Joe Biden Is Blocking North Korea Human Rights Legislation, and You Can Help Un-Block It (Update: Biden’s Staff Denies, Predicts Bill Will Pass This Term)

[Update:   Not so, says Frank Jannuzi, who wrote in after I put up this post.  According to Jannuzi, Biden has never blocked this bill and has never opposed the two provisions mentioned in the post below.  As to the refugee provisions of H.R. 5834, Jannuzi says Biden supports them just as they are in the House version.  Jannuzi also says that not only does Biden support a full-time Special Envoy with ambassadorial rank, Biden offered the amendment to the 2004 Act creating the post to begin with.  And in all fairness, it was President Bush who filled the post with a junior, well-meaning loyalist whom  he allowed the  State Department  to chew  up and spit out.

What follows is a much-abbreviated  paraphrasing of my follow-up questions and Jannuzi’s answers; don’t take anything here as a direct quote.  So will there be more amendments to the bill?   In the course of getting unanimous consent, naturally.  And what specific amendments will Sen. Biden seek?   Jannuzi wouldn’t say, but offered that the refugee provisions will have to approach the issue in a comprehensive and collaborative way.  You mean collaborative as in with China?   Well, collaborative with all of  the countries where the refugees go and stay. 

So I’m working with some conflicting information here, but I’m happy to let Jannuzi  tell his side of it and thank him for writing in to do so and answer a few questions.  I left the conversation  feeling that whatever Biden pays  Jannuzi is money well spent, and with my own opinion of him  enhanced.  And whatever the truth may have been last week, this week, barring some sneaky secret  hold or other parliamentary end-run,  the North Korean Human Rights Reauthorization appears headed for passage before the Senate goes into recess … in some form.  That’s the key caveat we’ll just have to wait to see.  What do I think?  I think this is a moment when I’m glad Biden is the vice presidential nominee, because I’m jaded enough to wonder if things would be looking up like this if he wasn’t.   

So with that, let me suspend my appeal for calls and e-mails, and offer my most sincere thanks to those who made them.]

Original Post:   Four years ago, President Bush signed the North Korean Human Rights Act in an attempt to address the world’s worst human rights atrocities in our world today:  the mind-warping oppression of an entire nation, the starvation of millions while the regime blocked international aid and squandered its income on weapons, the murder of refugees and their babies, and the operation of the world’s  worst concentration camps since Nazi Germany, camps that occupy vast areas of the country. 

During the last four years, our State Department blocked key provisions of that Act that were designed to help North  Korean refugees and make  the end of those atrocities a precondition to North Korea gaining normal trade and diplomatic relations with the United States.   The State Department has instead done Kim Jong Il’s work in Washington by watering down  any criticism of the atrocities in  North Korea to appease  its regime.  The 2004 Act also created a Special Envoy for Human Rights in North Korea, a post filled three days a week by Jay Lefkowitz,  who has been privately marginalized and publicly humiliated by Condoleezza Rice and her State Department.  Meanwhile, human rights issues have been effectively sidelined as an issue  in our talks with North Korea.

In an effort to force the State Department to comply with the law and throw a lifeline to the desperate and starving people of North Korea, the House has passed the North Korean Human Rights Reauthorization Act.  The Act would force the State Department to  obey the law by allowing North Korean refugees to seek asylum at  U.S. consular facilities abroad.  It would also make the Human Rights Special Envoy’s job a full-time post with ambassadorial rank so that he can’t be sidelined from talks with the North Koreans as easily.

The State Department is now trying to block the  Reauthorization Act by  working through its wholly-owned subsidiaries in the Senate, Richard Lugar and Joe Biden.  The legislation is now stalled in the Senate.  An OFK reader with direct knowledge informs me that Biden and his staffer Frank Jannuzi, who also tried to block the 2004 Act,  are trying to strip out the  provisions  on refugees aslyum and strengthening the  Human Rights  Special Envoy’s hand. 

It’s tempting to say that that North Korean “endorsement” of Obama paid off, but in fact, toothless diplomacy comes naturally to Joe Biden, and this  is probably about  what we should expect from an Obama administration.

(By the way, if you still believe that  sweet-talking the North Koreans will actually disarm them, let me help you catch up on recent events.  While you were probably watching the presidential campaign, the North Koreans  told Condi Rice to her face that they’re not giving up their nukes.   They also refuse to allow any verification of their incomplete declaration of their nuclear programs and activities, and they now say they’re rebuilding the one worn-out reactor they had temporarily disabled.  Meanwhile, a much larger reactor right across the river is untouched by any disarmament initiative  and may be almost ready for start-up, and we’ve let the North Koreans completely off the hook when it comes to explaining their past proliferation to other countries and their suspected secret uranium enrichment program.  For this,  Kim Jong Il — who still refuses to  hurry up and die  — expects billions in aid and trade benefits and the full restoration of full diplomatic relations.  Some deal.)

Unfortunately for the good guys, the ranking Republican, Richard Lugar, and his Korea point-man, Keith Luse, are just as much in the appeasement camp as Biden.  With Lugar leading the Republicans on the Foreign Relations Committee and no GOP members forcing him to stiffen his spine, foreign policy conservatives are a non-presence there.  As a result, Biden is  just days from achieving  his goal of letting the Senate go into recess without passing this legislation.

This is why we need your help.  Please urge your senators to pass this legislation before the Senate goes into recess.  Here is a sample copy-and-paste message you can send to the web forms at this link  (opens in a new window):

Please support the immediate passage of  H.R.5834, the North Korean Human Rights Reauthorization Act, an important effort address the  modern-day holocaust in North Korea.  In North Korea, millions are starving while its regime squanders its funds on weapons and luxuries for Kim Jong Il.  In North Korea, 200,000 men, women, and children are suffering and dying in the world’s worst concentration camps since Nazi Germany.  Hundreds of thousands who have fled North  Korea have found no place to turn, as  other nations refuse to extend a hand to assist these desperate refugees.  Today, the Bush Administration  wants to normalize diplomatic relations with this odious regime without demanding an end to those atrocities.  I believe that policy is wrong, and that it won’t help disarm North Korea, which has reneged on the February 2007 disarmament agreement in spite of our silence and  the  betrayal of our values that silence represents.  Please urge Senator Biden to stop blocking  H.R. 5834 and let it pass in the same form as previously  passed by the House.

I wouldn’t normally suggest writing to Biden if you’re not from Delaware, but of course, Biden’s  place on the 2008 Democratic ticket means that he wants everyone in America to be his constituent.  So please, send your message directly to Joe Biden, too. 

Fortunately for the good guys, Chris Hill’s alter-ego Sung Kim needs to be confirmed by the Senate to become the State Department’s Special Envoy to the six-party talks, the latest failed attempt to appeal to Kim Jong Il’s softer side, and any senator could hold up that confirmation.