[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 24 (Wednesday, February 10, 2016)]
[House]
[Page H659]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
DISAPPEARANCE OF DAVID SNEDDON
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Utah
(Mr. Stewart) for 5 minutes.
Mr. STEWART. Mr. Speaker, on August 14, 2004, David Sneddon, a
student at Brigham Young University, disappeared without explanation
while hiking in the Yunnan province of southwest China.
David is an outstanding young man who speaks fluent Korean and had
spent the summer studying Mandarin in Beijing, with plans to return to
the U.S. in August to finish his degree in Chinese. He had already paid
a housing deposit and registered to take the Law School Admission Test.
The U.S. State Department and the Chinese Government eventually
concluded that David fell into a gorge while hiking, but David's family
conducted their own exhaustive investigation, with David's father and
two older brothers flying to China shortly after his disappearance to
retrace his steps.
In the course of talking with numerous eyewitnesses, David's family
discovered facts which contradict the official explanation and which, I
believe, are compelling evidence of another possibility, which I will
get to in just a moment.
My staff and I met David's family and heard his story soon after I
was elected 3 years ago. The Sneddons are remarkable people of great
faith who have continued to pursue an explanation for David's
disappearance for the past 11 years.
The resolution I am introducing today regarding David's disappearance
is a result of the hard work and diligence of David's parents,
siblings, and cousins. They deserve answers. They deserve to have their
government do everything possible to determine what happened to David.
I should also add that David's story is personal to me. He was a
close friend of my oldest son, Sean. In fact, following David's 2-year
missionary service in South Korea, David taught my son Sean the Korean
language as he was preparing to begin his own missionary service in
South Korea. Though I have not met David, I am grateful for the impact
he had on Sean's life.
Over the past 3 years, I have had various opportunities to meet with
State Department personnel to discuss David's disappearance. They are
good people, and I commend them for their help, particularly in the
immediate aftermath of his disappearance when they repeatedly pressured
the Chinese Government to pursue the various leads identified by
David's family.
However, I am concerned that bureaucratic inertia has made the State
Department complacent in this case. I am concerned the State Department
leadership has not done all they can do to pursue all of the possible
explanations for his disappearance.
One of the unexplored possibilities is that David was abducted by
agents of the North Korean regime, something which a number of
respected experts on North Korea have advanced in recent years. While
this may sound like an outlandish theory to those unfamiliar with North
Korea's history, it is becoming very plausible when you understand the
regime's long history of abducting foreign citizens to use in training
their own foreign agents.
For many years, North Korea systematically kidnapped Japanese
citizens and used captives to train their intelligence operatives in
Japanese language and culture. The regime finally admitted to the
abductions in 2002 and returned five of the Japanese citizens.
There are numerous other facts which, when combined, make North
Korea's involvement conceivable.
North Korean agents are known to operate in Yunnan Province, a common
area for those escaping North Korea into Southeast Asia.
David disappeared during a long time of heightened tensions between
the U.S. and North Korea, just weeks after this House passed the North
Korean Human Rights Act.
And David disappeared 1 month after North Korea released Charles
Jenkins, an American deserter from the Korean war being held and used
precisely as the abducted Japanese citizens: as a language teacher for
North Korean military cadets and spies. Jenkins was the last of the
known Americans being held for this purpose, and it is possible the
regime needed a replacement for him.
Just this past Sunday, North Korea's rocket launch, in defiance of
sanctions and against explicit counsel of the international community,
reminded us that North Korea doesn't operate on the same norms that
guide diplomacy for most of the rest of the world. They are a criminal
enterprise more than a government, and they can do nothing for their
own people, let alone for other nations.
Mr. Speaker, I don't raise the possibility regarding David Sneddon's
disappearance lightly, and I didn't sponsor this resolution lightly. I
recognize the words we speak on foreign policy have consequences far
beyond this room. But David is the only American to disappear in China
without explanation since the normalization of relations during the
Nixon administration.
This is not a fact to be taken lightly. My resolution lays out the
facts of his disappearance and asks three essential actions by the
State Department and intelligence community:
First, that they continue to investigate and consider all possible
explanations for David's disappearance, including potential abduction
by North Korea;
Second, that they coordinate their efforts with the Governments of
Japan, South Korea, and particularly China, the country known to have
at least some influence over North Korea;
And finally, that they keep the Congress and the Sneddon family
informed of these efforts.
I would like to thank Senator Lee for sponsoring the companion bill
in the Senate, and the rest of the Utah delegation for joining me as
cosponsors. I think I can speak for the delegation when I say that
David's family deserves a thorough effort from their own government to
discover what happened to him. This is the very least that we can ask.
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