Excerpt: Congress Wants UN to Look at N. Korea's Human Rights Abuses
(Debate on H. Res. 109 cites Pyongyang cruelty to its citizens) (2460)
Democratic and Republican lawmakers in the House of Representatives
were united in their condemnation of the human rights abuses committed
by North Korea's leadership during a March 18 debate on a resolution
that calls on the Secretary of State to bring Pyongyang's human rights
record before the United Nations Human Rights Commission.
The House passed House Resolution 109 (H. Res. 109) in a 419-1 vote
later that day.
The resolution said the Secretary of State should support efforts to
pass a resolution addressing human rights abuses in North Korea at the
59th session the United Nations Commission on Human Rights being held
in Geneva, Switzerland from March 17 to April 25.
H. Res. 109 urges "all members of the United Nations Commission on
Human Rights to support a resolution addressing human rights abuses in
North Korea" and calls upon North Korea to "respect and protect the
human rights of its citizens."
The sponsor of H. Res. 109, Representative Christopher Smith
(Republican of New Jersey) said: "North Korea has a horrific record on
human rights; and it is about time the international community said so
in one loud voice: no more."
Smith, an outspoken critic of human rights abuses, told fellow
lawmakers how Christians in North Korean prison camps "are tortured to
death for refusing to renounce their faith in one who is greater than
the Dear Leader."
Representative Tom Lantos (Democrat of California) called North Korea
"the worst kind of totalitarian police state."
"The United States and other civilized nations must make it clear that
vast improvements in North Korea's human rights situation must be part
of a dialogue with North Korea, and normalization of relations will
not occur under current circumstances," said Lantos, the ranking
Democrat on the House International Relations Committee and the
co-chairman of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus.
"The best way to send that signal from the international community is
for the United States to pursue a resolution critical of North Korea's
human rights record at the United Nations Human Rights Commission in
Geneva," said Lantos, who fought Nazi and communist tyranny in his
native land of Hungary before immigrating to the United States.
Following is the text of remarks in the House of Representatives on
House Resolution 109:
(begin excerpt)
URGING PASSAGE OF RESOLUTION ADDRESSING HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES IN NORTH
KOREA AT 59TH SESSION OF UNITED NATIONS COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS
House of Representatives
March 18, 2003
Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, the Government of North Korea is
an historical anachronism, a totalitarianist Stalinist regime under
the control of the Korean Workers Party, the so-called Dear Leader, or
Kim Jong-Il, a man who demands godlike reverence and enjoys a
decadent, opulent lifestyle while hundreds of thousands of children
and their parents starve to death.
His regime, his dictatorship, Mr. Speaker, is one of the worst
systematic abusers of human rights in the world today. Inside North
Korea, there are no genuine freedoms of speech, religion, or assembly.
The penal code imposes a penalty of death for a wide variety of crimes
against the revolution, including defection, attempted defection,
slander of party policy, listening to foreign broadcasts, and imagine
that, one listens to a radio show and one can be charged with crimes
against the revolution, and writing letters or possessing printed
material that is considered reactionary.
The regime maintains an extensive system, Mr. Speaker, of political
prison camps that hold an estimated 200,000 prisoners, including
entire families of those suspected of disloyalty toward the
dictatorship.
As confirmed by eyewitness testimony presented before the Committee on
International Relations last year, camp conditions are horrific.
Starvation, overwork, and disease kill most of the camp inmates.
Others are used as targets for martial arts practice or as guinea pigs
for lethal tests of chemical weapons.
Christians are tortured to death for refusing to renounce their faith
in one who is greater than the Dear Leader. Female prisoners are not
allowed to bear additional children, and their newborns are routinely
and brutally killed before their eyes, usually by smothering or having
their necks broken.
Based on reputable reporting, Mr. Speaker, House Resolution 109
recounts the abominable conditions inside North Korea and exhorts the
dictatorship in Pyongyang to respect human rights for its citizenry.
More immediately, it urges the Department of State to support the
introduction and passage of a resolution on human rights abuses in
North Korea at the current session of the U.N. Commission on Human
Rights in Geneva.
At the State Department's suggestion, we included language that urges
other members of the Commission to support that effort. While the
Commission has censored numerous countries in recent years, North
Korea has inexplicably escaped its notice. We hope that oversight will
be corrected during this session.
I want to thank those 19 bipartisan cosponsors, particularly the
gentleman from Illinois (Chairman HYDE); the gentleman from Iowa (Mr.
Leach), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Asia and Pacific; and the
gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos), the ranking member of the
committee, for their support. . . .
We need a very strong show of support by our colleagues today, Mr.
Speaker, on behalf of this resolution. The U.N. committee is meeting
as we speak. This issue must be brought so the kind of scrutiny and, I
would say, condemnation for these egregious abuses of human rights can
be brought to the fore. North Korea has a horrific record on human
rights; and it is about time the international community said so in
one loud voice: no more.
Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this resolution.
First, I would like to commend my good friend, the gentleman from New
Jersey (Mr. Smith), the vice-chairman of our committee, for his
continued and steadfast leadership on all issues relating to human
rights.
The political, human rights and security situation in North Korea is
deteriorating rapidly, Mr. Speaker. It is critically important that
our Nation have a strategy for addressing the whole host of our
concerns with North Korea. We indeed have a crisis on the Korean
Peninsula, and the sooner the executive branch engages at the highest
levels to deal with that crisis, the better.
When policymakers, journalists, academics, and Members of Congress
discuss the North Korean situation, the natural focus of attention is
on North Korea's dangerous and destabilizing nuclear and missile
programs. North Korea's nuclear program poses a clear and present
danger to all civilized nations, particularly with North Korea's
increasingly advanced medium- and long-range missile program. But this
legitimate focus on North Korean security issues often obscures the
horrendous human rights situation in that country.
Mr. Speaker, the United States must develop a comprehensive approach
to North Korea, one that allows us to tackle North Korea's weapons of
mass destruction and the destruction that North Korea's leaders are
imposing on their own people by their human rights policies.
Mr. Speaker, it is evident that the world has no greater abuser of
internationally recognized human rights than the Government of North
Korea. Over the past 8 years, North Korea's leaders allowed more than
1 million citizens to starve to death rather than to implement
economic and agricultural reforms. The children who survive starvation
face a life marred by permanent physical and mental disabilities
caused by their severe and long-term malnutrition. Meanwhile, the
North Korean leader, Kim Jong-Il, imports the finest foods and luxury
items for himself and his entourage, living in the lap of luxury in
Pyongyang.
Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, death and destruction are only part of
North Korea's pattern of gross violations of human rights. Those
citizens who make even the mildest criticisms of the government are
immediately imprisoned, tortured, or killed. There is no freedom of
assembly, no freedom of worship, no freedom of speech, no political
freedom.
In short, Mr. Speaker, North Korea is the worst kind of totalitarian
police state. The United States and other civilized nations must make
it clear that vast improvements in North Korea's human rights
situation must be part of a dialogue with North Korea, and
normalization of relations will not occur under current circumstances.
The best way to send that signal from the international community is
for the United States to pursue a resolution critical of North Korea's
human rights record at the United Nations Human Rights Commission in
Geneva. Our resolution urges the administration to undertake this
initiative, and I strongly urge all of my colleagues to support this
resolution.
Mr. ROYCE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me.
I rise in support of this resolution urging the United States to work
towards passage of a resolution on North Korean human rights abuses at
the U.N. Commission on Human Rights.
I am a cosponsor of this resolution, and I commend the Committee on
International Relations vice-chairman, the gentleman from New Jersey
(Mr. Smith), for his attention to this issue. I also want to commend
the ranking member, the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos), for
his attention. Both of these gentlemen have spent much time, have
spent much of their careers, trying to focus this body on human rights
and to address human rights concerns around this world.
Last year, this House passed legislation, House Concurrent Resolution
213, recognizing the horrific plight of North Korean refugees who risk
their lives to escape into China. That legislation at the time
included language encouraging the Secretary of State to work to pass a
resolution regarding human rights in North Korea at the 59th session
of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. That session began
yesterday.
Mr. Speaker, North Korea is one of the worst systemic abusers of human
rights in the world today. North Koreans are held hostage to their
so-called Dear Leader, Kim Jong-Il. North Koreans are put to death for
a very wide variety of crimes against the revolution, as he calls it,
including listening to foreign broadcasts or possessing printed
material that is considered reactionary by that regime.
The prison camps in that regime hold an estimated 200,000 prisoners.
Last year, the Subcommittee on Asia held a hearing to look at the
nightmarish conditions in these North Korean prison camps. We heard
testimony from North Koreans who had escaped the camps, and these were
North Koreans in disfavor with that Stalinist regime, those who had
been convicted of "anticriminal acts." They were basically political
prisoners.
As we heard their testimony, they reported to us that the inmates in
those camps were being slowly worked to death. These were work camps.
We heard from North Koreans who witnessed prisoners being gassed as
part of a chemical weapons experiment. We also heard testimony from
Dr. Norbert Vollersten, a German physician and one of the few
Westerners to spend extended time in North Korea. Dr. Vollersten has
launched a worldwide campaign to tell anyone who will listen what he
witnessed in North Korea. Dr. Vollersten has asked why the world does
not hear more and does not know more about what he describes as
Nazi-type atrocities that are occurring to North Korean people.
As we know, the North Korean regime uses food as a weapon against its
own people, apportioning and withholding resources based on citizens'
perceived loyalty to the regime. In many parts of that country, in
many counties, whole counties, whole provinces, are perceived not to
be loyal enough to receive food aid.
It is largely an untold story that from 1994 to 1998 at least 2
million North Koreans perished from starvation and related diseases
while nearly 50 percent of North Korean children are malnourished to
the point that their physical and mental health is compromised.
Responsibility for this unparalleled cruelty lies squarely with the
regime of Kim Jong Il.
The upcoming session provides an opportunity, the session in the
United Nations, for the administration and others throughout the world
to focus on these horrific realities in North Korea which have
unfortunately been overlooked. And I am convinced that a concerted
international focus on the North Korean regime's human rights abuses
would advance stability in Northeast Asia. I am hard pressed to see
how turning away from this ugly reality is in the interest of anyone
but the North Korean regime.
Mr. Speaker, we face a critical challenge on the Korean peninsula. I
urge the passage of this timely resolution.
Mr. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to
support H. Res. 109 urging passage of a UN Resolution addressing human
rights in North Korea, and to commend my colleague, the Honorable
CHRIS SMITH, a true leader on the issue, for introducing this
resolution.
The human rights abuses in North Korea are a human tragedy of the
worst proportions. Kim Jong Il's prison camp system is a chilling
reminder of the methods used by totalitarian dictators to suppress
their people. Behind the veil of North Korea's closed society,
countless citizens starve to death while the regime continues to spend
its limited resources on building nuclear weapons. Public executions
are common, newborn babies of prisoners are routinely killed by being
smothered or by having their necks broken, and prisoners are used as
guinea pigs for chemical weapon experiments.
A truly disturbing tactic of the North Korean regime seeks submission
from dissidents by exacting retribution on family members. Persons who
resist the regime are punished, but their parents, siblings, and other
relatives may also be punished. Many fear for their families
particularly if they flee as refugees. According to Human Rights
Watch, one man who had suffered years in a political prison camp
because of his father's supposed disloyalty and eventual defection
feared trying to flee himself. He stated, "I thought it would be all
right to lose my own life, but I hated to think that my act might harm
my mother and brother."
According to the State Department there continue to be reports of
extrajudicial killings and disappearances. The penal code is
draconian, and stipulates capital punishment and confiscation of
assets for a wide variety of "crimes against the revolution,"
including defection, attempted defection, slander of the policies of
the party or State, listening to foreign broadcasts, writing
"reactionary" letters, and possessing reactionary printed matter.
I urge my colleagues to vote for this resolution which would urge the
State Department to draft, introduce, and work toward the passage of a
resolution addressing human rights abuses in North Korea at the 59th
session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. The United
Nations must highlight the atrocities of the North Korean regime.
(end excerpt)
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