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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 Pierre Rigoulot and Robert Pépin July 16, 2003 Dear Friends of The National Endowment for Democracy, The Defence Forum Foundation and the US Committee for Human Rights in North Korea I want to thank you all for allowing me to say a few words on behalf of the French Committee to Help the Population of North Korea. It is indeed a great honour for me to be here with people who, no matter what the differences between their governments might be, are united in their steadfast dedication to the cause of freedom and their unrelenting denunciation of the evils of totalitarianism. Today, the main cause of worry for democracies is radical Islam and its avowed desire to destroy western civilisation as we know it. The threat is clear, unequivocal and should be minded. Fighting this new form of totalitarianism and taking whatever steps are necessary to defeat it is of vital importance. Nevertheless, we must not ignore other forms of terrorism, however antiquated they might seem today. North Korea, unfortunately, is among others, an appalling example of this old terrorism. Communism, let us not forget, threatened to destroy the planet for seventy years, was responsible for the death, imprisonment, torture and deportation of millions and millions of people throughout the world and is still a very real menace to the free world, not to mention the people suffering under its yoke. The four laureates who are being honoured today have all helped us understand and, more importantly, feel what it is to try and live in a country where there is no freedom of thought, religion, expression or movement whatsoever, where anyone may be jailed, tortured, shot, beaten to death or sent to concentration camp at a moment’s notice, where entire families are condemned to starve, where looking desperately for food and the most basic commodities of life is an ongoing nightmare. The French Committee to Help the Population of North Korea would like to thank them for their incredible fortitude and the indomitable courage they have shown in denouncing the horrors of everyday life in communist North Korea. More than anything else, we want to thank them all for the magnificent example they have set. Fighting to survive in a country where trying to be free and live a normal life is in itself a crime, is difficult enough. But on top of this, they have all agreed to testify and, notwithstanding the harrowing pain they must feel in doing so, they have recounted the horrors they went through, so that we may understand and are reinforced in our desire to put an end to such miseries. Thanks to Mr Kang Cheol-hwan’s book, "The Aquariums of Pyong Yang", which he co-wrote with Mrs Song and Pierre Rigoulot, we know a lot more about what really goes on in one of the worst dictatorships on earth. This biography is available in France, the United States, the Netherlands and Bulgaria and is currently being translated into Japanese. Like Mr Kang Cheol-hwan, Mrs Soon Ok Lee came to Paris and gave many interviews, especially on the radio, to remind us that we should never falter in our efforts to defeat such regimes. Mr Han Yyuk’s life story is also well known through his testimony and Mr Kang Cheol-hwan’s book, and we hope to have the pleasure of seeing him soon in Paris. The last laureate, the Reverend Benjamin Yoon, has done so much that I wouldn’t have time to describe the wonderful work he continues to do to make us all aware of the terrible tyranny still oppressing the population of North Korea. This award and this ceremony are indeed magnificent. But there is more to it than the mere pleasure of honouring great people. It is also an encouragement for all of us to go on with our work. Democracies cannot allow themselves to co-exist with regimes that build weapons of mass destruction and help terrorist groups all over the world. Democracies cannot remain passive when they run the all too real risk of being attacked by such tyrannies. The interest of the population of North Korea and the security of democratic countries lies in the eradication of totalitarian regimes such as that of Kim Jong-il. Let us all hope that in the very near future, an even better gift than these splendid awards is granted to our four laureates: the possibility of going back to a free and democratic North Korea. Pierre Rigoulot and Robert Pépin French Committee to Help the Population of North Korea Washington DC, July 16th 2003 |
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