*EPF409 07/20/00
Transcript: Lawmaker Criticizes North Korea's Human Rights Record
(Rep. Pitts says 200,000 in North Korean prison camps) (1020)
Pyongyang's communist rulers are keeping more than 200,000 fellow North Koreans in concentration camps where they "suffer horrifying hardships," according to Representative Joseph Pitts (Republican of Pennsylvania).
Despite denials by Pyongyang of their existence, Pitts said, "these concentration camps exist, they are real."
Pitts told fellow lawmakers in a July 19 speech in the House of Representatives that even pregnant women and children are abused in the camps located throughout North Korea.
The Pennsylvania Republican cited the case of a young man who had been imprisoned at the age of 10 "because his grandfather was arrested, so they imprisoned the whole family."
The Pyongyang regime, Pitts said, "incarcerates three generations of a family due to one generation's crime."
"What type of government imprisons a 10-year-old boy for his grandfather's crime? Certainly not a civilized one," he said.
"We must not forget these people. We must fight to stop the painful, horrifying torture and the other human rights abuses the North Korean people are enduring at the hands of the brutal dictatorship ruling that country," Pitts said.
Pitts is a member of the Religious Prisoners Congressional Task Force and sits on the Helsinki Commission.
Following is a transcript of Rep. Pitts' speech from the July 19 Congressional Record:
(begin transcript)
NORTH KOREAN ATROCITIES
(House of Representatives)
July 19, 2000
Mr. PITTS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak on behalf of the numerous individuals being forgotten in the negotiations between the United States and the hard-line dictatorship in North Korea, those 200,000 plus people who suffer horrifying hardships in the prison camps throughout North Korea.
Despite the fact that the leaders of North Korea refuse to admit that these concentration camps exist, they are real. Individuals that I have met with who have escaped from these camps have said that they want the world to know of the evil that is perpetrated there, even against children.
One young man that I met with was imprisoned at the age of 10 because his grandfather was arrested, so they imprisoned the whole family. The North Korean regime incarcerates three generations of a family due to one generation's crime. What type of government imprisons a 10-year-old boy for his grandfather's crime? Certainly not a civilized one.
Another woman I met with described the terrible torture she endured because she was honest and would not embezzle material goods for her boss. As a result, her boss concocted false crimes, she was arrested, taken to a prison camp and routinely tortured to the point of losing consciousness. As soon as she lost consciousness, the security officials would pour water on her face, revive her and begin the torture process over again, all of this for 14 months. Then she was sentenced to 13 years in a re-socialization camp.
Let me read some excerpts of testimony from torture survivors and escapees regarding the horrendous pain and suffering at the hands of this brutal and repressive regime, a regime that our administration is now looking to appease.
`Officers treated us like animals. They never explained to us what to do but communicated with the prisoners by whipping, kicking and cursing. While prisoners were being beaten, they couldn't stop working or look back at the officers. If a prisoner moaned or tried to avoid getting hit, she was put into solitary confinement, the worst punishment in prison. The solitary confinement cell was only high enough to allow a person to sit on the floor. Concrete thorns stuck out of the walls so the prisoner could not lean against them. The person could only sit and not move for many days. If prisoners were consigned to solitary confinement during the winter, their legs became paralyzed.'
`The different forms of torture are too numerous to recount. Sometimes they put a wooden stick with sharp edges behind my knees, make me kneel, and then trampled my body with their heavy boots. At other times, they would hang me by the shackles on my wrists, high enough so that I was forced to stand on tiptoe. At night water would fill the solitary cell up to my stomach, depriving me of any sleep. During the long hours underwater my body would gradually swell up, making it difficult for me to keep my balance. If I fell, the guards kicked me until I scrambled up again in extreme pain and fatigue.'
`The prisoners in the export factory were treated even worse than those in the other factories. Our days were a series of unendurable labor. Getting kicked and slapped was common. The female prisoners got used to an officer's kick or slap on the face. After a few years of little food, no sunshine, constant beatings and demanding work, prisoners began to lose the strength in their backbones. As the spine weakened, ligaments started popping out at the back of their necks. The prisoners became ugly like beasts. The export production was the fruit of unbelievable human abuse. These exports went to Japan, to Poland, to France.'
I would ask, do we want to participate in this as well? Let me end with this quote:
`When pregnant women came to prison, they were forced to abort their babies. Poison was injected into the babies cuddled in their mother's wombs. After the injection, the pregnant woman suffered tremendous pain until the babies were stillborn about 24 hours later. Medical officers walked around the pregnant women and kicked their swollen bellies if they screamed or moaned.'
Mr. Speaker, I could go on and on. These are a few excerpts of people that I have met. We must not forget these people. We must fight to stop the painful, horrifying torture and the other human rights abuses the North Korean people are enduring at the hands of the brutal dictatorship ruling that country.
(end transcript)
(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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