*EPF311 03/19/2003
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)

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

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