
rightfully urges that the Government of the People's Republic of China
should stop the forced repatriation of North Koreans and that China
meet its obligations as a signatory to the United Nations Refugee
Convention of 1951 and the subsequent 1967 Protocol. To meet these
treaty obligations, China should permit the UNHCR access so that an
objective determination can be made whether these North Korean refugees
have a well-founded fear of persecution before being shipped back en
masse as economic migrants.
Mr. Speaker, the Chinese Government is at a historic point in its
relations with the rest of the world. China has just joined the World
Trade Organization, will soon host the Olympic games, and has
increasingly played an active role in key international foreign policy
matters, including Afghanistan, the global war on terrorism and the
India-Pakistan controversy.
China's leaders need to understand that abiding by international
agreements, including the United Nations Refugee Convention, is a
crucial responsibility that major global powers cannot run away from.
To the world, it is abundantly clear that the North Korean refugees in
China are not simply fleeing for economic reasons, and it is important
for their safety as well as China's reputation that a process be set up
to interview the refugees to determine whether they have a well-founded
fear of persecution before they are returned to North Korea.
Mr. Speaker, the legislation before us addresses one of the most
disturbing humanitarian tragedies now unfolding in the world and
rightfully calls upon the People's Republic of China to work with our
government, other nations in the region, and the United Nations to find
a just and proper resolution of this refugee crisis.
I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. LEACH. Mr. Speaker, I yield 6 minutes to the distinguished
gentleman from California (Mr. Royce), the author of this resolution
and the leader in Congress on so many Korean issues.
Mr. ROYCE. Mr. Speaker, I thank Chairman Leach, and I thank Ranking
Member Faleomavaega for his leadership as well. I also want to thank
the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Kirk). I want to thank him for his
rather extraordinary work along the North Korean-Chinese border. To my
knowledge, he is one of the few non-North Koreans who has managed to
travel into North Korea and because of his extensive interviews of
starving men and destitute women and orphaned children across North
Korea and in northern China, we know a great deal more about the crisis
there.
I chair the U.S.-Republic of Korea Interparliamentary Exchange. Last
summer I introduced this resolution on North Korean refugees after
learning
[[Page H3415]]
about the unimaginable suffering North Korean refugees face in China. I
learned this from my Korean counterparts. Sometime after that, we had
an opportunity to hear from the gentleman from Illinois. In his
testimony, the gentleman from Illinois recorded for our committee the
horror that is going on in North Korea. This situation, frankly, is
critical right now to the hundreds of thousands of North Koreans that
have escaped over the border into China.
North Korea systematically starves its population. It attacks freedom
of speech, it suppresses religion, it constrains movement of its
citizens, and frankly it gives preferential access to social services
based on allegiance to the cult of personality surrounding Kim Jung-Il.
There are 43 counties in North Korea. There are a number of counties in
North Korea where people are not considered sufficiently loyal, and it
is the people in these regions who are being starved. At the same time,
any perceived disobedience in North Korea can land the offender and the
offender's family in what is called a labor camp.
Last month, three North Korean defectors testified before the Asia
Subcommittee. I would like to call my colleagues' attention to the
testimony of Ms. Lee Soon-ok, a former North Korean party official who
was held for several years inside one of these North Korean labor
camps. She described in gruesome detail the condition inside the camp,
telling of public executions in which the prisoners would have to stand
at attention to watch the execution, and telling of 150 female
prisoners being used to test a chemical gas and as a consequence of
that test, all 150 lost their lives.
In her testimony, she describes life in a North Korean prison, and I
will just use her words. She said, ``A prisoner has no right to talk,
laugh, sing or look in a mirror. Prisoners must kneel down on the
ground and keep their heads down deeply whenever called by a guard.
They can say nothing except to answer questions asked. Prisoners have
to work as slaves for up to 18 hours a day. Repeated failure to meet
the work quotas means a week's time in a punishment cell. A prisoner
must give up their human worth.'' She said that prisoners are even used
by their guards for martial arts practice. The guards punch and kick
prisoners during martial arts practice. The prisoners fall bleeding at
the first blows and remain motionless for a while on the cement floor
until they are kicked back into their cells.
It is estimated that North Korea's prison camp system currently holds
about 200,000 people in conditions so brutal that over 400,000 have
died in those prisons since 1972. I have heard from North Koreans who
say it is rare for a prisoner to survive more than 8 years. Given the
repression, given the desperate conditions for those who run afoul of
the rules, it is no surprise that many North Koreans have been willing
to risk their lives to cross into the closest country, which is China.
Yet as explained, despite the obligations that China has taken as a
signatory to the convention relating to the status of refugees of 1951
and the Protocol relating to the status of refugees of 1967, China
refuses to recognize North Koreans as refugees. They classify them
instead as economic migrants. Chinese and North Korean police have
worked in tandem to hunt down North Koreans hiding in China. The
Chinese Government forcibly repatriates all captured North Koreans,
guaranteeing their imprisonment and torture and sometimes death.
China's enthusiasm for enforcing North Korea's policies is
unconscionable.
Because China will not allow the U.N. High Commission for Refugees
access to North Koreans, defectors have created innovative methods for
getting asylum in other countries. Since March, we have had 38
desperate North Koreans who have risked deportation to North Korea by
dashing into or climbing the walls of foreign diplomatic missions in
order to travel to South Korea via third countries. As a result, the
Chinese have stepped up police forces around embassies and cracked down
on nongovernmental organizations and church groups.
Some have suggested the treatment of North Koreans in China should be
handled quietly behind diplomatic closed doors. Yet it is exactly the
media attention that has finally brought this situation to light and
generated an international outcry that may force China to relent.
Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege to yield such time
as he may consume to the gentleman from California (Mr. Becerra).
Mr. BECERRA. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding the
time. I would like to thank him and, of course, the chairman of the
committee, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Leach), and certainly, of
course, the chairman of the subcommittee in question here, the
gentleman from California (Mr. Royce), for their leadership. I know
that I have had several opportunities working with the gentleman from
California (Mr. Royce) to try to address some of the issues that affect
the Korean peninsula, both South Korea and North Korea, and certainly
we can turn to the gentleman from California (Mr. Royce) always as a
voice and a leader on issues affecting the Korean people.
As two individuals who hail from southern California and with large
populations of Americans of Korean descent, I think we both understand
the plight of those individuals who are seeking freedom in the Korean
peninsula, and we do everything we can to try to address that concern,
because whether you are of Korean ancestry or if you happen to hail
from this country from generations back, I think we all understand that
freedom and democracy are what we would all love to leave as a legacy
to our kids.
I, too, rise in support of House Concurrent Resolution 213, regarding
North Korean refugees in China. It appears that we continue to see the
numbers grow of North Koreans who are fleeing their country, many of
whom have ended up in China. Some 312 or so have ended up in South
Korea in the last several years, they have defected to South Korea, and
we have seen more and more of these incidents occurring where
individuals who are fleeing North Korea, in the case of their departure
to China, are being returned by China to North Korea without knowing
fully well what the consequences might be upon their return.
{time} 1730
An estimated 150,000 to 300,000 North Koreans currently are living
without status in China. We are aware of the treaty that China has with
North Korea which allows China to view these individuals as
undocumented immigrants or economic migrants, and, as a result, to send
them back to North Korea, and, again, without any consideration for the
consequences of that repatriation.
We have to acknowledge that in the case of North Korea, there are
massive food shortages in that country. Right now we are told that
North Korea cannot feed about one-third of its people, so clearly there
are cases for economic migrants who do depart from North Korea.
But the cases that we have seen go far beyond those who are leaving
only for economic reasons. We know that there are, in many cases,
straight and very clear political reasons for many of these individuals
leaving, and in some cases religious persecution as well. Yet, with all
of that, the Chinese Government refuses to permit the United Nations
High Commissioner for Refugees, UNHCR, to evaluate North Korean
refugees in China to determine whether or not they deserve political
asylum. Under Chinese law, in fact, anyone aiding a fleeing North
Korean is subject to a fine, and there is word that bounties are paid
to Chinese citizens who turn in North Koreans to the Chinese
authorities.
The purpose of this resolution is twofold, I believe. First, under
both international and humanitarian grounds, we should be calling on
China to provide North Koreans whose asylum requests have been rejected
with the right to have the rejection reviewed by international
authorities prior to deportation of these North Koreans back to their
homeland. That is something that they would be obliged to provide to
any individual who claims refugee status under the United Nations 1951
convention relating to the status of refugees and as it has been
modified in 1967 through the Protocol relating to the status of
refugees.
The second purpose is to urge China to allow the UNHCR to have access
to all North Korean refugees who reside in China.
[[Page H3416]]
I urge my colleagues to support H. Con. Res. 213 to recognize the
plight of refugees who are in China from North Korea who are trying to
flee political and religious suppression and persecution, and know
fully well that we can have a voice in trying to aid these individuals
towards democracy and liberty.
I applaud the chairman for this effort to bring this to the floor; I
certainly applaud our ranking member for his cooperation and support of
this resolution; and mostly I support and want to applaud the gentleman
from California (Mr. Royce), the chairman of the Subcommittee on East
Asian and Pacific Affairs, for his valiant efforts, not just today, but
in the past, to aid the Korean peninsula in moving forward toward
democracy.
Mr. LEACH. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New
Jersey (Mr. Smith), the distinguished vice chairman of the committee.
Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I rise in very strong support
of H. Con. Res. 213 regarding the plight of North Korean refugees
inside of China. I want to thank the chief sponsor, the gentleman from
California (Mr. Royce), for introducing this important resolution
nearly a year ago, long before this issue had hit the U.S. press. I
also want to thank him for accepting language that I suggested that
goes into more detail about the human rights situation inside of North
Korea, and, most importantly, language that urges the State Department
to begin work now and draft and pass a North Korea human rights
resolution at next year's session of the U.N. Human Rights Commission
in Geneva.
It is amazing to me that such a deplorable situation has received so
little attention from the international community. That shameful
silence must end.
Mr. Speaker, as has been described by my colleagues, hundreds of
thousands of North Koreans are inside China today having fled from
starvation and brutal repression inside of North Korea. Although many
of them have left in search of food, many of them are genuine refugees.
Many more of them, however, have become refugees because of the
persecution that they would face if forcibly returned.
North Koreans who attempt to escape to third countries or who have
contact with South Korean or missionary groups while in China face
execution or imprisonment in labor camps in North Korea. As the front
page of yesterday's New York Times pointed out, pregnant women returned
to North Korea are forced to undergo abortions or their babies are
killed once they are born. I will include that article for the Record.
At the ground breaking hearing, Mr. Speaker, convened by the
gentleman from Iowa (Chairman Leach) of the Subcommittee on East Asia
and the Pacific last month, we heard from three credible North Korean
defectors who described the unbelievable brutality of the Pyongyang
regime and the hardships those witnesses endured as refugees inside of
China.
Two of the witnesses were rare survivors of North Korea's
concentration camps, where nearly 200,000 of their countrymen and women
are being held today. These camps are places where prisoners are worked
or starved to death, where Christians are killed by torture, where
people attempting to escape are publicly shot or dragged to death
behind trucks, where newborn babies are killed in front of their
mothers, and where prisoners are used as guinea pigs for chemical
weapons experiments. The Korean people in the north are suffering
unspeakable evil at the hands of Kim Jong Il.
Mr. Speaker, as a party to the U.N. refugee convention, China has
bound itself not to return North Koreans who face a well-founded fear
of persecution. However, for much of the past year, Chinese authorities
have conducted a crackdown against North Korean refugees. They have
routinely rounded up many North Koreans and forcibly sent them back to
uncertain and sometimes deadly fates. North Korean undercover agents
are active inside China helping to capture and return escapees.
Mr. Speaker, I urge strong supports for this resolution.
Mr. Speaker, I include the New York Times article, ``Defectors From
North Korea Tell of Prison Baby Killings'' for the Record.
[From the New York Times, June 10, 2002]
Defectors From North Korea Tell of Prison Baby Killings
(By James Brooke)
Seoul, South Korea.--On a cold March day, the bleak
monotony of a North Korean prison work detail was broken when
a squad of male guards arrived and herded new women prisoners
together. One by one, they were asked if they were pregnant.
``They took them away in a car, and then forcibly gave them
abortion shots,'' Song Myung Hak, 33, a former prisoner,
recalled in a interview here about the day two years ago when
six pregnant prisoners were taken from his work unit in the
Shinuiju Provincial Detention Camp. ``After the miscarriage
shots, the women were forced back to work.''
More and more escapees from North Korea are asserting that
forced abortions and infanticide are the norm in North Korean
prisons, charges the country's official Korean Central News
Agency has denounced as ``a whopping lie.''
In 2000 and 2001, China deported thousands of North Korean
refugees, with many ending up in North Korean prison camps.
People who later managed to escape again, to China and South
Korea, say that prisoners discovered to be pregnant were
routinely forced to have abortions. If babies were born
alive, they say, guards forced prisoners to kill them.
Earlier defectors from North Korea say that the prohibition
on pregnancy in prisons dates back at least to the 1980's,
and that forced abortions or infanticide were the rule. Until
recently, though, instances of pregnancy in the prisons were
rare.
China's deportations of thousands of illegal migrants from
North Korea in recent years has resulted in a sharp increase
in the number of pregnant women ending up in North Korean
prisons. Defectors, male and female, are reviled as traitors
and counterrevolutionaries when they are returned to North
Korea. But women who have become pregnant, especially by
Chinese men, face special abuse.
``Several hundred babies were killed last year in North
Korean prisons,'' said Willy Fautre, director of Human Rights
Without Frontiers, a private group based in Brussels. Mr.
Fautre said that over the last 18 months, he and his
volunteers had interviewed 35 recent escapees from North
Korean camps.
Of the 35, he said, 31 said they had witnessed babies
killed by abandonment or being smothered with plastic sheets.
Two defectors later described burying dead babies, and two
said they were mothers who saw their newborns put to death.
``This is a systematic procedure carried out by guards, and
the people in charge of the prisons--these are not isolated
cases,'' Mr. Fautre said in a telephone interview. ``The
pattern is to identify women who are pregnant, so the camp
authorities can get rid of the babies through forced
abortion, torture or very hard labor. If they give birth to a
baby alive, the general policy is to let the baby die or to
help the baby die with a plastic sheet.''
Lee Soon Ok, who worked as an accountant for six years at
Kaechon political prison, recalled in an interview that she
twice saw prison doctors kill newborn babies, sometimes by
stepping on their necks.
With virtually no medical care available for prisoners,
surgical abortions were not an option. Ms. Lee, 54 and an
economic researcher in Seoul, said: ``Giving birth in prison
is 100 percent prohibited. That is why they kill those
babies.''
Ms. Lee, who has written a book about her prison
experiences, seeks to focus attention on North Korea's prison
system. On May 2, she was one of three North Korean defectors
who testified on human rights abuses at a hearing of the
House International Relations Committee.
On Jan. 19, North Korea's official news agency said the
charges by Human Rights Without Borders that ``unborn and
newly born babies are being killed in concentration camps''
were ``nothing but a plot deliberately hatched by it to hurl
mud'' at North Korea. Since then, accusations of baby killing
in North Korean prisons have increased.
They were featured in February at a human rights conference
on North Korea, in Tokyo, and in March the claims were
included for the first time in the State Department's annual
human rights report on North Korea. They were raised in April
by European Union delegates to the United Nations Commission
on Human Rights, and in May by a former North Korean prisoner
who testified before a House committee.
North Korea's mission to the United Nations did not return
telephone messages about the charges. But on May 9, at the
United Nations conference on children in New York, the North
Korean delegate said his nation regarded each child as a
``king of the country.''
But recent interviews with seven defectors now living in
the Seoul area provided a detailed and different picture of
North Korean prison camps.
All of the recent defectors except one, Mr. Song, allowed
publication of only their family names, which are common
Korean surnames. These four said they feared reprisals
against relatives in the North. Two defectors, who had
escaped almost a decade ago after working in the prison camp
system, allowed their full names to be used.
The defectors' names and phone numbers were supplied by
Human Rights Without Borders. They were interviewed
individually, in their homes, without human rights or
[[Page H3417]]
government officials present. South Korea's government,
seeking to avoid conflict with the North, discourages
defectors from speaking out.
In her Seoul apartment, Mrs. Lee, 64 and no relation to Lee
Song Ok, said she was still haunted by memories of prison
after being deported from China in 2000.
Mrs. Lee who is the widow of a North Korean general,
recalled thinking that she had won an easy job in the clinic
after arriving on June 14, 2000, at the Pyongbuk Provincial
Police Detention Camp. Then, she said, she saw a prison
doctor give injections to eight pregnant women to induce
labor.
``The first time, a baby was born, I didn't know there was
a wooden box for throwing babies away,'' Mrs. Lee recalled.
``I got the baby and tried to wrap it in clothes. But the
security people told me to get rid of it in the wooden box.''
That day, she said, she delivered six dead babies and two
live ones. She said she watched a doctor open the box and
kill the two live babies by piercing their skulls with
surgical scissors. The next day, she said, she helped to
deliver 11 dead babies from 20 pregnant women who had been
injected to induce delivery.
In 2000, from March to May, 8,000 North Korean defectors,
overwhelmingly women, were deported from China to North Korea
during a crackdown on prostitution and forced marriages,
according to D. K. Park, a retired United Nations worker who
works with Human Rights Without Frontiers along the border
between North Korea and China.
``They blame North Korean women for having Chinese babies
and just kill the babies,'' Mr. Song, now a college student
in Seoul, said of his time in Shinuiju prison in 2000.
Mrs. Park, 41, no relation to the rights worker, said she
was among those caught in a Chinese sweep two years ago,
ending up in a work camp in Onsong, North Korea. She was nine
months pregnant at the time.
``One day, they gave me a big injection,'' she said. ``In
about 30 minutes I went into labor. The baby I delivered at
the detention camp was already dead.''
For babies born alive in prison cells, defectors say, male
guards threaten to beat women prisoners if they do not
smother newborns with pieces of wet plastic that are thrown
between the bars.
``Guards told the prisoners to kill the babies,'' recalled
Miss Lee, a 33-year-old vocational student who is unrelated
to the accountant and the general's widow. She said that in
2000, as she was moved among four camps, she saw four babies
smothered at the Onsong District Labor Camp in April, and
three smothered at the Chongjin Provincial Police Detention
Camp in late May.
``The oldest woman in the cell did it reluctantly,'' she
said. ``The young women were scared. The mothers would just
cry in silence.''
Miss Lee, a former factory worker who survived in China
through marriage to an ethnic Korean Chinese, estimated that
70 percent of the people she saw deported from China in the
spring of 2000 were women, and about one-third were pregnant.
In the summer of 2001, a 28-year-old former North Korean
border guard surnamed Kim was imprisoned at the same Chongjin
detention camp. There, he buried three newborn babies wrapped
in ``blue-tinted plastic bags.'' He recalled, ``The prisoners
were ordered to get the babies coming from the mothers and to
kill them.''
His wife, a 25-year-old day-care worker in Seoul, said in
the same interview at their apartment here that during her 10
weeks at the same camp last summer, she counted seven babies
born and smothered in nearby cells.
The current wave of reported baby killings has
nationalistic overtones.
``The guards would scream at us: `You are carrying Chinese
sperm, from foreign countries. We Koreans are one people, how
dare you bring this foreign sperm here,' '' Miss Lee, the
vocational student, recalled. ``Most of the fathers were
Chinese.''
But two decades before pregnant refugees were forced home
from China, infanticide was standard practice in the North
Korean prison system, a former guard said in an interview
near here.
``Ever since Kim II Sung's time, it has been a North Korean
regulation to prevent women from delivering babies in
prisons,'' said Ahn Myung Chul, a 33-year-old bank employee,
who worked as a guard from 1987 to 1994 in four North Korean
camps. Mr. Ahn, who also trained guards, added in an
interview: ``If babies have to be delivered, babies have to
be killed. The trainers told military personnel that this is
the procedure.''
Foreign journalists traveling inside North Korea are
restricted to tightly guided tours, and requests by the
International Committee of the Red Cross to visit prisons are
routinely rejected.
``Those of us inside the country have no knowledge of the
existence of prison camps or practices inside them,'' Richard
Bridle, the Unicef representative in North Korea's capital,
Pyongyang, said by telephone. Asked about infanticide
policies, he said: ``The only stories we get are from
outside. There is no information circulating inside'' North
Korea.
North Korea's prison camp system currently holds about
200,000 people in conditions so brutal that an estimated
400,000 people have died in prison since 1972, according to
the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, a private
group based in Washington.
``Nothing would surprise in accounts of this kind,'' Selig
S. Harrison, the director of the national security program at
the Center for International Policy, in Washington, and an
expert on North Korea, Mr. Harrison, a seven-time visitors to
Pyongyang, added: ``North Korea is a repressive, repugnant,
totalitarian state, and it certainly uses repugnant methods
in its prison system and in its concentration camps.''
Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
Mr. Speaker, not wanting to be repetitive, I want to again share with
my colleagues the outstanding contributions of the chairman of our
Subcommittee on East Asia and the Pacific, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr.
Leach), for his insight and efforts that we have made in working on
this resolution with our good friend, the gentleman from California
(Mr. Royce), and the gentleman from California (Mr. Becerra).
The fact that our country is contributing hundreds of millions of
dollars, is the largest donor in food aid, in fact, to North Korea, I
think gives emphasis to the fact that this issue is very serious.
Certainly on our part, we are hopeful that the administration will
continue to pursue this in all earnestness and see that some resolution
is made concerning this issue of refugees coming from North Korea,
going up to China. Unfortunately, the Chinese Government has been very
uncooperative with the United Nations agencies to see that these
refugees should be handled properly.
Again, I want to commend my good friend, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr.
Leach), for his leadership in working this legislation, especially with
the leadership of the House as well, and also the gentleman from
California (Mr. Royce), the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Kirk), and
other Members.
Mr. Speaker, I again urge my colleagues to support this resolution.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. LEACH. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his kindness.
Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman
from Illinois (Mr. Kirk). The House of Representatives is fortunate to
have in its midst one of the true experts on a very acute issue in
international affairs.
(Mr. KIRK asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. KIRK. Mr. Speaker, I want to commend the gentleman from Iowa
(Chairman Leach), the gentleman from New Jersey (Chairman Smith), the
gentleman from California (Chairman Royce), and our ranking Democratic
members, the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos) and the gentleman
from American Samoa (Mr. Faleomavaega), as well as the gentleman from
California (Mr. Becerra), a strong voice for Koreans, for this
resolution.
North Korea is the humanitarian issue of this decade. As South Korea
celebrates the World Cup, people in North Korea are starving. In 1997
and 1998, I went to North Korea, from Changin to Sariwon, Huichon to
Wonson. I saw the faces of hundreds of children starving, like Kim Uan
Bok, age 12, weight 35 pounds, in Huichon Hospital Number 1. I also
traveled to China, along North Korea's border, and I met the Kot Je Be,
Black Swallows children, orphans who had escaped the 9.27 prisons for
hungry children located in every ``Ri,'' or county, in North Korea.
Beyond our nuclear nonproliferation missions, we have three main
goals in our policy in North Korea. First, President Reagan said that a
hungry child knows no politics, and we are here still in a state of war
with North Korea, and yet the U.S. feeds every North Korean child under
the age of 15, 21 million meals a day. We need to bring back the U.S.
non-governmental organizations that work there, CARE, Mercy Corps and
AMIGOS, back into this effort. I also want to commend Kraft, a
constituent company in my district, for agreeing to help the new effort
to feed North Korean children.
We have a second mission, human rights. There are 200,000 refugees in
China. They arrive hungry and lost and need our help. They tell stories
of grandmothers and fathers in the Korean tradition during times of
crisis of starving so that their kids may live.
We should work with China and the U.N. Human Rights Commission to
establish refugee processing centers and
[[Page H3418]]
offer safe passage to South Korea, the U.S. and Canada, to offer a new
life for North Korean refugees. Our law commits us to reach out to a
person with a ``well-founded fear of persecution.'' I would put it to
this House that anyone forced to return to the DPRK has such a fear.
Finally, our third mission is to reunite Korean Americans with their
relations in North Korea. 500,000 Americans have relations in North
Korea, and hundreds of South Koreans have seen their kin, but no
Americans. Three months ago, the Korean-American Coalition of the
Midwest assembled 30,000 signatures from Korean Americans calling on
the Nation to take up the issue of reunifying Americans with their
North Korean relations. I am pleased to report Secretary Powell
accepted their petition and agreed to put the case of reunification on
the U.S.-DPRK agenda.
I commend the gentleman for the resolution and urge its rapid
adoption.
Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Speaker. I rise to voice my strong support for H.
Con. Res. 213, regarding North Korean refugees who are detained in
China and forcibly returned to North Korea where they face torture,
imprisonment, and execution. I thank the gentleman from California (Mr.
Royce) for bringing this important resolution before us today.
In recent years, endemic persecution and famine in North Korea has
resulted in tens of thousands of starving North Koreans fleeing their
country, and crossing over into China's northeastern provinces. Some
hide in the hills along the border and only survive by scavenging,
begging or stealing. Others are employed at near-slave wages.
Despite their desperate situation, North Korean refugees in China are
constantly pursued by the North Korean Public Security Service with the
assistance of Chinese authorities. Many are apprehended and forcibly
returned to North Korea, where they may face imprisonment and even the
death penalty under the North Korean Criminal Law.
The Chinese government has repeatedly failed to take into account the
plight of those in need of protection, and continue to define all North
Koreans as ``illegal immigrants.'' It is imperative that the Government
of China act to protect refugees from North Korea residing in China and
honor its obligations under the United Nations Convention relating to
the Status of Refugees of 1951.
Accordingly, I urge my colleagues to support H. Con. Res. 213 and
join in urging the Chinese government to review its policy towards
North Korean refugees and asylum seekers, and to cease the detention
and forcible repatriation of those who are merely fleeing starvation
and persecution.
Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of House
Concurrent Resolution 213. I have followed the hearings on North Korea
in the Subcommittee on East Asia and the Pacific and have heard the
plight of the refugees who are fleeing the country in the tens of
thousands to escape political and personal persecution. I have
concluded, as this resolution expresses, that the Congress must show
support for the fleeing refugees of North Korea. As Chairman Hyde
stated, North Korea is a place so feared by the thousands of refugees
on the run that they have chosen a homeless existence where they are
subject to exploitation, trafficking, and sexual abuse. He learned that
some are so desperate that they threaten suicide rather than return to
what they call a ``hell on earth.''
An estimated 50,000 North Korean refugees were in China at the end of
2001. As many as 100,000 North Koreans were displaced inside North
Korea. Other North Korean refugees, a number that varies, are in Russia
and elsewhere, while many others find refuge in South Korea. The
government of Korea has been brutal in punishing those who seek to
leave in the midst of a famine that has been going on since the mid-
1990's. Nearly 2 million North Koreans, or about 10 percent of the
population, have died from hunger or famine-related disease since 1994.
Still, the government grants only limited access to the country's most
vulnerable people to NGOs and other aid groups and imposes capital
crime punishment on citizens who leave or attempt to leave the country.
Leaving for better conditions or for food is classified by the
Government as ``defection'' punishable by torture, placement in work
camps or even execution.
There is no doubt that these people are refugees by any definition.
The U.S. Committee for Refugees (USCR) believes that North Koreans who
flee their country without government permission have prima facie
claims to refugee status, based on the likelihood of being prosecuted
for having exercised the right to leave the country.
As a recipient of these desperate people, we must encourage China not
to arrest and forcibly repatriate North Korean asylum seekers. We must
encourage the Government of China to honor its obligations under the
United Nations Convention relating to the Status of Refugees of 1951,
as modified by the Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees of 1967
as expressed in this measure.
Mr. LEACH. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I
yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Dan Miller of Florida). The question is
on the motion offered by the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Leach) that the
House suspend the rules and agree to the concurrent resolution (H. Con.
Res. 213), as amended.
The question was taken.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. In the opinion of the Chair, two-thirds of
those present have voted in the affirmative.
Mr. LEACH. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX and the
Chair's prior announcement, further proceedings on this motion will be
postponed.
____________________