WaPo on NK Human Rights
Katherine H.S. Moon writes a column on the status of North Korean Human Rights within the framework of the 6 Party Talks. In short, the other four nations dealing with NK won’t bother with it
Two weeks ago, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, the U.S. lead in the six-party talks, went to Pyongyang for a sudden and highly secret meeting with North Korean officials. But even if we get closer to breaking the impasse over the North’s nuclear possessions and ambitions, the problem of North Korean human rights will loom large as the world continues to learn about the starvation, lack of political and religious freedoms, mass imprisonment, executions, infanticide and other horrors occurring in North Korea.
The lack of access to information about human rights problems is one obstacle. Another is the multifaceted nature of the problems and the diversity of human rights actors, claims and political agendas. Many governments and NGOs want a piece of the North Korean human rights pie, but agreement is lacking on specific goals and means to achieve them. In 2002, President George W. Bush marked Kim Jong Il’s regime as evil, the Congress passed the North Korean Human Rights Act in 2004, and the State Department’s first special envoy on this matter, Jay Lefkowitz, was appointed in 2005. But the circle of awareness and debate has remained limited, with political and religious conservatives yelling the loudest about how the U.S. should counter the abuses in North Korea — to no effect in that country, as Mr. Lefkowitz admitted before Congress in March.
It’s true, there has been a lot of yelling about human rights (guilty), but nothing really has been done. Our only victories is getting a miniscule percentage of North Korean refugees out of danger, but no actual change in policy.
The advice Moon gives is reasonable, that the US should help out existing institutions and NGO’s. But which one’s? The UN? They have way too many problems within the organization. Organizations like LiNK? I would support them, however, the most they can do is get refugees out That is not a long term solution.
The most intriging option is to encourage China to live up its desire to be part of the international system. Since it is an authoritarian state there’s no point in rallying the average Chinese person. And since it continues to deny there is a problem (a typical Chinese response from Tibetans to poisoned toothpaste), there’s no political reason for policy change.
So the best , and least pleasant, solution is economics. Give China an incentive to make sending a refuge to either SK or the US worth more than sending him to NK. With the US Government still stuck in “spend money on everything” mode, I see no reason why the US cannot commit more resources to get refugees out of China (and ultimately sapping NK in the process).
Then again, with the problems in forming immigration policy, I really do not want to know why.
