Asia Grantee in the Spotlight: Network for North Korean Democracy and Human Rights
Political violence and repression, international and domestic responses to the war on terrorism, and political transitions dominated events throughout Asia in 2002. Moreover, even in Asian countries that are nominally democratic, weak political party structures, poor governance, corruption, and economic mismanagement continued to pose major obstacles to the institutionalization of democracy throughout the region.
In East Asia, Hu Jintao, a member of China's "fourth generation" of leaders, assumed power during a time of growing internal turmoil, as tens of millions of unemployed Chinese seek jobs in a rapidly changing economic environment. On the Korean peninsula, hopes for a gradual opening by the North to the rest of the world were set back with the shocking October announcement of the North's continued pursuit of nuclear weapons.
In Southeast Asia, the war on terrorism opened up a second front: Filipino and American forces continued to hunt down Abu Sayyaf members on Mindinao, and Indonesia suffered the worst post-9/11 international terrorist attack when bombs tore through two busy nightclubs on the island of Bali, killing more than 200 people. In Malaysia, Prime Minister Mahathir announced his retirement after twenty years in office, surprising the Malaysian political establishment and setting the stage for a new round of elections in 2003. And despite the release from house arrest of Nobel peace laureate and Burmese opposition leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in May, Burma appeared to be no closer to a political settlement of its long-running troubles. Finally, in May 2002, after more than 450 years of colonial occupation and a torturous separation from Indonesia, East Timor became independent.
In the Subcontinent, India and Pakistan continued to engage in a game of nuclear brinkmanship, with over one million troops amassed along their common border. In Pakistan, President Musharraf continued to position the country as an essential partner of the United States in the war on terrorism while simultaneously consolidating his political power through a highly manipulated political process that also saw religious parties claim their first significant electoral gains. India witnessed its worst communal violence since the early 1990s when over 2,000 Muslims lost their lives in a campaign to avenge the killing of fifty Hindu nationalist activists earlier in the year. Nepal plunged deeper into crisis as a Maoist uprising spread throughout the country, threatening the survival of the state itself. In one bright spot, a cease-fire agreement in Sri Lanka appears to have broken the cycle of violence on that island.
NED continued to concentrate its resources in Asia in the least democratic countries and for projects that addressed pressing and timely governance and political issues throughout the region. In East Asia, support for China and North Korea projects remained the Endowment's main priorities. In China, the Endowment supported programs designed to take advantage of openings inside the country as well as to increase the free flow of information, including intellectual exchange, and to support Tibetan civic education and democracy projects. The Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE) worked to foster discussion and the exchange of information on China's transition to a market economy, while the American Center for International Labor Solidarity (ACILS) used NED funding to expand its project to aid workers affected by China's rapidly changing economic environment. In 2002, grants to the U.S.-based Foundation for China in the 21st Century and the International Campaign for Tibet supported dialogue between Han Chinese democrats and their ethnic-minority counterparts. In North Korea, where no space for programming exists inside the country, the Endowment supported efforts to raise international awareness of human rights conditions in the country.
In Southeast Asia, Burma remained NED's top priority. Primary areas of work included information and media, labor organizing, ethnic reconciliation, women's political participation, and human rights. With a NED grant, an organization of former political prisoners was able to document the condition of political prisoners in Burma and provide support for prisoners and their families. In Malaysia, the International Republican Institute (IRI) conducted groundbreaking work in public opinion polling throughout the country. And the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI) worked with political parties throughout Southeast and East Asia to strengthen the parties' internal anticorruption efforts.
In South Asia, the Endowment focused its efforts in Pakistan and on projects that addressed growing concerns in the region. A grant to Forum-Asia allowed it to send both long- and short-term observers from the Asian Network for Free Elections to monitor the October 2002 elections in Pakistan and to produce and disseminate reports on the elections. A grant to the Sri Lanka-based International Center for Ethnic Studies supported a South Asian minority rights project in response to a rise in communal violence in the region.
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Asia Grantee in the Spotlight: Network for North Korean Democracy and Human Rights
Although security concerns in North Korea have recently received wide-spread international attention, many policymakers and international organizations continue to overlook the scale, scope, and political causes of the suffering of people living in this isolated nation. Moreover, there are few public discussions about what South Korea and other members of the international community can do to help pave the way for democratization in the North.
The Seoul-based Network for North Korean Democracy and Human Rights (NKnet) was formed in 1999 to raise awareness among South Koreans and the international community about North Korean democratization and human rights issues. A NED grantee since 2000, NKnet was founded by veterans of the pro-democracy campaign against military dictatorship in South Korea, some of whom served prison sentences for their activism. These individuals provide a unique and important perspective: all were once fiercely pro-socialist, convinced that the North represented a superior economic and political system. But dramatic changes in Eastern Europe and the food crisis in North Korea ultimately led them to re-assess their self-described "mistaken view" and publicly denounce socialism as an unviable option.
With a staff of just four full-time employees, two part-time employees, and one part-time volunteer, NKnet manages not only to operate its Web site (in Korean and English) but also to pursue a number of initiatives such as public workshops and publication of a journal (monthly in Korean and quarterly in English and Japanese). The Web site, www.nknet.org, went live in October 2000 and already logs more visitors through South Korea's primary search engine than any other North Korea-related NGO accessible through that engine. In addition, numerous reports first published in NKnet's journal, Keys, continue to be picked up by mainstream Korean media.
Supported by three consecutive years of NED funding, NKnet focuses its energy on informing local and international media outlets about democratization and human rights issues in North Korea, educating South Koreans and the international community, promoting dialogue about current conditions in North Korea and prospects for its future, and building broad-based alliances among North Korean defectors, South Korean students, and local and international civic and human rights groups. Especially compelling are NKnet's interviews with North Korean refugees and North Korea experts, as well as its moderated online discussion forums addressing the prospects for democracy in North Korea.
This year, NKnet received a $60,000 grant from NED, which was used not only to support its Web site and journal but also to conduct a series of workshops for North Korean refugees now living in South Korea. The workshops, aimed at easing the transition for refugees and enabling them to become active citizens, also introduced the refugees to ways for them to participate in campaigns aimed at bringing human rights and democracy to their homeland.
"Because the situation is so bad and reliable information so difficult to collect," explains Brian Joseph, NED Program Officer for Asia, "it is all the more important for NED to support the few groups, like NKnet, who dare to take on the challenge of North Korea. Although the international community has only a limited picture of conditions in North Korea, what is known should leave no doubt that the horrendous human rights
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