"The New Convergence "
Address by Carl Gershman, President of the NED

Remarks to the 8th International Conference on North Korean Human Rights and Refugees
Chatham House, London
January 22, 2008

I want to thank Chatham House for hosting this gathering, and the Reverend Benjamin, former Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik, and Jan Ramstad for their leadership and vision. Their cooperation encapsulates the growth and broadening of the international movement for the liberation of the people of North Korea and the inclusion of North Korea into the international community.

In the 8 years since our first meeting, there have been some radical changes in the situation that we face. The issue of human rights in North Korea is now on the international agenda, which was not the case when we held our first meeting and for which we can take some credit. But even more importantly, conditions are changing inside North Korea. At a donor’s conference held yesterday, Andrei Lankov spoke of “a completely new situation, which creates new opportunities.” He spoke of the death of North Korean Stalinism, the gradual erosion of its isolation and the breakdown of its information blockade. This new situation makes it possible not just to advocate and defend human rights and to promote broadcasting into North Korea, but also to begin to engage with the people of North Korea in a direct way.

These and other changes taking place in North Korea and in the international environment have created the conditions for what I would like to call “the new convergence.” It takes three forms.

The first is an international convergence of policy on how to deal with North Korea. With the election in South Korea of Lee Myung-bak and the U.S. shift from isolating North Korea to engaging with it through the Six-Party Talks, there is now a basic convergence of policy between South Korea and the United States. Each country is now committed to what might be called a principled form of engagement that that combines a concern for both security and human rights. Europe also shares this orientation, which explains why we are meeting in the United Kingdom with the prominent participation of Norway.

The second form of convergence is between the security track of diplomacy and the human rights track. Until now, the policy specialists and the human rights activists have gone their separate ways – the former focusing exclusively on negotiating the termination of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program and the latter trying to raise international awareness of fundamental human rights violations in North Korea. But with the February 13 agreement in the Six-Party Talks, tentative as it still is, the time is ripe for beginning to develop a comprehensive multilateral framework for cooperation in Northeast Asia that would integrate security, economic, humanitarian and human rights issues, as was done through the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, the so-called Helsinki process. That will be the subject of the last session at today’s conference. No one should under-estimate the difficulty of reaching an agreement on such a process. It will not happen unless North Korea comes clean on its nuclear program and agrees to give up the 30-40 kilograms of plutonium it is thought to possess. And even if that happens, getting human rights included in the current security negotiations involves complex issues of timing, sequencing, and trade-offs. But the time for trying to make that happen is now at hand.

The third form of convergence is between those who want engagement with North Korea and those who seek a transformation of the closed system. This convergence is made possible by the breakdown of the totalitarian system in North Korea to which I have already referred. Because of North Korea’s close proximity to a successful Korean democracy across the DMZ, whatever legitimacy it has with its own people depends on keeping them isolated from the outside world and ignorant of how massively their system has failed. Breaking down that isolation through engagement is thus a real threat to the system.

We obviously have to continue and even to step up the programs that are already underway – the human rights advocacy and defense; the capacity building for new NGOs organized by the growing community of North Korean defectors; and the short-wave radio broadcasting into North Korea. But these programs should now be supplemented by exchange programs that are probably best undertaken by the United Kingdom, by Norway and other Scandinavian countries, and by other countries in Europe as well.

Australia can also play an important role. Kevin Rudd, the new Prime Minister, has visited North Korea, and his new Labor government may show a new interest in North Korea. I am pleased to announce, therefore, that we have started discussions about holding the 9th international conference in Australia, and it is with great pleasure that I can now introduce to you Michael Danby, a Member of Parliament representing Melbourne Ports and one of Australia’s most outspoken advocates of human rights.