Joint Hearing of the Int. Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Human Rights and the Asia and the Pacific Subcomm...-North Korea: Human Rights, Refugees..

Federal News Service April 28, 2004 Wednesday

Copyright 2004 The Federal News Service, Inc.
Federal News Service

April 28, 2004 Wednesday

HEADLINE: JOINT HEARING OF THE INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM, NONPROLIFERATION AND HUMAN RIGHTS SUBCOMMITTEE AND THE ASIA AND THE PACIFIC SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

SUBJECT: NORTH KOREA: HUMAN RIGHTS, REFUGEES, AND HUMANITARIAN CHALLENGES

CHAIRED BY: REPRESENTATIVE ELTON GALLEGLY (R-CA) AND REPRESENTATIVE JAMES A. LEACH (R-IA)

WITNESSES PANEL I: L. GORDON FLAKE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, THE MAUREEN AND MIKE MANSFIELD FOUNDATION; TARIK M. RADWAN, JUBILEE CAMPAIGN USA AND PROFESSOR OF LAW, HANDONG INTERNATIONAL LAW SCHOOL;

TIMOTHY A. PETERS, FOUNDER AND DIRECTOR, HELPING HANDS/KOREA;

SUZANNE SCHOLTE, PRESIDENT, DEFENSE FORUM FOUNDATION

LOCATION: 2172 RAYBURN HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING, WASHINGTON, D.C.

BODY:

REP. JAMES A. LEACH (R-IA): The committee will come to order. And on behalf of the committee, I'd like to welcome our distinguished witnesses to this joint hearing of the Subcommittees on Asia and the Pacific and International Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Human Rights regarding human rights, refugees and humanitarian challenges in North Korea.

At the outset, I'd like to express my appreciation for Chairman Gallegly, Chris Smith, Ed Royce and Steve Chabot for their strong leadership on this issue, and I also note the leadership on the Democratic side from Tom Lantos, Howard Berman, Eni Faleomavaega and Gary Ackerman. It's important to underscore that there are no significant partisan distinctions on human rights policy toward North Korea, and indeed no great distinctions between administrations on these core humanitarian concerns.

In this regard, I'd like to express our sorrow at the news of a massive explosion at the Ryongchon Railway Station inside North Korea last Thursday. The heart of all Americans go out to the victims of the blast and their families, and in particular, the many children still suffering from their wounds. I am pleased the United States has offered to support the international relief effort to that devastated community. We must always distinguish between people-to-people and government-to-government relations, and it's in the context of people- to-people that we extend humanitarian assistance, such as the several million tons of food that we've provided since 1995 to North Korea.

Indeed, it's that humanitarian impulse which is the motive behind this hearing and behind the events of the North Korean Freedom Day and behind the North Korea Human Rights Act, which the committee considered favorably on March 31.

The people of North Korea have endured some of the great humanitarian traumas of our time. Inside North Korea they suffer at the hands of totalitarian dynasty that permits no dissent and maintains an inhuman system of prison camps that house an estimated 200,000 political inmates. The regime strictly curtails freedoms of speech, press, religion, assembly and movement. Since the collapse of the centralized agricultural system in the 1990s, more than two million North Koreans are estimated to have died of starvation.

North Koreans outside of North Korea are also uniquely vulnerable, and many thousands are hiding inside China, which currently refuses to allow the U.N. high commissioner for refugees to evaluate and identify the genuine refugees among the North Korean migrant population. China forcibly returns North Koreans to North Korea, where they routinely face imprisonment and torture and sometimes execution. Inside China, North Korean women and girls are particularly vulnerable to trafficking and sexual exploitation.

These crises prompted my introduction of H.R. 4011, the North Korean Human Rights Act of 2004. This broadly bipartisan legislation, which was approved by the full committee last month, aims to promote international cooperation in human rights and refugee protection and increased transparency in the provision of humanitarian assistance to the people of North Korea. On the human rights front, the bill underscores the importance of human rights issues and in future negotiations with North Korea and authorizes $2 million per year for programs to promote human rights, democracy, rule of law and a market economy. It also authorizes a similar amount to increase availability of information sources not controlled by the North Korean government.

Finally, it urges additional North Korea-specific attention by appropriate U.N. human rights authorities. On the humanitarian front, the bill authorizes increased funding for assistance to North Koreans outside of North Korea. It attempts to secure greater transparency for aid delivered inside North Korea by authorizing a significant increase in such aid, but tying increases to substantive improvements and monitoring. Finally, it conditions direct aid to the North Korean government on human rights and transparency benchmarks, but allows the president to waive those restrictions for national security purposes after reporting to Congress.

In terms of refugee protection, the bill clarifies U.S. policy and urges the U.N. Human Rights Commission to use all available means to gain access to the North Koreans in China. It attempts to formulate prudent solutions to the practical and legal barriers that presently keep North Koreans from having effective access to U.S. refugee and asylum programs. It does not mandate the admission of any number of North Koreans to the United States, raise the annual U.S. refugee cap or in any way limit the authority of the Department of Homeland Security to regulate and condition the entry of North Koreans into the U.S. on a case-by-case basis.

Although the principal responsibility for North Korean refugee resettlement naturally falls to the government of South Korea, the United States should play a leadership role in focusing international attention on the plight of these refugees and formulating international solutions to that profound humanitarian dilemma, which may included accepting an unspecified but credible number of refugees for domestic resettlement.

Here it must be noted that our government must maintain a prudent case-by-case approach, in part due to the circumstances that not only is the North Korean government oppressive, it has instituted a virtual anti-American brainwashing of its population. Unlike refugees from the former communist block of Eastern Europe, the North Korean people do not yet broadly share the idea that America's a beacon of freedom.

With regard to China, this bill is not solely critical. It is also aspirational. It makes clear that the U.S. and the world community stand ready to provide more assistance to help defray the cost associated with North Korean refugees present when China begins fulfilling its obligations as a party to the 1951 U.N. Refugee Convention. We genuinely hope for that opportunity.

We are honored by the presence of four North Korean witnesses who have endured some of the most demanding rigors of the human condition. Two of them are survivors of the North Korean gulag. All four of them spent time as refugees inside China before successfully escaping to South Korea. We look forward to receiving their testimony and that of our other expert witnesses.

Mr. Flake, do you wish to make an opening statement? Let me introduce our panel. The first panel consists of L. Gordon Flake, who is executive director of The Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation, the co-author of "Paved with Good Intentions: the NGO Experience in North Korea." And let me say to Mr. Flake, I had not known of the Mansfield Foundation, but anything identified with Mike Mansfield's name comes well recommended to this committee.

REP. JEFF FLAKE (R-AZ): Let me just add, anybody named Flake has got to be doing okay.

(Laughter.)

REP. LEACH: Well, I think that's fair. And if it's a relationship, it's particularly appreciated.

The second witness is Tarik Radwan, who is a professor of law at Handong International Law School in Pohang, Korea, and assistant director of the Jubilee Campaign USA, a nonsectarian human rights organization. Thirdly, we have Timothy A. Peters, who is the founder and director of Helping Hands/Korea, a humanitarian NGO based in Seoul. Mr. Peters, who testified for us several years ago, has been intimately involved with efforts to provide assistance to North Koreans in need, both inside and outside of North Korea. And our final witness in the first panel is Suzanne Scholte, who is president of the Defense Forum Foundation, a founding board member of the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, and a founding member of the North Korean Freedom Coalition.

I welcome you all and we'll proceed in the order of the introductions, unless by previous agreement you've changed that. If not, Mr. Flake, proceed. All of your statements, without objection, will be placed fully in the record. I'd be appreciative if you could summarize in less than five minutes.

But before proceeding, let me ask, Mr. Sherman, do you have a statement you'd like to make?

REP. SHERMAN: I do indeed have a statement. We're concerned with human rights in North Korea. And while we are, of course, concerned with the residents of the Hermit Kingdom, there is another human rights issue. That is the right of my constituents and yours, Mr. Chairman, to go to sleep tonight not having to worry that a nuclear weapon constructed in North Korea will be smuggled into America and exploded.

And that is a human rights issue, whether it is the actuality which would be devastating or even the potentiality which is harmful to every American every night, is another human rights issue. And this administration has gone-well, before September 11th America was simply under-engaged in dealing with the threat that nuclear weapons in terrible hands could bring to us. Since September 11th we have gone chasing off in a number of different directions while North Korea now has, according to a recent press report, eight plutonium- based nuclear weapons.

In other words, even after September 11th our policies have watched America become less and less secure. Now that they have eight to defend themselves against us, the ninth nuclear weapon they build can go on Ebay. God knows who will buy it. And yet this administration refuses to talk about a non-aggression pact.

Now, I'm not saying we just give that away, but if we had inspections and we had the decommissioning of these eight weapons and the material sent to Russia or the United States where it would be safe, that would be very important. Yet this administration says oh, but we can't sign a non-aggression pact because our bureaucracy says we've never done that before. Sounds like my DMV. And I know that diplomats now come to us and say well, we are not talking about a non- aggression pact therefore it's not important.

Just as importantly, we have not even hinted to the Chinese that their cooperation in putting economic pressure on that regime until it stops its nuclear weapon program is important enough to us that we would slightly affect our trade relationship with them or even temporarily suspend their trade relationships or some aspects of it with them until they are willing, not just to give us moral support, not just to speak out and say well, they'd prefer North Korea not to have nuclear weapons but to say that they are willing to take action to make sure that those weapons are decommissioned and that the processes that create them are ceased.

Apparently the bureaucratic proclivities of the State Department not to sign non-aggression treaties and the insatiable desire of American corporations for profits on imports from China are more important than whether my constituents and yours can go to sleep tonight not worried about what happens to those eight plutonium based nuclear weapons. And I think that that's the human rights concern and it is not enough to have an aggressive foreign policy, we need a smart foreign policy. I yield back.

REP. LEACH: I thank the gentleman for his comments. Before turning to the panel let me take leave as the chair to make a modest correction to my distinguished friend, many of whose concerns I deeply share. But the administration has publicly and privately made it very clear to the North Koreans that we're quite prepared to accept the giving of very formal assurances on aggression. And that is part of the public record. It's been part of the six --

REP. SHERMAN: If the chairman would yield. That was the point I'm making. We are quibbling about whether it would be a non- aggression pact or whether it would be some-presumably in the eyes of North Korea-lesser or less sought after written assurance, and that kind of failure to see what the North Koreans are asking for and to give it to them as part of an overall plan, but to get hung up on our own desire to avoid calling it a non-aggression pact is my concern.

REP. LEACH: I appreciate what the gentleman is saying but I want to caution him that a circumstance that might have existed a year and a half ago does not exist today with regard to that issue and I think we are very prepared, and the North Koreans recognize this, to offer assurances on aggression.

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