Reaction to the Arrival of North Korean Refugees

The arrival of the first six North Korean refugees — including survivors of concentration camps and sexual slavery — could mark a tipping point in the politics of North Korean human rights. The timing of the arrival is either a fortunate coincidence or the height of shrewdness. Local elections are coming up in South Korea on May 31st, and with the human rights issue having created a clear schism (see here, here, and here) between the United States and South Korea, human rights could finally become a major political issue in South Korea. When it does, leaders like Kim Moon Soo will have a chance to inspire a nation to search its soul.

In the United States, a few million more newspaper readers will begin to see North Korea in the greater context of its regime’s contempt for human life and dignity and its aversion to transparency. Without that context, Americans have tended to view North Korea as strictly a diplomatic and proliferation problem soluble by ordinary diplomatic means.

Via the same sources who gave me advance notice that the first six would arrive (I knew in advance that it was to be yesterday, but I agreed not to report that), more are expected to arrive within the coming days.

Thus far, nothing at the New York Times. The Washington Post, CNN, and the Cleveland Plain Dealer pick up the AP wire story Richardson picked up here. The BBC ran a fairly detailed story with two photographs that portray North Korea in a deservedly bleak light. Among the major U.S. dailies, only the L.A. Times has written an original story, which tells us more about the refugees themselves.

The four women and two men had been living clandestinely in China, where some of the women were forced into prostitution, human rights activists said.
. . . .

Many of the North Korean women are trafficked into prostitution or forced marriages to Chinese peasants. According to activists familiar with the stories of the six seeking asylum, one woman had been forced to dance nude for an Internet site. Another was sold to be a wife to a man who was already married. A third refugee had escaped from a prison camp.

Per my sources, one of the refugees in this group or those hiding under U.S. protection in Southeast Asia actually dug her way out of a prison camp with a spoon. Maybe it’s the same person; maybe not. The report also looks at the politics of the refugees’ arrival:

[U]ntil now, nobody had been admitted, in part because of objections from South Korea and China that such efforts could hamper six-nation talks aimed at getting North Korea to dismantle its nuclear weapons.

With the talks now long stalled, conservatives in recent months have been lobbying the Bush administration to take a more active role in helping the refugees.

The Korean American Church Coalition, among other Korean groups, has offered to provide shelter and help assimilate as many as 1,000 North Korean refugees.

“We are hoping these are the first of many brought to the United States,” said Adrian Hong, a Washington-based activist and founder of Liberty in North Korea.

“For years, we have been asking China and South Korea to do more for these refugees while not doing anything ourselves.”

[Check the sidebar links to learn how to keep up with LiNK’s activities, join, or donate. LiNK cares for North Korean refugees hiding in China and advocates for policies that put a higher priority on human rights. Another organization I strongly recommend is Helping Hands Korea, also on the sidebar links under “North Korean Human Rights.”]

The other dailies may write stories early next week, despite an arrival time that was clearly timed for minimum publicity. If the State Department’s intent was to limit the adverse reaction in South Korea, you can only ask how familiar those individuals are with the Korean press, which is predictably all over the story.

Among the Korean dailies, the centrist Korea Times has the most detailed story, with reaction from North Korean refugees now living in Seoul, and from a South Korean academic:

The Washington government has been frequently criticized by the U.S. Congress and human rights activists for not utilizing the act, said Lee Keum-soon, senior researcher of the state-funded Korea Institute for National Unification (KINU) in Seoul.

“I think the decision (to accept the six refugees) was made by Washington to show that it does not just sit idle and watch North Koreans suffer,” Lee said in a telephone interview with The Korea Times.

She said, however, the U.S. maneuver does not need to be a bone of contention with Seoul because it was intended to help North Koreans in China, not those who have resettled in South Korea.

The center-left Korea Herald notes the impact of North Korean Freedom Week and the efforts of activists in changing Washington’s policies toward putting human rights at the center of U.S. dialogue with the North (James, I we think we have an answer to your question). The conservative Chosun Ilbo covers the story prominently, though the story adds little detail other than to note that South Korea is in conflict with both Washington and the UNHCR on this issue:

Those not cleared by the U.S. will be accepted by the South Korean government, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees on Saturday. But Seoul’s Foreign Ministry denied this agreement exists. In a written statement, the ministry said Washington’s refugee clearance process and Seoul’s decision are separate issues.

The Chosun Ilbo pursues the issue of South Korea’s diplomatic isolation on human rights with an editorial noting, and I think correctly, how South Korea has been sidelined by both the United States and China, meaning that even the North Koreans can’t count on South Korea to cover for them now. It also undercuts its own previous suggestion, which I had discounted, that Jay Lefkowitz did not speak for the Administration when he criticized South Korea over food aid and Kaesong:

When Lefkowitz recently denounced Seoul’s aid to Pyongyang and quibbled with the wages North Korean workers in the joint-Korean Kaesong Industrial Complex are paid, the unification minister and other government officials criticized him for “distorting the issue” without checking with the State Department. The White House sent a message that Lefkowitz enjoys the confidence of President Bush and his views are to be taken as the official U.S. government line.

The center-right Joongang Ilbo mainly covers the L.A. Times report and others, but published what I hope will be the first of many renewed calls for South Korea to change its own policies:

Yun Deok-min, a professor of the Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security, said, “The United States’ acceptance of North Korean refugees is meant to pressure Pyongyang to attend the six-party talks.” He added, “I think it is time for the South Korean government to reconsider its silent diplomacy regarding the North Korean human rights issue.”

The leftist Hankyoreh, apparently still awaiting further instructions from Pyongyang, had no reaction.

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I have one major concern about this, too. Most Americans cannot even conceive of what these people have lived through, or the kind of society that shaped their psyches. Most will have survived severe psychological trauma; the only available statistics on the issue state that 20% need psychiatric care, meaning treatment and possibly medication. They will be overwhelmed by what they see and will have difficulty adjusting to such a starkly different world. They may have adjustment problems with their host families. In other words, many of them will need decompression time and training.

If the U.S. intends to admit significant numbers of these refugees, it needs something akin to South Korea’s hanawon for them to learn to adjust to life here.
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