Condemning North Korea for Attack Against South Korea

Floor Speech

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Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. I thank my good friend for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I want to rise in strong support of H. Res. 1735, condemning North Korea's unprovoked shelling of the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong on November 23. I want to thank my good friend and colleague Chairman Berman and Ranking Member ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN for introducing the resolution. And I, too, like Mr. Poe and others, am very proud to be a cosponsor.

Mr. Speaker, with this resolution, we extend our deep condolences and sympathy to the families of those killed and injured in the attack. It's especially fitting that we as Americans do this since, along with the tremendous sacrifices for freedom made by the people of South Korea, we have lost tens of thousands of Americans in that same cause.

Mr. Speaker, since the shelling of Yeonpyeong Island was an act of aggression committed against an ally, the resolution also rightly affirms our alliance with South Korea, supports further cooperation on security matters, and calls on China to use its influence to restrain North Korea.

Mr. Speaker, it's important to remember that North Korea's aggression toward South Korea has almost been nonstop since 1950. It has taken the form of either full-scale war or, since 1953, sporadic shelling and shooting and skirmishing near the DMZ, or tunnelling under the DMZ, or seizing the Pueblo, an American vessel, in 1968, or kidnapping South Koreans abroad, or torpedoing the Cheonan, a South Korean vessel, in March of this year.

Similarly, since 1950, the North Korean Government has treated its own citizenry with profound disrespect and outright hostility. It makes normal human relations impossible for them by creating a system in which parents and children, friends and relatives are forced to spy and report on each other--an atmosphere of total distrust, total fear, and total social atomization.

It terrorizes them into worshipping the Kims, father and son, as if they were gods. Their personality cult is the only religion permitted in North Korea. Economic life is such madness that, about 10 years ago, as many as 2 million North Koreans starved to death. And within this large gulag that is North Korea, the Kim family has created smaller, more severe gulags, Kwan-li-so prison camps, and sent an estimated 200,000 people to live or, better stated, survive in them. Here we move from the nightmare of everyday life into a veritable hell on Earth, where forced labor, near starvation, rape, and the cruelest forms of torture prevail, and forced abortion and chemical experimentation on inmates is commonplace.

Mr. Speaker, our government must continue to stand in solidarity with all those threatened and terrorized by the monstrous Government of North Korea, and with the residents of Yeonpyeong Island, and with all the people of both South and North Korea. I urge strong support for the resolution.

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