SPEAKING
FREELY US-N Korea: Mixing
nuke, human rights diplomacy By
Rebecca MacKinnon
Speaking Freely is an
Asia Times Online feature that allows guest writers to
have their say. Pleaseclick hereif you are
interested in contributing.
WASHINGTON -
Several hundred people - human-rights activists,
politicians, members of Christian groups and some North
Korean defectors - recently rallied in front of the
United States Capitol Building on "North Korea Freedom
Day". There were media events, exhibitions and testimony
by activists, experts and North Korean defectors before
the US House of Representatives' International Relations
Committee. The goals: to call attention to Pyongyang's
abominable human-rights record and to demand passage of
the North Korean Human Rights Act.
The act and
related debates over how human rights should fit into
Washington's North Korea policy have received little
attention in the US media, which finds the ongoing saga
of nuclear diplomacy to be more worthy of regular news
coverage. The fact that North Korean leader Kim
Jong-il's regime routinely commits human-rights abuses
and atrocities against its people is not considered a
"new" story, nor is the fact that Washington has been
largely powerless to do anything about North Korea's
human-rights situation.
Similarly, the US hasn't
been able to do anything to stop North Korea developing
nuclear weapons - it is believed to have several - and
the current China-sponsored six-party talks (a
working-level session is scheduled for next Wednesday in
Beijing) are aimed at defusing the nuclear crisis and
persuading North Korea to end its nuclear program
permanently in exchange for security guarantees,
economic aid and cheap energy. The six are North Korea,
South Korea, China, Japan, Russia and the United States.
Addressing a crowd of several hundred people in
front of the Capitol steps last week, Republican Senator
Sam Brownback of Kansas warned that history will harshly
judge a government that fails to do something about
North Korea's estimated 200,000 political prisoners,
reported chemical- and biological-weapons experiments on
human beings, and the brutal punishment of thousands of
North Korean refugees after they are caught in China and
repatriated. Inaction on North Korea's human-rights
situation, he argued, is as appalling as inaction in the
face of the Holocaust, the killing fields in Cambodia,
or the genocide in Rwanda. Brownback is chairman of the
Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on East Asian and
Pacific Affairs.
"We criticize the
contemporaries of those tragedies, asking, 'Why didn't
you do more? Why did you not act?' Our future
generations will look at us and ask the same questions.
This is our time to act," Brownback said of North Korea.
UN condemns N Korean rights abuses The
United Nations Commission on Human Rights in Geneva
recently passed a strong resolution of censure, citing
North Korea's extensive and grave human-rights abuses
and calling for investigation by a UN rapporteur.
Activists say Washington should demonstrate its
concern for the human rights of the North Korean people,
without going to war.
Brownback is spearheading
the North Korean Human Rights Act in the Senate, which
has yet to begin deliberations on the proposed
legislation. A sister bill in the House of
Representatives has been amended and recommended for
passage by the House International Relations Committee
and is now being examined by the House Judiciary
Committee, which must also approve or make further
amendments before the bill moves on to a full House
vote. The bill must also pass the Senate, and then any
differences between the House and Senate versions must
be reconciled before it goes on to the president to be
signed into law. The proposed legislation can be read here (PDF file).
If
passed, the North Korean Human Rights Act would express
a "sense of Congress" that human-rights issues must be a
"key concern" in US dealings with North Korea, and would
require all economic assistance to North Korea to attach
human-rights conditions, ie, no aid without concrete
demonstrations that human rights are improving. It would
call for increased pressure on the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to demand access to
North Korean refugees in China, and it would call for
heightened diplomatic pressure on China to halt its
policy of catching and repatriating North Korean
refugees.
The act would also allocate funding to
assist non-governmental humanitarian organizations
working surreptitiously in China as part of the perilous
"underground railroad" for North Korean refugees. It
would fund increased radio broadcasts into North Korea
and the smuggling into North Korea of radios capable of
receiving them. Finally, the North Korea Human Rights
Act would enable substantial numbers of North Korean
refugees to apply for and receive asylum in the US.
Staffers working on Capitol Hill say there are
concerns over issues of immigration and "homeland
security": how would North Korean refugees be
effectively screened to prevent spies from getting in?
That concern, some predict, combined with Washington's
ongoing preoccupation with Iraq, could mean that the act
may not be passed by both houses until much later this
year, perhaps after the November election. But in the
end, the immigration issues are expected to be worked
out, if not watered down, and support for the act, once
it goes to a general vote in both houses, is likely to
be broad-based and bipartisan. As one House staffer puts
it: "Who wants to go on record as being against human
rights in North Korea?"
Would a human rights
act do any good? Indeed. Who does? But
realistically, what can the North Korean Human Rights
Act accomplish if its goals and methods are not fully
integrated into Washington's overall diplomatic strategy
toward Pyongyang?
Defector An Hyuk, who came to
Washington to testify, believes the act will send an
important message of support and encouragement to North
Koreans who want to leave their country. He believes it
will contribute to a weakening of the regime. "In North
Korea there are rumors that this act is just about to be
passed," he said. "The rumor goes that if it is passed,
there will be refugee camps in Russia or China to
receive all the defectors on the run. So this is already
bringing changes in North Korea."
The reality is
that the US does not have the power to make Russia and
China set up refugee camps. China has shown no
indication of reversing its policy of repatriating North
Koreans who flee over the border, insisting they are
"economic migrants", not refugees. Even those in
Washington who support the act's goals are not
optimistic that China can be persuaded to change its
policy, or that the UNHCR is likely to be permitted to
assist these refugees in China in the near future.
The act would make it even harder for the US
government to appropriate any economic assistance to
North Korea without strong human-rights conditions
attached. "If there's any money going to the North
Korean government, the human-rights portfolio has to be
dealt with," said Brownback. This could potentially have
implications for the ongoing six-party nuclear talks. If
US economic assistance were to become part of a
denuclearization deal with North Korea, it would have to
be tied to improved human-rights practices - or at the
very least, more open monitoring of how the assistance
is being used and whether it reaches the intended needy
recipients.
But critics argue that the lack of
coordination between the still non-existent North Korean
Human Rights Act and US nuclear diplomacy only serves to
weaken both. "There's a failure on the part of the
administration to find a manner to adequately
incorporate it into the policy in terms of where it fits
and when it can be employed," said Ambassador Charles
"Jack" Pritchard, a former top aide in the negotiations
with Pyongyang by the administration of US President
George W Bush. "If you fail in the effort to resolve the
nuclear issue, and you have a transfer of weapons of
mass destruction [WMD] technology to non-state players
at some point in time, where do human rights or the
political prisoners in North Korea stand next to the
next World Trade Center disaster in America? And what is
Senator Brownback going to say at that point in time?"
Pritchard said in an interview with Asia Times Online.
Act would be clear on the need for
change In the context of the six-party talks,
aimed at defusing the North Korea nuclear crisis, Bush
administration officials speak of giving North Korea
some kind of "security guarantee" in exchange for the
verifiable dismantling of its nuclear-weapons programs.
Official US policy is not to seek regime change in North
Korea, despite the fact that Bush has said on the record
that he "loathes" Kim Jong-il. The North Korean Human
Rights Act, on the other hand, would be more up-front
and honest not only about US distaste for the North
Korean regime, but also about America's desire to foster
fundamental change in the nature of that regime.
While the act's proposed language carefully
avoids any mention of "regime change" per se, its
proponents make no bones about the legislation's
ultimate goal. "You're really trying to end the regime,"
said former US ambassador to Seoul James Lilley, who
also served as ambassador to China and representative in
Taiwan. "This would contribute to it." The idea is that
an increase of pro-democracy broadcasts and smuggled
radios, combined with active encouragement by the US
government for North Koreans to flee their country,
would help to de-legitimize Kim Jong-il's government -
or force it to change fundamentally.
But while
the act stands on moral high ground, it also contributes
to the jumble of mixed messages about Washington's true
intentions toward Pyongyang. That in turn makes it
difficult for any US diplomat to negotiate anything
credibly with North Korea - on nuclear disarmament or
anything else.
This does not mean, however, that
Washington should set aside its human-rights concerns in
favor of an exclusive focus on disarmament - or, for
that matter, that the priorities should be reversed. Nor
should a more balanced focus on human rights mean the
abandonment of a sincere US commitment to the peaceful
resolution of the Korean Peninsula's problems.
The point is that a North Korea policy that
balances human rights with disarmament concerns would be
more honest. The reality of US politics is that no North
Korea policy is likely to gain broad bipartisan support
in Congress - or solid support from the public - unless
that policy addresses the oppressive nature of the North
Korean regime. No politician can benefit politically
from appearing "soft" on North Korean human rights.
Thus the mixed messages about US intentions
toward North Korea will continue as long as human-rights
and disarmament policies are not properly coordinated
and integrated. This would require a policy overhaul,
and would by no means be easy. But the alternative is
the current, ineffectual status quo: a toothless North
Korea policy that lacks both consensus and honesty of
intent. Such lack of honesty is obvious not only to the
North Koreans - leaving them with little incentive to do
a disarmament deal or any other deal - but is also very
obvious to the South Koreans and Chinese, whose close
cooperation with the US will be essential to
facilitation, support and enforcement of any eventual
deal.
To coordinate more effectively with China
and South Korea on the shared goal of ending North
Korea's nuclear-weapons program, Beijing and Seoul need
to be convinced that Washington is being candid with
them about its true policy objectives on North Korea.
They may not agree with all US objectives, but at least
there will be no further time and energy wasted in
debate and speculation over what those objectives really
are. All of Washington's cards must be clearly and
forthrightly placed on the table and presented as the
result of a broad policy consensus in the United States:
a consensus that includes serious human-rights concerns
and a desire to bring about change in North Korea,
preferably through peaceful means. Opinion polls do show
that most Americans do not want another Korean War, but
without internal consensus, honesty and candor about
intentions, the hope of peacefully disarming North Korea
or substantially improving the lot of its people without
conflict will remain small.
Rebecca
MacKinnon is a Shorenstein Fellow at the Kennedy
School of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge,
Massachusetts. She is the former Tokyo bureau chief for
CNN. She can be reached atnkoreazone@yahoo.com.
She runs a North Korea weblog,www.NKzone.org.
(Copyright
2004 Rebecca MacKinnon. All rights reserved.)
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online
feature that allows guest writers to have their say.
Pleaseclick hereif you are
interested in contributing.
