Seoul Summit: Breaking through Kim Jong-il’s walls of isolation
(by guest blogger Andy Jackson)
This a part of a series of posts on the Seoul Summit: Promoting Human Rights in North Korea and related events. The portions in the blockquote were taken from my notes. I apologize for any inaccuracies.
The following are small samples of the presentations during the second session of the Seoul Summit on Friday, December 9, 2005: Conference on Strategy for North Korean Human Rights Improvement (more on the session see here). I have provided links when I could so you could find out more about the speakers and their organizations.
Elizabeth Batha, International Advocate, Christian Solidarity Worldwide:
The UN resolution was important. It held a mirror to North Korea. North Korea can no longer claim that it is only a few western countries that worry about human rights there. Countries from every continent voted for it.
Here is another speech by Ms Bath at a different event.
Pierre Rigoulot, President of the French Committee to Help the North Korean Population
Rigoulot is the author of numerous books. He contributed a chapter on Korea to the best-selling Black Book of Communism and was co-author of The Aquariums of Pyongyang with Kang Chol-hwan.
30 years ago, many French people denied the existence of Soviet gulags. Today nobody denies the existence of gulags in North Korea.
(Resolving) the nuclear problem depends on changes in North Korean human rights.
A statement from NGOs [on human rights in North Korea] is okay. A solemn statement by 15-20 intellectual and moral leaders would be better.
It is most important to get information to North Korean people. Human rights agreements and economic cooperation (like the Gaeseong Industrial Complex) should go together. The Helsinki process did not hurt economic cooperation between the west and the USSR in the long run.
If you want to read more from Rigoulot; check out this recent interview with the Daily NK. BTW, you can see my opinion of the Gaeseong Industrial Complex here and here.
Ha Tae-kyong (Young Howard), Executive Director, Open radio for NK:
North has no interesting or fun programs because they all just praise the regime so South Korean programs (on tapes and CDs) are popular. There are many Chinese radios in North Korea. We decided on radio because we thought it would have the greatest broadest reach (of any media).
We do not just criticize Kim Jong-il. If you want to praise Kim Jong-il, we will broadcast it.
We should send knowledge to North Korea.
I had a chance to sit across from Ha during a dinner that evening. One of the first things that struck me about him was how outgoing and upbeat he was. The later was especially noteworthy at a conference on as grim a topic as North Korean human rights violations. I suspect that we will hear more about Mr Ha in the future.
Ha was also adamant that Open Radio for North Korea would broadcast for anyone who pays the appropriate fee. I hope that some South Korean leftists take him up on the offer because I think that an open airing of divergent opinions would do more to undermine the official party line in North Korea than strait propaganda. If the leftist don’t bite I would encourage those who support human rights in North Korea to tape debates with the leftists and broadcast those.
Ha explained that, because of its vast size, many of the radios in China (and thus, many of those smuggled into North Korea) are short wave. That is why Open Radio for North Korea chose to broadcast on short wave.
If you understand Korea, you can hear their first broadcast at the Daily NK.
Information is getting into North Korea through radio broadcasts (as well as smuggled videos, clandestine missionary trips and other means). Every broadcast heard in North Korea is another crack in the wall of isolation that the Kim Jong-il regime has imposed on its subjects. If the North Korea Human Rights Act is ever fully funded, I hope that some of the money goes to supporting for those broadcasts, as well as expanding the Voice of America broadcasts into North Korea.