Senate resolution would set conditions for de-listing North Korea as a terror sponsor

I knew this was coming but was asked not to write about it. But now, I see that Richardson has a link to a Yonhap story about it. Now that it’s out, I’ll speak out of school for a moment and say that I suggested a couple of the provisions that made it into the resolution, although I’d rather not say which ones.

The sponsor is Sam Brownback, who having dropped his presidential bid, is back to doing what earned him such esteem in my eyes: advocating for human rights. Joe Lieberman and Charles Grassley are co-sponsors. The resolution would ask the Administration to do what State won’t: make a connection between listing North Korea as a terror sponsor and North Korea’s actual terror sponsorship activities.

The resolution also tries to force (or perhaps embarrass?) State into actual compliance with the refugee asylum facilitation provision of the North Korean Human Rights Act. It would require State to provide instructions to its consulates everywhere on how to receive North Korean refugees, and (how inspired!) would require State to publish those instructions in the Federal Register. Finally, it would require the Administration to give Congress some answers on what nuclear technology or materials our intelligence services think the North Koreans supplied to Syria.

Let’s hope this gathers some traction, and if you want to help, this would be a good time to ask your senator to agree to co-sponsor this bill. Here’s a link to the resolution’s text on Thomas; I’ve also pasted in the full text below. Needless to say, Yonhap’s description of the bill leaves out many of its most interesting provisions, including the references to Syria, Hezbollah, and Rev. Kim Dong Shik, a U.S. resident who was kidnapped by North Korea and never accounted for. Click “more” to read the resolution as introduced.

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

December 10, 2007

Mr. BROWNBACK (for himself, Mr. KYL, Mr. LIEBERMAN, and Mr. GRASSLEY) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations

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RESOLUTION

Expressing the sense of the Senate that certain benchmarks must be met before certain restrictions against the Government of North Korea are lifted, and that the United States Government should not provide any financial assistance to North Korea until the Secretary of State makes certain certifications regarding the submission of applications for refugee status.

Whereas international press reports noted that Iranian officials traveled to North Korea to observe the long and short-range missile tests conducted by the North Korean regime on July 4, 2006, and this was confirmed by Ambassador Christopher Hill, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and the Pacific, during testimony before the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate on July 20, 2006;

Whereas international press reports in the summer of 2006 indicated that North Korea was involved in training in guerrilla warfare of Hezbollah cadres who subsequently were involved in operations against Israeli forces in south Lebanon;

Whereas the United Nations Security Council, under the presidency of Japan, unanimously adopted Resolution 1718 on October 14, 2006, `condemning’ the nuclear weapon test conducted by North Korea on October 9, 2006, and imposing sanctions on North Korea;

Whereas President George W. Bush stated in November 2006 that: `The transfer of nuclear weapons or material by North Korea to states or non-state entities would be considered a grave threat to the United States, and we would hold North Korea fully accountable for the consequences of such action. … It is vital that the nations of this region send a message to North Korea that the proliferation of nuclear technology to hostile regimes or terrorist networks will not be tolerated.’;

Whereas Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice stated in October 2006 that `a North Korean decision to try to transfer a nuclear weapon or technologies either to another state or to a non-state actor’ would be an `extremely grave’ action for which the United States would `hold North Korea accountable’; and

Whereas Congress authoritatively expressed its view, in section 202(b)(2) of the North Korean Human Rights Act of 2004 (Public Law 108-333; 22 U.S.C. 7832(b)(2)), that `United States nonhumanitarian assistance to North Korea shall be contingent on North Korea’s substantial progress’ on human rights improvements, release of and accounting for abductees, family reunification, reform of North Korea’s labor camp system, and the decriminalization of political expression, none of which has occurred: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That the Senate–

(1) recognizes that restrictions against the Government of North Korea were imposed by reason of a determination of the Secretary of State that the Government of North Korea, for purposes of section 6(j) of the Export Administration Act of 1979 (as continued in effect pursuant to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act; 50 U.S.C. App. 2405(j)), section 40 of the Arms Export Control Act (22 U.S.C. 2780), section 620A of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 (22 U.S.C. 2371), and other provisions of law, was a government that has repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism;

(2) believes that this designation should remain in effect and should not be lifted unless it can be demonstrated that the Government of North Korea–

(A) is no longer engaged in the illegal transfer of missile or nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons technology, particularly to the Governments of Iran, Syria, or any other country, the government of which the Secretary of State has determined, for purposes of any of the provisions of law specified in paragraph (1), is a government that has repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism;

(B) is no longer engaged in training, harboring, supplying, financing, or supporting in any way–

(i) Hamas, Hezbollah, or the Japanese Red Army, or any member of such organizations;

(ii) any organization designated by the Secretary of State as a foreign terrorist organization in accordance with section 219(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1189(a)); and

(iii) any person included on the Annex to Executive Order 13224 (September 23, 2001) and any other person identified under section 1 of that Executive Order whose property and interests in property are blocked by that section (commonly known as a `specially designated global terrorist’);

(C) is no longer engaged in the counterfeiting of United States currency `supernotes’;

(D) has made inoperable Bureau No. 39 under the North Korean Workers Party headed by Kim Jong Il, which is charged with laundering illicit funds obtained by narcotics trafficking and other criminal activities;

(E) has released United States permanent resident Kim Dong-Shik who, according to the findings of a South Korean court, was abducted by North Korean agents on the Chinese border in January 2000;

(F) has released or fully accounted to the satisfaction of the Government of the United States and the Government of the Republic of Korea for the whereabouts of the 15 Japanese nationals recognized as abduction victims by the National Police Agency (NPA) of Japan;

(G) has released or fully accounted to the satisfaction of the Government of the United States and the Government of the Republic of Korea for the whereabouts of an estimated 600 surviving South Korean prisoners of war, comrades-in-arms of United States and Allied forces, who have been held in North Korea against their will and in violation of the Armistice Agreement since hostilities ended in July 1953; and

(H) has ceased and desisted from engaging in further terrorist activities subsequent to the 1987 bombing of Korean Air Flight 858 over Burma, the 1996 murder in Vladivostok, Russia, of South Korean diplomat Choi Duck-keun, following Pyongyang’s threats of retaliation for the deaths of North Korean commandoes whose submarine ran aground in South Korea, and the 1997 assassination on the streets of Seoul of North Korean defector Lee Han Young; and

(3) believes that the United States Government should not provide any financial assistance to North Korea (except for adequately monitored humanitarian assistance in the form of food and medicine) unless the Secretary of State certifies that–

(A) appropriate guidance has been provided to all foreign embassies and consular offices regarding their responsibility under section 303 of the North Korean Human Rights Act of 2004 (22 U.S.C. 7843) to facilitate the submission of applications by citizens of North Korea seeking protection as refugees under section 207 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1157);

(B) such guidance has been published in the Federal Register; and

(C) the facilities described in subparagraph (A) are carrying out the responsibility described in subparagraph (A) in good faith.