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Events >> The Democracy Award >> 2003 Democracy Award
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Remarks: Event Program: Opening Remarks ICPNKR Parliamentary Roundtable on the North Korean Refugee Crisis: Members of the International Parliamentarians’ Coalition for North Korean Human Rights and Refugees and Members of the U.S. Congress discuss policy recommendations for managing the refugee crisis. Remarks: Panel I: The North Korean Gulag: The Testimony of Three Survivors Panel II: Documenting the North Korean Gulag Reception and Presentation of the National Endowment for Democracy’s 2003 Democracy Award |
National Endowment for Democracy Conference on “Gulag, Famine, and Refugees: The Urgent Human Rights Crisis in North Korea” Remarks by U.S. Senator Jon Kyl July 16, 2003 This conference – and the National Endowment for Democracy’s recognition today of Benjamin Yoon, Founder of the Citizens’ Alliance for North Korean Human Rights, as well as three courageous survivors of the North Korean gulag, An Hyuk (On Hook), Kang Cheol-hwan (Kong Chul-wong), and Soon Ok Lee – comes at a critical juncture in U.S. relations with North Korea and at a critical time for the more than 22 million people suffering in that country. The intersection of the human rights crisis with the nuclear crisis gives us a choice: we can take the road of appeasement, as we have done unsuccessfully in the past, or we can embark on a strategy aimed at replacing dictatorship with democracy. Those champions of freedom who will be given the Democracy Award this evening do not stand alone, but their stories are illustrative of the difficult road that lies ahead and the perseverance that will be required if we are to effect real change. In North Korea, the world has one of the last remaining relics of the Cold War – a brutal, backward, isolated, Stalinist dictatorship that has no respect for human life, that rules by fear and intimidation, and that is willing to pay perhaps any price for its own survival. Its brutality is matched by few throughout history. According to the U.S. State Department’s most recent human rights report, political prisoners are often tortured, including by severe beatings, electric shock, prolonged periods of exposure, humiliation, and confinement to small “punishment cells,” in which prisoners are unable to stand up or lie down, where they could be held for several weeks. Soon Ok Lee, one of tonight’s award recipients, testified to the Senate this year about North Korea’s gulag system, stating, “. . . the North Korean leadership operates secret concentration camps and prisons for political prisoners in at least 12 locations. Their goal is to eliminate all forms of opposition. Over 200,000 innocent victims, including women and children, are detained there for life without a judicial process. . . Some 6,000 prisoners were in Kaechon Prison when I was imprisoned there for 7 years.” Of that 6,000, Soon Ok Lee testified that 2,000 were housewives who were arrested while trying to find food when the government discontinued food rations. She spoke of unbearable conditions where prisoners were “forced to work 16 to 18 hours daily without a moment’s rest.” These horrible conditions have led increasing numbers of North Koreans to risk their lives in an attempt to flee the country. We should encourage as many as possible to leave, and we should offer assistance to those who do. But, unfortunately, as things stand today, there is no coordinated regional plan to care for these refugees and many are forced by the Chinese government to return. Earlier this year, my colleague and good friend Senator Sam Brownback traveled to the Chinese-North Korean border to investigate the circumstances facing North Korean refugees inside China, as well as the human rights situation and economic conditions inside North Korea. In a letter to Members of the Senate, he shared his observations, and I was struck by the dilemma facing the people of North Korea as they decide whether to remain shackled by a regime that has taken their country hostage, or risk the unknown, traveling to a country that does not want them. Senator Brownback described eyewitness accounts of trucks filled with North Korean refugees being repatriated, in one instance with tethered wires through their noses. Those forced to return to North Korea by the Chinese face a broad range of persecution from torture to execution. It is critical that, as the United States and the international community seek to deal with the growing security threat posed by North Korea, the human rights atrocities committed by the regime in Pyongyang continue to be exposed, so that the world understands the character of the regime with which we are dealing. In that regard, I appreciate the efforts of the U.S. Committee on Human Rights in North Korea, the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center and other organizations to educate people about the need to have a comprehensive strategy to deal with North Korea, that addresses both security and human rights concerns. Ultimately, the key to removing the threat posed by the regime in Pyongyang and to improving the lives of the North Korean people lies in ending the tyranny that has swallowed their country and isolated them from the outside world for half of a century. This is a mammoth task – one that must come both from within and without – but it is not impossible. So, where do we start? First, by recognizing that the fundamental problem is the regime, of which the deplorable human rights situation is but one symptom. Another is North Korea’s continued pursuit of nuclear weapons in violation of every agreement it has ever signed regarding its nuclear program. Negotiation, bribes, and appeasement have not only consistently failed to cure these symptoms, they have served as a lifeline to a dying regime. Kang Cheol-Hwan (Kong Chul-wong), who is one of tonight’s award recipients, wrote an insightful op-ed in Sunday’s Washington Post, which asserted, correctly in my view, that aid from the international community is merely blackmail that feeds the North Korean Army and keeps the regime afloat. The international community should seek to deny the North Korean regime its sources of funding, including foreign aid, weapons exports, drug smuggling, and counterfeiting. On Monday, an article in the Wall Street Journal described what it called the “lifeblood of Kim Jong Il’s dictatorship” – Division 39, a largely unpublicized North Korean trading network and slush fund that has increasingly turned to trade in illicit goods and weapons systems. We should spare no effort in shutting down the flow of funds to Division 39 and any similar accounts that the regime maintains. I am pleased that we are making progress on this front, with the recent launching of the Proliferation Security Initiative. Under this initiative, the Bush administration is working with allies to develop a coordinated strategy to interdict North Korean shipments of weapons, drugs, and other illicit items. According to recent press reports, 11 countries are now on board, and have agreed to share intelligence and start military training exercises. Knowing that foreign aid is misused by the North Korean regime, the international community should insist that future deliveries of food aid to North Korea be conditioned upon the World Food Program’s ability to deliver that aid directly to the people. In 1995, the World Food Program agreed to restrictions on its monitoring of aid to North Korea that have not been made with any other country. In fact, in other cases where recipient governments insisted on the kind of restraints that North Korea imposes on monitoring, the World Food Program has threatened to halt aid altogether. Not so with North Korea, begging the question: Why has the World Food Program been so pusillanimous in dealing with North Korea? While actively working to sever the regime’s lifeline, we should also use all of the tools at our disposal to promote democratic change. Holding conferences like this one today – bringing to the world’s attention the appalling nature of the regime – is an important step in that regard. Another is reaching out to the people inside the country. In that regard, the Los Angeles Times recently reported that Douglas Shin, a Korean- American pastor and Norbert Vollersten, a German physician, are spearheading a new effort, using perhaps one our most powerful tools of change: information. According to the article, their project will launch, in the coming weeks a fleet of several thousand vinyl balloons carrying small radios, equipped to receive a wide range of broadcasts, including those of Radio Free Asia and Voice of America. U.S. radio broadcasting is indeed one of our greatest hopes for communicating with the isolated North Korean population. But I am concerned that we are not doing enough – we only broadcast 4 hours per day. Radio Free Asia and Voice of America should be on the air in North Korea around-the-clock. I will continue to push for this change. Unfortunately, there are some who do not recognize this great opportunity, and who argue that increasing broadcasting hours would do little good because Pyongyang retains such strict control over the flow of information. I am disappointed that this appears to be the attitude of the U.S. State Department. U.S. Government and NGO support of projects like the one described in the Los Angeles Times can, over time, exponentially increase the number of North Korean people we are able to reach. Moreover, according to reports from North Korean defectors, up to half of the North Korean population already has access to a radio that can receive broadcasts from outside of the country, and many, notably including military officers, listen to VOA and RFA. This makes it all the more important that we step up our efforts to increase our broadcasts to North Korea. Many of the ideas I have discussed are embodied in a bill I introduced earlier year, the North Korea Democracy Act of 2003. I am hopeful that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will work with me to see that this legislation is discussed and voted on in the Senate. I would like to close by reiterating what I believe to be the most important message that we can take from this conference: North Korea’s human rights abuses, its development of nuclear weapons, and its weapons exports are all tools that the regime in Pyongyang uses to try to ensure its survival. There is a nexus between this failure to abide by internationally-accepted norms of behavior and the character of that regime. When countries move in the direction of liberal democracy, and the people are able to elect their own leaders, governments don’t need to resort to these sinister methods to maintain control. We should seek to facilitate that movement toward democracy in North Korea. We should work toward a day when the people of that country are able to choose their own fate. And we should make clear to the current regime in Pyongyang that we will not settle for anything less – that we will not be blackmailed into aiding its survival. Only then – when our message is clear and united, and our words are followed with action – will a major threat to security and to humanity be removed. |
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