Rice: Lefkowitz to ‘Raise the Profile’ of NK Rights Issues

The U.S. government is also talking about this issue publicly, but for reasons that are probably beyond anyone’s control, it’s not having the desired effect here. Given the scale of what’s happening along the Gulf Coast, you can’t really blame either the State Department or the media for not paying more attention to this. Give Secretary Rice credit for making her first sincere effort to make a public issue of human rights. First, the :

SECRETARY RICE: Good morning. I am about to have a meeting with Jay Lefkowitz, who is about to become the Human Rights Envoy for North Korea. The President, of course, has noted that people all over the world have a right to live in dignity, to have human rights respected, to have brighter futures. We believe the people of North Korea to be no different. And Jay will have an opportunity, because he is close to a number of us, having been our colleague on the White House staff, and also close to the President, having worked for the President in the policy arena in the White House during the last term — Jay will have an opportunity to raise the profile of these issues and to see what we can do with the rest of the world to improve the humanitarian situation for the people of North Korea and the human rights conditions there. So Jay and I will have a chance to talk for a while.

Here is an AFP report:

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice insisted that human rights abuses in North Korea should be highlighted, although Pyongyang has expressed anger over the issue and delayed crucial nuclear talks.

Rice said a newly named US human rights envoy for North Korea would raise the profile of the human rights situation in the reclusive state and help look into ways of cooperating with other countries to deal with the problem.

She spoke to reporters before receiving the envoy, Jay Lefkowitz, at her office following his nomination by US President George W. Bush last month.

Lefkowitz “will have an opportunity to raise the profile of these issues and to see what we can do with the rest of the world to improve the humanitarian situation for the people of North Korea and the human rights conditions there,” Rice said.

President Bush wanted “people all over the world to (have the) right to live in dignity, to have human rights respected, to have brighter futures,” she said. “We believe the people of North Korea to be no different.”