[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 14]
[Senate]
[Pages 19356-19357]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      NORTH KOREA HUMAN RIGHTS ACT

  Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I believe this body is about to 
consider and pass the North Korea Human Rights Act and our amendment in 
the nature of a substitute. It is cleared through the House of 
Representatives and is on our consent calendar. It is about to clear 
through here, I believe, and I am thankful to the Foreign Relations 
Committee, the staff of the committee, the chairman and ranking member, 
for their work getting this moved forward.
  This is about the fundamental human rights of the people of North 
Korea. It is my hope that this will pass today--and if not today, at 
least Monday.
  It is no secret that North Korea policy continues to be a matter of 
intense debate at the highest levels of our Government and governments 
around the world. Reasonable people with good intentions disagree 
vehemently on various aspects of what an appropriate North Korea policy 
should be.
  This is why I am pleased that the Senate, along with the House of 
Representatives, will soon be able to come together in unity and speak 
clearly on one particular set of issues regarding North Korea, and that 
is the most fundamental rights, human rights, of the people of North 
Korea, and to put that in a policy position.
  The people of North Korea have endured some of the most horrendous 
assaults on the inherent dignity of human beings of any group of people 
in the world. Inside North Korea, the totalitarian dynasty of the Kim 
regime permits no dissent and maintains an inhumane system of prison 
camps that houses an estimated 200,000 political inmates.
  I have held a hearing on this. We have had satellite photography. 
People who have left the country have testified about this system of 
gulags that exists and is in operation today in 2004.
  The regime strictly prohibits freedoms of speech, press, religion, 
assembly, and movement. Torture and execution, often in public, are 
regular tools of state control. Since the collapse of the centralized 
agricultural system in the 1990s, more than 2 million North Koreans are 
estimated to have died of starvation and related diseases. That is 
nearly 10 percent of the total North Korean population--over 2 million 
people.
  North Koreans outside of North Korea are also targets of abuse. Many 
thousands are hiding inside China, which currently refuses to allow the 
U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees to evaluate and identify genuine 
refugees among the North Korean migrant population. This is so even 
though China is a signatory and has obligations as a party to the U.N. 
Refugee Convention.
  China forcibly returns North Koreans to North Korea where they 
routinely face imprisonment and torture and sometimes execution. The 
stories from North Korean refugees who are able to get out are 
absolutely horrific.
  Inside China, North Korean women and girls are particularly 
vulnerable to trafficking and sexual exploitation. Recent reports also 
indicate that chemical and biological experiments are going on in the 
country's gulags inside North Korea.
  Let me explain what the bill does. The bill promotes the human rights 
of North Koreans by funding private, nonprofit human rights and 
democracy programs, increasing the availability of nonstate-controlled 
sources of information to North Koreans and U.S. broadcasting into 
North Korea, urging additional North Korea-specific actions by the U.N. 
High Commission on Refugees and by the U.N. Human Rights Commission.
  The bill promotes responsible assistance to the North Korean people 
by increasing funding for humanitarian assistance to North Koreans 
outside North Korea. This would include refugees, orphans, widows, and 
trafficking victims.
  The bill endorses U.S. support for providing humanitarian aid inside 
North Korea but conditioning increases over current levels upon 
significant improvements in transparency, access, and monitoring. To 
date, we have had no transparency; very little monitoring has been able 
to take place of the humanitarian aid we have provided to North Korea. 
It conditions future direct aid to the North Korean Government on 
substantial progress on human rights and transparency benchmarks.
  Let me elaborate a little bit on this final point. In an AP story 
this morning that ran in the Kansas City Star, appearing in many papers 
across the country, the headline reads: ``North Korea Asking for More 
Foreign Aid.'' The article quotes an NGO official that the North Korean 
Government wants not only additional humanitarian aid but also 
technical assistance and developmental cooperation.
  At the same time, we have stories and information from Secretary of 
State Colin Powell warning North Korea against conducting a new missile 
test.
  It would be naive for us to think that North Korea was not making a 
connection between the two. That is, if aid is not forthcoming, they 
will test new missiles. If that is not blackmail, I don't know what is. 
This bill will make it clear that as a matter of U.S. policy, we will 
not give in to those threats.
  At the same time, I doubt that anyone in this body would oppose 
providing aid if there were assurances that the distribution and use of 
such aid were conditioned on substantial improvement in human rights 
and transparency benchmarks, that NGOs would get complete access to 
vulnerable populations, that such aid would be clearly marked and 
targeted for children and people in need and not the North Korean 
military apparatus, and that the North Korean Government demonstrates 
that it is cooperating with NGOs.
  The bill additionally protects refugees by clarifying U.S. policy 
toward North Korean refugees, and the eligibility of North Koreans for 
U.S. asylum and refugee processing; urging the U.N. High Commission for 
Refugees to use all available means to gain access and provide 
assistance to North Koreans in China; and seeking solutions to North 
Korea's lack of access to refugee protections.
  As amended, the bill also asks the President to appoint a special 
envoy for human rights in North Korea, a person of high distinction. We 
have in mind someone such as former Senator John Danforth, now the U.N. 
Representative for the United States to the U.N., who was so 
instrumental in bringing together the north/south peace accords in 
Sudan.
  In addition, the bill requires a number of reports that will keep the 
issue of human rights front and center so that even as we continue to 
seek a resolution to the nuclear issue, which we should, that this 
matter of human rights is not swept under the carpet and that the 
matter of human rights does not become a mere afterthought.
  For too long, we have challenged rogue regimes on such fundamental 
issues and values as freedom of thought, religion, assembly, and press 
to back down now. We are not going to. We are going to continue to 
challenge rogue regimes, such as North Korea, on how they treat their 
own people.
  As experience has taught us, during the Cold War and the battle over 
ideas during that period, these are some of the most effective ways in 
which we can promote freedom: open and democratic institutions within 
these countries.
  Recently, a leading member of South Korea's Congress said to me in my 
office that North Koreans fear the West's criticism of its human rights 
more than any criticism about its nuclear program. North Korea will 
throw up all kinds of bluster when it comes to their threat as a 
potential nuclear power, but if you engage them on human rights, they 
become silent because even they know they cannot hide from the shame of 
the crimes they have committed against their own people.
  With this bill, the regime in Pyongyang will now have to answer for 
itself in multiparty talks or any other setting on such matters as the 
gulags, chemical experiments on human beings, the denial of food and 
deliberate policies of starvation as a political tool, and a thousand 
other ways they violated human rights by which this regime in Pyongyang 
maintains its tenuous hold on power.

[[Page 19357]]

  I know some were concerned about the impact of the bill, but the bill 
does not tie the hands of the President and ongoing negotiations over 
North Korean nuclear activities. Rather, I believe this bill will 
strengthen our negotiating position.
  As I said at the outset, I thank the chairman of the Foreign 
Relations Committee and the ranking member, Chairman Lugar and Ranking 
Member Biden, and their staff for their assistance in getting this bill 
to the floor. Hopefully, as I said, it will clear on Monday.
  I thank the International Relations Committee, Chairman Leach of the 
Asia Pacific subcommittee and his staff, Jamie McCormick and Doug 
Anderson. Both Chairman Hyde and Congressman Lantos were critical in 
securing a bipartisan consensus in getting this bill to the floor in 
the House.
  I also recognize Peter Yeo of Mr. Lantos' staff and Sean Woo of my 
staff for the tremendous work in getting this moving forward.
  There is a humanitarian crisis in North Korea, a human rights crisis, 
and I believe on a humanitarian basis, we are seeing in places such as 
North Korea and the Sudan a use of a humanitarian tool to maintain 
power and, in the process, people are dying and being killed.
  Countries such as North Korea and Sudan have created an axis of death 
on their own people. This should not be, and it should not be allowed 
to take place in this world today. We need to stand up for the human 
dignity of every person, wherever they are located in the world.
  The North Korea Human Rights Act highlights this problem and 
establishes a position for this country that hopefully will be a model 
position for many countries around the world in dealing with the human 
rights tragedy inside North Korea.
  I thank the Members of this body for allowing this presentation. I 
yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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