White House Appoints Lefkowitz as Human Rights Rapporteur

The other big news is that the White House, as expected, waited for a “decent interval” between negotiating sessions with North Korea to appoint Jay Lefkowitz as its Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in North Korea. The Washington Post printed a Reuters piece, which benefits from actually taking the trouble to contact the people who were behind the NKHRA in the first place:

But U.S. officials said the appointment, announced by the White House, had been in the works for some time and was not aimed at putting pressure on the North Koreans ahead of the resumption of the nuclear talks.

“It’s taken this long to line everything up. I think people will read a little more into the timing than they should,” said one official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
. . . .

Suzanne Scholte, a leader of the North Korea Freedom Coalition, said her umbrella group of religious and rights activists had been eagerly waiting for the appointment. “This man I understand is close to President Bush, so that means he’ll have his ear on North Korean human rights, so we’re very excited about the appointment,” she said. “It’s so critical that we let the North Korean people know that we know that they’re suffering,” said Scholte, whose coalition will stage protests and prayer meetings in Washington over the weekend to support human rights in North Korea.
. . . .

Christopher Hill, the chief U.S. negotiator in the six-party talks, said this week that he had raised the issue of human rights during the recent session in Beijing. He described rights scrutiny as the “cost of admission” to international society.

My only quibble is with the estimated death toll of 1 million, which is not outside the range of reasonable estimates, but which is half of the average reasonable estimate of 2 million (Hwang Jang Yop claims that the North Korea government’s own estimate is 2.5 million; Medicins Sans Frontieres claims up to 3.5 million).

I dug up much more information on Lefkowitz when we first heard that he’d be appointed. Here’s a statement from the White House (HT to Shelton at The Marmot’s Hole).