[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 91 (Thursday, July 13, 2006)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7452-S7454]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
NORTH KOREA
Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I rise to talk about the situation in
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North Korea and about the dire situation of the people of North Korea
and the human rights abuses that are taking place. I think most of my
colleagues know about the missile testing that has been occurring in
North Korea, about the difficulty in getting negotiations going on the
six-party talks. I applaud the administration for their efforts on
getting these six-party talks moving on North Korea.
I also wish to draw the attention of my colleagues to the human toll
that is taking place in North Korea. Kim Jong Il, the leader of North
Korea, has been a weapon of mass destruction against his own people,
killing 1.5 million of his own people in prison camps--nearly 10
percent of their entire population--over the past 15 years. In
particular, I draw to the attention of my colleagues an article that is
in today's Asia Times Online because I think this actually summarizes
the overall situation pretty well.
North Korea and South Korea have been talking quite a bit, and the
South Koreans have actually sided with the Chinese and the Russians on
a weaker U.N. Security Council resolution. The North Koreans just
walked out of ministerial talks with the South Koreans, saying that
they want to pursue a missile weapons system--the North Koreans do--for
the protection of the entire Korean peninsula, including South Korea,
which is absurd. This will be used against the South Koreans. At the
same time they want to pursue missiles, nuclear technology, the North
Koreans are demanding from South Korea half a million tons of rice and
several hundred thousand tons of fertilizer to help feed the starving
North Korean people at a time when the Government is investing
heavily--millions and billions of dollars, perhaps--in missiles and
nuclear weapons which they can then sell to other countries, such as to
the Iranians, where the missile technology in Iran is based upon the
North Korean missile technology system. And then they have the gall at
the same time to demand food out of South Korea to feed their starving
people in North Korea and fertilizer to be able to grow their crops.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have this article printed
in the Record at the end of my statement.
The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(See exhibit 1.)
Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, this is just amazing gall, that they
would do something like that, and it also highlights the situation and
what is taking place.
I hope North Korea knows by now that their behavior has consequences.
The Security Council is considering a resolution. I hope we are able to
get the tougher one that the Japanese are pursuing. The one from China
and Russia clearly does not go far enough. We should work with our
allies to attempt to defend against the North Korean threat.
Our missile defense programs now are more important than ever.
Thankfully--thankfully--we have put a missile defense program in place
that is not fully operational but should help us against these rogue
regimes such as North Korea and Iran which are far less predictable--I
think one could probably use that term--than what the former Soviet
Union was, even though the Soviet Union had a bigger threat capacity.
What the President of Iran will do and what Kim Jong Il will do is
hard to predict. These are very erratic leaders and ones who don't
respond well, if at all, to a mutual destruction type of threat that we
used against the Soviet Union. We need the missile defense system.
The basic problem is the North Korean regime itself. The regime has
turned North Korea into a failed state. I had hoped to bring over to
the Senate floor this morning a picture that is pretty well known by
most people. It is a night photograph of the Korean peninsula, and it
shows lights in South Korea, it shows lights in China, and it shows
darkness in North Korea, which highlights the nature of the failed
state. This is just so amazing, that we have the Korean peninsula
divided into two countries--South Korea, the 12th largest economy in
the world, democratic and free, growing, robust; and North Korea,
having killed 10 percent of its people in the last 15 years through
starvation and a gulag system--on the same peninsula.
North Korea is a failed state. The North Korean regime engages in
illegal activities, including counterfeiting American money as well as
producing missile systems and expanding its WMD programs. It has a
humanitarian crisis. I noted earlier that an estimated 1.5 million
prisoners have been killed in North Korea's prison camps. The gulag
remains. Approximately 200,000 are currently in prison--political
prisoners in North Korea.
The assistance China and South Korea provide to North Korea makes
them complicit in North Korea's missile development program. The
assistance keeps their economy on life support, and thanks to North
Korea's lack of transparency, even humanitarian aid is often diverted
from the North Korean people for military use.
North Korea's symptomatic human rights abuses are often lost amidst
our discussion of its nuclear and missile programs. We should set a
longer term goal to bring to light the humanitarian abuses that are
taking place. We need a Helsinki-type of discussion on human rights. We
should not just discuss missile technology or nuclear technology; we
need to discuss the humanitarian crisis that is in North Korea.
I also believe we need to discuss the elephant that is in the room
that nobody will discuss. North Korea is a failed state. Hundreds of
thousands have walked out of North Korea into China. Some are now
finding a way into the United States as refugees. They tell horrific
stories of what is taking place.
The natural state of the Korean peninsula is one country, whole and
free. That is the long-term goal for the natural state of the Korean
peninsula--one country, whole and free. We should set that as a long-
term objective--the spread of democracy throughout the Korean
peninsula.
I urge the Bush administration to fully fund the programs authorized
by the North Korean Human Rights Act of 2004, and I urge my colleagues
to fund those programs as well in the appropriations process. We should
be prepared to accept those North Koreans who voted with their feet and
escaped the regime into this country and others as well.
We had our first group, a small group of six North Korean refugees,
and four were women. The women said that the refugees that make it out
of North Korea into China, 100 percent are trafficked into some form of
sexual bondage or sexual slavery. They get out of North Korea into
China--that is relatively simple--and then they are captured, almost
hunted like animals in China. When they are captured, the people who
catch them say: Look, you are going to do what I say or I am turning
you in to the Chinese authorities; they will repatriate you to North
Korea, and you will end up in the gulag. So they do what they say, and
they are sold. They are caught like wild animals and sold to people in
some form of sexual bondage and sexual slavery in that portion of
China.
We should push China aggressively to stop repatriating North Korean
refugees. They are going back into the gulag. They are going back into
the death camps. The Chinese should be forced not to do that. It is
called refoulement. It is against the U.N. agreements on human rights
that they entered into. They should be forced not to do that, not to
send them back. We should begin discussions with China and South Korea
on what the Korean peninsula should look like in the future--one
country, full and free.
The bottom line is that our problem isn't just the missile or nuclear
capacity of North Korea, it is the North Korean regime itself. We must
address the root problem if we are ever to find a solution.
I might remind my colleagues as well that it is not just the missile
tests, it is not just the nuclear technology in North Korea, because
then they look to sell it, as they have, and spread it to Iran, which
multiplies our sets of problems. We must look also at what happens to
the North Korean people, and much of our focus must be placed on China.
China is the one that is primarily keeping North Korea on life support
systems now. They are funding them. The Chinese, by not refouleing
refugees, by allowing North Koreans to come out and pass freely through
there to third countries, would really help a
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great deal in this crisis, and China bears much of the responsibility.
Mr. President, I thank my colleagues for the chance to address the
body. We are looking at putting forward a resolution calling on any
future dialog with North Korea to include a human rights component.
Along with the discussion of missile technology and nuclear technology,
it desperately needs a human rights component, as we did in
negotiations with the former Soviet Union on missiles and nuclear
weapons. We also included a Helsinki human rights component. This
discussion needs a human rights component as well.
Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Connecticut for allowing me
to step in front of him to speak, and I yield the floor.
Exhibit 1
[From the Asia Times, July 14, 2006]
North Koreans Let Their Feet Do the Talking
(By Donald Kirk)
Seoul.--The ruckus over the North Korean missile shots has
exploded into a war of words that's endangering South Korea's
efforts to shrug off the crisis as a minor obstacle on the
path to North-South reconciliation.
South Korea appears to have awakened to the depth of the
difficulties with the North in the breakdown of ministerial-
level talks this week in the port city of Pusan. Far from
finding the basis for one of those face-saving statements
that often emerge from North-South Korean talks, the two
sides cut off the dialogue on Thursday a day earlier than
expected after finding no ground for agreement.
The sides were absurdly far apart, according to reports
from the closed-door sessions, with North Korea insisting the
missiles were needed for the defense of all Korea, North and
South, not just North Korea.
Finally, the North Koreans walked out on Thursday after
South Korea's Unification Minister Lee Jeong-seok flatly
rejected their claim that the North's Songun or military
first policy covered both Koreas equally. The talks were
originally to have gone on until Friday.
Lee, a one-time leftwing activist who has sought mightily
to paper over North-South differences, got nowhere in efforts
at persuading North Korea to return to six-party talks on its
nuclear weapons.
At the same time, he rejected North Korean demands for half
a million tons of rice and several hundred thousand tons of
fertilizer to help feed starving North Koreans at a time when
the government is investing heavily in missiles and nuclear
weapons.
The failure of the talks is ominous since they were
``ministerial level''. The North Korean delegation was led by
Kwong Ho-ung, chief cabinet councilor. The North Koreans,
before boarding a direct flight from Pusan to Pyongyang on
Air Koryo, the North Korean airline, said ``our delegation
was no longer able to stay in Pusan'' as a result of the
South Koreans' ``reckless'' insistence on raising the issue
of the missile tests.
Suggesting the seriousness of the collapse, a statement
distributed by the North Koreans said the North now had no
dialogue partners in the South ``due to the South Korean
side's unreasonable'' position. The statement said they had
not come to Pusan to discuss military matters or six-party
talks.
South Korean leaders, caught between conflicting demands
from the United States, North Korea, China and Japan as well
as their vituperative critics and foes on their own home
front, remain determined to head off U.S. and Japanese
attempts to bring about a debate in the United Nations
Security Council on sanctions against North Korea.
South Korean officials firmly favor a resolution introduced
by China and Russia that ``strongly deplores'' the missile
tests and calls on all nations to ``exercise vigilance in
preventing supply of items, goods and technologies'' for
North Korean missiles. The resolution also asks them ``not to
procure missiles or missile-related items'' from North Korea.
The fear in the South is that a debate on a much tougher
Japanese resolution, banning North Korea from deploying or
testing missiles, importing or exporting missiles or weapons
of mass destruction, including nuclear warheads, or
developing any of them, would greatly exacerbate tensions.
South Korean strategists believe such a strong resolution
would arm Japan with the pretext for following through on
threats to attack North Korean missile sites. In fact, South
Korea has responded with far greater alarm to Japan's
floating this idea than to the actual missile tests, while
the rift between Japan and South Korea has turned into what
appears as an unbridgeable chasm.
A spokesman for South Korea's President Roh Moo-hyun
blasted Japan for what he called a ``rash and thoughtless''
threat. It was, he said, ``a grave matter for Japanese
cabinet ministers to talk about the possibility of a
preemptive strike and the validity of the use of force
against the peninsula''.
U.S. officials, led by Christopher Hill, privately warned
Japan against a preemptive strike, reminding the Japanese
that open discussion of that possibility only invited an
adverse response from South Korea as well as China.
Such talk, they note, also plays into North Korea's
propaganda machine, which often emits noises about U.S. plans
for a ``preemptive strike'', citing that danger as a
rationale for the need for nuclear weapons.
The U.S., however, sides with Japan in the United Nations,
and no U.S. official adopts a harder line than the U.S.
ambassador to the U.N., John Bolton, a tough-talker from his
days as under secretary of state for arms control during
President George W. Bush's first term.
Bolton and Japan's U.N. Ambassador Kenzo Oshima have
engaged in the diplomatic nicety of calling the Chinese and
Russian draft ``a step in the right direction''. South Korean
officials believe, however, they may hold off on supporting
it, calling instead for a debate that gives both of them a
forum for lambasting North Korea.
Oshima found ``very serious gaps'' in the Chinese and
Russian draft, while Bolton seemed anxious to have the
Japanese resolution submitted to a vote despite the certainty
of Chinese and Russian vetoes. ``We're prepared to proceed at
an appropriate time with a vote,'' said Bolton, and ``let
every one draw their own conclusions.''
The standoff over how to deal with North Korea comes at a
critical time in relations between the U.S. and South Korea.
A U.S. team has just arrived in Seoul for talks about
creating an ``independent wartime command'' for South Korean
forces rather than a unified command led by a U.S. general.
The creation of such a command marks a major--and
controversial--departure from the system dating from the
Korean War placing all forces under a single American general
in the event of war.
The U.S. is also consolidating its bases in South Korea,
moving them south of Seoul in the face of widespread
opposition by activists and farmers resentful of the loss of
their land while the U.S. scales down its forces, now
totaling 29,500 troops, down from 37,000 three years ago.
Activists and farmers also oppose efforts by the U.S. and
South Korea to come up with a free trade agreement (FTA).
More than 20,000 people demonstrated in a heavy downpour in
central Seoul on Wednesday, charging the agreement would
deprive farmers and factory workers of their livelihoods.
While the North Koreans walked out of the talks in Pusan,
U.S. negotiators boycotted a session of the FTA talks in
Seoul on pharmaceuticals. The U.S. claims a plan for South
Korea to reimburse patients for the purchase of drugs made in
South Korea makes drug imports here virtually impossible.
It was a bad day all around for U.S. negotiators. Hill, in
Beijing, said he was finally taking off for Washington after
getting nowhere in efforts at persuading China to bring North
Korea back to the table. He tried, however, to see the
impasse from China's viewpoint.
``China has done so much for that country,'' he said, ``and
that country seems intent on taking all of China's generosity
and then giving nothing back.'' The Chinese, he said, ``are
as baffled as we are.''
The U.S. and China, however, seemed in complete
disagreement on U.S. Treasury Department restrictions on
firms doing business with North Korea. Hill had nothing to
say in response to the official Chinese hope, expressed by a
spokesman, that the U.S. would ``make a concession regarding
the sanctions issue and take steps that will help restore the
six-party talks''.
The U.S. denies it's imposing ``sanctions'' and says the
restrictions are to counter North Korean counterfeiting. Hill
has repeatedly dismissed the topic as a matter for the
Treasury, not the State Department, while North Korea has
made the issue the reason for not returning to talks on its
nukes.
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