[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.

                          ____________________