*EPF313 06/12/2002
Text: House Urges Better Treatment of N. Korean Refugees in China
(House Concurrent Resolution 213 passed June 11 by 406-0 vote) (5178)

The House of Representatives passed a resolution June 11 calling on the Beijing government to live up to its international obligations and treat North Korean refugees more humanely.

House Concurrent Resolution 213 (H. Con. Res. 213) passed the House with 406 votes; 28 members did not vote.

Legislators from both sides of the aisle condemned both the brutal conditions engendered by North Korea's communist rulers that forced North Koreans to flee to China and Beijing's lack of humanity in dealing with the refugees.

The resolution says China should be urged to halt "the forced repatriation of North Koreans who face a well-founded fear of persecution if they are returned to North Korea."

The measure also says Chinese officials should make "genuine efforts to identify and protect the refugees among the North Korean migrants. This would include "providing refugees with a reasonable opportunity to request asylum."

The resolution calls upon Beijing to allow the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees "to have access to all North Korean refugees residing in China."

It asks that the Secretary of State "work with concerned governments in the region toward the protection of North Korean refugees residing in China" and "to facilitate the resettlement of the North Korean refugees residing in China in other countries."

H. Con. Res. 213 would have the Secretary of State begin "efforts toward the drafting, introduction, and passage of a resolution concerning human rights in North Korea at the 59th Session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in March 2003."

Following are the text of House Concurrent Resolution 213 and excerpts from the debate on the resolution from the Congressional Record:

(begin text)

SENSE OF CONGRESS REGARDING NORTH KOREAN REFUGEES DETAINED IN CHINA

House of Representatives
June 11, 2002

H. Con. Res. 213 expressing the sense of Congress regarding North Korean refugees who are detained in China and returned to North Korea where they face torture, imprisonment, and execution, as amended.

H. Con. Res. 213

Whereas the Government of North Korea is controlled by the Korean Workers Party, which does not recognize the right of North Koreans to exercise the freedoms of speech, religion, press, assembly, or association;

Whereas the Government of North Korea imposes punishments, including execution, for crimes such as attempted defection, slander of the Korean Workers Party, listening to foreign broadcasts, possessing printed matter that is considered reactionary by the Korean Workers Party, and holding prohibited religious beliefs;

Whereas genuine religious freedom does not exist in North Korea and reports of executions, torture, and imprisonment of religious persons in the country continue to emerge;

Whereas the Government of North Korea holds an estimated 200,000 political prisoners in camps that its State Security Agency manages through the use of forced labor, beatings, torture, and executions, in which many prisoners also die from disease, starvation, and exposure;

Whereas at least 1,000,000 North Koreans are estimated to have died of starvation since 1995 because of the failure of the centralized agricultural system operated by the Government of North Korea;

Whereas the combination of political, social, and religious persecution and the risk of starvation in North Korea is causing many North Koreans to flee to China;

Whereas between 100,000 and 300,000 North Koreans are estimated to be residing in China without the permission of the Government of China;

Whereas in past years some Chinese authorities appear to have tolerated quiet efforts by nongovernmental organizations to assist North Korean refugees in China, and have allowed the departure of limited numbers of North Korean refugees after the advocacy of third countries, whose diplomatic facilities granted these refugees sanctuary;

Whereas the Governments of China and North Korea have begun aggressive campaigns to locate North Koreans who are in China without permission and to forcibly return them to North Korea;

Whereas North Koreans who seek asylum while in China are routinely imprisoned and tortured, and in some cases killed, after they are returned to North Korea;

Whereas the United Nations Convention relating to the Status of Refugees of 1951, as modified by the Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees of 1967, defines a refugee as a person who, "owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country";

Whereas despite China's obligations as a party to the United Nations Convention relating to the Status of Refugees of 1951 and the Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees of 1967, China routinely classifies North Koreans seeking asylum in China as mere "economic migrants" and returns the refugees to North Korea without regard to the serious threat of persecution faced by the refugees after their return;

Whereas the Government of China does not provide North Koreans whose asylum requests are rejected a right to have the rejection reviewed prior to deportation despite the recommendations of the United Nations Convention relating to the Status of Refugees of 1951 and the Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees of 1967 that such a right be granted;

Whereas people attempting to assist North Korean refugees inside China face danger because of their efforts, including Chun Ki Won, a South Korean citizen detained inside China since December 2001, and the Reverend Kim Dong Shik, a United States permanent resident allegedly abducted by North Korean agents inside China in January 2000; and

Whereas the Government of China recently has permitted some North Koreans who have managed to enter foreign diplomatic compounds to travel to South Korea via third countries, but has forcibly repatriated to North Korea many others captured inside China: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring),

That Congress --

(1) encourages the Government of China to honor its obligations under the United Nations Convention relating to the Status of Refugees of 1951, as modified by the Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees of 1967, by--

(A) halting the forced repatriation of North Koreans who face a well-founded fear of persecution if they are returned to North Korea;

(B) making genuine efforts to identify and protect the refugees among the North Korean migrants encountered by Chinese authorities, including providing refugees with a reasonable opportunity to request asylum;

(C) providing North Korean refugees residing in China with safe asylum;

(D) allowing the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to have access to all North Korean refugees residing in China; and

(E) cooperating with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in efforts to resettle North Korean refugees residing in China to other countries;

(2) encourages the Secretary of State--

(A) to work with the Government of China toward the fulfillment of its obligations described in paragraph (1); and

(B) to work with concerned governments in the region toward the protection of North Korean refugees residing in China;

(3) encourages the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to facilitate the resettlement of the North Korean refugees residing in China in other countries;

(4) encourages the Secretary of State to begin efforts toward the drafting, introduction, and passage of a resolution concerning human rights in North Korea at the 59th Session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in March 2003;

(5) urges the Government of China to release Mr. Chun Ki Won; and

(6) urges the Governments of the United States, South Korea, and China to seek a full accounting from the Government of North Korea regarding the whereabouts and condition of the Reverend Kim Dong Shik.

Mr. LEACH. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H. Con. Res. 213, a resolution expressing the sense of Congress regarding the plight of North Korean refugees. In this regard, I would like to acknowledge the leadership of three Members of the House who have been instrumental to bring this resolution to the floor: The principal sponsor of the resolution, the gentleman from California (Mr. Royce), the chairman of the U.S.-South Korean Interparliamentary Exchange, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Kirk), who traveled to North Korea as a staffer for the Committee on International Relations and who recently chaired a Congressional Human Rights Caucus briefing on the subject and, of course, the gentleman from American Samoa (Mr. Faleomavaega), the ranking member of the Subcommittee on East Asia and the Pacific.

The subcommittee has become increasingly concerned about a trio of increasingly significant humanitarian and foreign policy issues that have arisen as a direct consequence of North Korea's inhumane and failed system of governance, all of which have important implications for the United States and the international community: Refugees, acute food shortages and human rights. This May the subcommittee held an extensive hearing on the subject, including testimony from experts in the field as well as from several North Korean defectors, survivors of some of the most challenging rigors of the human condition.

Consideration of this resolution is particularly timely, given the recent dramatic increase of North Korean asylum bids through Western embassies in Beijing. It also takes place against the sensitive diplomatic backdrop of renewed North-South dialogue, tentative steps toward reengagement between Tokyo and Pyongyang, and the planned resumption of high-level dialogue between the United States and North Korea. Congress hopes and expects that North Korea will seize the opportunity to demonstrate its sincerity through negotiations and begin to alleviate the concerns of the world community.

As we have all come to understand, the world has increasingly become aware that North Korea has been at the center of one of the greatest human rights tragedies in recent decades. Beginning in the mid-1990s, economic collapse and natural disasters combined to produce famine conditions that have claimed as many as 2 million lives, perhaps as many as 10 percent of the population. The food crisis, compounded by repression and mismanagement, led many thousands of North Koreans to cross into China, primarily into Jilin and Liaoning Provinces. Estimates of the number of North Koreans illegally inside China range from official estimates of 10,000 to 30,000, to unofficial estimates of 100,000 to 300,000. Similarly, the flow of North Korean defectors making their way to Seoul also has increased dramatically in recent years.

Even for those North Koreans able to escape into China, the struggle to survive is far from over. On the shores of the Tumen River, which is all that separates China and North Korea at one point along the border, more hardship and sorrow await, including potential victimization of human traffickers, unsympathetic neighbors, as well as the police.

The PRC's reaction to the influx of North Koreans appears to fluctuate between placid tolerance and bouts of repression. As a matter of principle, Beijing maintains that the North Koreans are economic migrants. In practice, however, local authorities in the past have allowed nongovernment organizations to assist refugees in China, and even turned a blind eye to facilitate their asylum to South Korea through third countries, provided such activities remain low profile. But Beijing also orders periodic crackdowns against refugees and those who assist them.

Repatriated North Korean migrants can expect to face a broad range of maltreatment, which may involve beatings, incarceration, and torture. Others, such as asylum-seekers, known religious believers, and high-profile defectors, risk execution or internment in a labor camp for political prisoners.

The United States can hardly ignore this situation. Our dilemma is how we can make a modest contribution to this circumstance without exacerbating the lamentable plight of North Koreans in northeastern China. In this regard, and at the risk of presumption, I would like to suggest a five-pronged strategy.

First, with regard to North-South relations, we must understand that while attempts to negotiate with North Korea involve an experiment with the bizarre, our unequivocal support for North-South rapprochement and eventual reunification must be maintained as a primary strategic objective in Northeast Asia.

In terms of diplomatic efforts and an effort to forge a more lasting and humane resolution for North Korean refugees, the United States should vigorously pursue bilateral and multilateral discussions on that topic with relevant nations and international organizations, including China, South Korea, Japan, Russia, Mongolia, and the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

The United States should increase humanitarian assistance to North Koreans both outside and inside their country of origin.

In China, we should fully and visibly support the UNHCR in its efforts to gain access to refugees in the northeast of China. Humanitarian assistance to these refugees must be supported.

Outside of China, we should explore the possibility of establishing short to medium-term facilities for North Korean refugees in other countries in the region, such as Mongolia.

Inside North Korea, the United States should maintain and expand its commitment to the World Food Program appeal. In this regard, the WFP has announced that its North Korean program will run out of food in July or August this year unless new pledges are made urgently. World Food Program estimates that some 1.5 million people will not get food because of the shortfall. At the same time, we and other donors should continue strong support for the WFP's efforts to improve its access and food aid monitoring within North Korea.

In addition, Congress and the Executive should be open to supporting innovative, small-scale programs to provide food and other humanitarian assistance through United States nongovernment organizations operating in North Korea.

From a human rights perspective, we must continue to improve our limited knowledge of human rights and humanitarian conditions inside China, and we should consider funding efforts to systematically interview and debrief the increasing number of North Korean refugees and defectors inside South Korea and elsewhere.

From a resettlement perspective, North Korean refugees are currently caught in a legal Catch-22, based on their claim to automatic South Korean citizenship under the Constitution of the Republic of Korea. Yet, except in high-profile cases, North Korean asylum-seekers are not treated as South Korean citizens at South Korea's embassy and consulates inside China, and thus are routinely turned away. In addition to Chinese blockage, other embassies discourage refugees from seeking asylum in their countries because they regard the refugees as citizens of South Korea where they would not face a reasonable fear of persecution. In this circumstance, where asylum claims are regularly thwarted, we have an obligation to discuss with the South Koreans and Chinese ways all interested parties can work to regularize the treatment of North Korean refugees in China.

While the case for pursuing diplomatic approaches in a low-key way may be compelling, the issue itself must be understood as one of the seminal human rights issues of our time.

In this regard we have brought this resolution, and in bringing it I would like to quote the words of President Bush. The President has said, and he has been very succinct in this, that even though he considers North Korea as a country which has starved its people while developing weapons of mass destruction, he has been careful to observe that America has "great sympathy and empathy for the North Korean people. We want them to have food. We want them to have freedom."

This timely resolution appropriately expresses this sympathy and concern from the people's House to the North Korean people. We urge its adoption. . . .

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Mr. Speaker, as a cosponsor of H. Con. Res. 213, I am honored to speak on behalf of this legislation which focuses on the tragic plight of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of North Korean citizens who have sought safety and refuge in the People's Republic of China.

I deeply commend the primary authors of the legislation, the gentleman from California (Mr. Royce) and the gentleman from California (Mr. Becerra,) and also the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Kirk) for his tremendous help on this legislation.

Their hard work is just another example of the tremendous leadership they have demonstrated in chairing the U.S.-Republic of Korea Interparliamentary Exchange. I would be remiss if I did not also commend the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Leach), the chairman of the Subcommittee on East Asia and the Pacific of the Committee on International Relations, with whom I have the distinct pleasure to serve as the subcommittee's ranking Democrat, for the attention he has focused on the North Korean humanitarian refugees' crisis.

Our subcommittee recently held hearings on this troubling issue, and has contributed significantly to the final text of H. Con. Res. 213. I thank the chairman and ranking member of our Committee on International Relations, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde), and the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos), for their vital leadership and support in moving this measure for consideration on the floor.

Mr. Speaker, many have advocated the citizens of North Korea are perhaps the least free of all the people living on this planet. Suffering from the past 5 decades under one of the world's most ruthless totalitarian regimes, the people of North Korea have been denied the most basic of human rights, have been isolated from one another, and have been cut off from the rest of the world by their government.

As assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, Mr. Lorne Craner has recently testified regarding North Korea: "The reports that make it out of North Korea paint a shocking, often horrifying, picture of brutality, oppression, injustice and deprivation. Individual rights are considered subversive to the rights of the State and the Party, with no freedom of expression, assembly or belief. The regime uses extreme suppression and a pervasive surveillance network to intimidate and instill fear in the population. It maintains control through terror, threat of severe punishment and the manipulation of privileges."

Mr. Speaker, due to the DPRKs disastrous agricultural and economic policies, which have been compounded by natural disasters, the North Korean people have been made to suffer through a brutal famine that has killed well over a million, perhaps up to 3 million, of their fellow citizens and left a generation of their children physically and mentally stunted.

I recall recently a statement made by the Senator from Hawaii, Senator Inouye, on his recent visit to North Korea, and the most unusual thing that he observed when he visited the capital of Pyongyang, there were no birds. He did not hear one bird noise ever in the whole area. It is just really, really terrible to consider this observation.

Given these terrible conditions in North Korea, Mr. Speaker, it is not surprising that over 100,000 refugees, the vast majority of them women and children, have fled their homeland for northeast China. As many of us know, the plight of these North Korean refugees has received intense international attention recently, with several high-profile incidents where North Koreans have sought refuge in foreign embassies and consulates in the People's Republic of China. Right now in Beijing, 17 North Koreans languish in the South Korean embassy and two in the Canadian embassy after entering the diplomatic compounds and requesting asylum.

In the past, China has attempted to turn a blind eye to the refugee crisis created by its Communist neighbor and quietly tolerated NGO efforts to assist the North Korean refugee community within its borders. Unfortunately, in response to the recent media attention and heightened international scrutiny, the People's Republic of China has chosen to enforce a crackdown on the refugee community, and they are being sent back en masse to North Korea to face certain imprisonment, torture or even death.

Mr. Speaker, China's actions are highly regrettable and certainly in violation of international rules. The heart of the resolution before us rightfully urges that the Government of the People's Republic of China should stop the forced repatriation of North Koreans and that China meet its obligations as a signatory to the United Nations Refugee Convention of 1951 and the subsequent 1967 Protocol. To meet these treaty obligations, China should permit the UNHCR access so that an objective determination can be made whether these North Korean refugees have a well-founded fear of persecution before being shipped back en masse as economic migrants.

Mr. Speaker, the Chinese Government is at a historic point in its relations with the rest of the world. China has just joined the World Trade Organization, will soon host the Olympic games, and has increasingly played an active role in key international foreign policy matters, including Afghanistan, the global war on terrorism and the India-Pakistan controversy.

China's leaders need to understand that abiding by international agreements, including the United Nations Refugee Convention, is a crucial responsibility that major global powers cannot run away from. To the world, it is abundantly clear that the North Korean refugees in China are not simply fleeing for economic reasons, and it is important for their safety as well as China's reputation that a process be set up to interview the refugees to determine whether they have a well-founded fear of persecution before they are returned to North Korea.

Mr. Speaker, the legislation before us addresses one of the most disturbing humanitarian tragedies now unfolding in the world and rightfully calls upon the People's Republic of China to work with our government, other nations in the region, and the United Nations to find a just and proper resolution of this refugee crisis.

I urge my colleagues to support this legislation. . . .

Mr. ROYCE. Mr. Speaker, I thank Chairman LEACH, and I thank Ranking Member FALEOMAVAEGA for his leadership as well. I also want to thank the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Kirk). I want to thank him for his rather extraordinary work along the North Korean-Chinese border. To my knowledge, he is one of the few non-North Koreans who has managed to travel into North Korea and because of his extensive interviews of starving men and destitute women and orphaned children across North Korea and in northern China, we know a great deal more about the crisis there.

I chair the U.S.-Republic of Korea Interparliamentary Exchange. Last summer I introduced this resolution on North Korean refugees after learning about the unimaginable suffering North Korean refugees face in China. I learned this from my Korean counterparts. Sometime after that, we had an opportunity to hear from the gentleman from Illinois. In his testimony, the gentleman from Illinois recorded for our committee the horror that is going on in North Korea. This situation, frankly, is critical right now to the hundreds of thousands of North Koreans that have escaped over the border into China.

North Korea systematically starves its population. It attacks freedom of speech, it suppresses religion, it constrains movement of its citizens, and frankly it gives preferential access to social services based on allegiance to the cult of personality surrounding Kim Jung-Il. There are 43 counties in North Korea. There are a number of counties in North Korea where people are not considered sufficiently loyal, and it is the people in these regions who are being starved. At the same time, any perceived disobedience in North Korea can land the offender and the offender's family in what is called a labor camp.

Last month, three North Korean defectors testified before the Asia Subcommittee. I would like to call my colleagues' attention to the testimony of Ms. Lee Soon-ok, a former North Korean party official who was held for several years inside one of these North Korean labor camps. She described in gruesome detail the condition inside the camp, telling of public executions in which the prisoners would have to stand at attention to watch the execution, and telling of 150 female prisoners being used to test a chemical gas and as a consequence of that test, all 150 lost their lives.

In her testimony, she describes life in a North Korean prison, and I will just use her words. She said, "A prisoner has no right to talk, laugh, sing or look in a mirror. Prisoners must kneel down on the ground and keep their heads down deeply whenever called by a guard. They can say nothing except to answer questions asked. Prisoners have to work as slaves for up to 18 hours a day. Repeated failure to meet the work quotas means a week's time in a punishment cell. A prisoner must give up their human worth." She said that prisoners are even used by their guards for martial arts practice. The guards punch and kick prisoners during martial arts practice. The prisoners fall bleeding at the first blows and remain motionless for a while on the cement floor until they are kicked back into their cells.

It is estimated that North Korea's prison camp system currently holds about 200,000 people in conditions so brutal that over 400,000 have died in those prisons since 1972. I have heard from North Koreans who say it is rare for a prisoner to survive more than 8 years. Given the repression, given the desperate conditions for those who run afoul of the rules, it is no surprise that many North Koreans have been willing to risk their lives to cross into the closest country, which is China. Yet as explained, despite the obligations that China has taken as a signatory to the convention relating to the status of refugees of 1951 and the Protocol relating to the status of refugees of 1967, China refuses to recognize North Koreans as refugees. They classify them instead as economic migrants. Chinese and North Korean police have worked in tandem to hunt down North Koreans hiding in China. The Chinese Government forcibly repatriates all captured North Koreans, guaranteeing their imprisonment and torture and sometimes death. China's enthusiasm for enforcing North Korea's policies is unconscionable.

Because China will not allow the U.N. High Commission for Refugees access to North Koreans, defectors have created innovative methods for getting asylum in other countries. Since March, we have had 38 desperate North Koreans who have risked deportation to North Korea by dashing into or climbing the walls of foreign diplomatic missions in order to travel to South Korea via third countries. As a result, the Chinese have stepped up police forces around embassies and cracked down on nongovernmental organizations and church groups.

Some have suggested the treatment of North Koreans in China should be handled quietly behind diplomatic closed doors. Yet it is exactly the media attention that has finally brought this situation to light and generated an international outcry that may force China to relent. . . .


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(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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