The Chosun Ilbo: Wrong on Human Rights

Let’s begin with the title of its editorial today, “Six-Party Talks Must Stay Focused on Essentials.” We are soon to learn that the non-essential matter to which the editorial refers is not the U.S. “hostile policy,” or the public statement in a congressional hearing or the Rodong Sinmun, or the new canard of U.S. nukes in South Korea, but human rights in North Korea, and more specifically, the U.S. position that it must be made a part of the talks.

How has Korea as a nation come to the point that something which has killed up to 3.5 million of its people is not “essential,” even as an ongoing process within a broader set of talks? Can we contrast this jaw-dropping moral laissez-faire with South Korea’s intransigence in its SOFA negotiations with the United States, following two completely accidental deaths? Why should North Koreans who have lost children, parents, husbands, wives, and siblings ever forgive those who consider their loss an acceptable sacrifice to realpolitik? Isn’t this just a degree less heartless than the North Korean regime itself, which deprived them of food and starved them in the first place?

A senior government official said Thursday it was not North Korea but the United States that was creating obstacles in the initial stages of six-party talks on the nuclear dispute. “The U.S. has proposed including North Korean human rights in a written agreement” that departs from a rough draft already prepared by South Korea, the U.S. and Japan.

This is a lie, and it’s a lie on several levels.

First, as the South Korean government’s own leaker conceded, any “agreement” with the United States was a draft–not final–until approved by higher-ups. If the draft actually said that human rights were off the table– something I doubt–then the higher-ups had no choice but to alter it, because the U.S. team has been required to raise human rights at the bargaining table since President Bush signed the North Korean Human Rights Act of 2004 into law last November. Section 101 of the Act (codified at 22 U.S.C. sec. 7811) reads as follows:

It is the sense of Congress that the human rights of North Koreans should remain a key element in future negotiations between the United States, North Korea, and other concerned parties in Northeast Asia.

You will note that this is non-binding language, which is nonetheless of no practical significance here. Congress, which passed that law without a single dissenting vote, controls funding of any agreement, ratification of any treaty, and the State Department’s own budget. The President is solidly behind it. Congress made the language non-binding to avoid a fuss over separation of powers and to allow itself wriggle room to ratify or fund an agreement if circumstances changed, or if a favorable agreement was reached. Neither event has taken place. If anything, Congress’s attitude on this issue has solidified.

Second, the South Koreans have no reason to suggest that a U.S. statute that has been on the books for nine months came as a surprise to them. Or is the ROK government’s position that the U.S. team should simply have ignored the statute in the name of appeasing North Korea, just as it has ignored Articles 2 and 3 of its own Constitution? (As to the South Korean assertion that the U.S. is making fresh demands to include North Korean missiles in the talks, the same defense would not apply. The demand is eminently reasonable and should be a part of the long-term process, with the setting of milestones for progress. There’s no reason for it to be a deal-breaker in this round, when so many fundamentals would break the deal so much more cleanly.)

Third, the South Koreans flatly misstate the reason why the talks are going nowhere–North Korea’s growing list of unreasonable demands (more here):

• North Korea’s newest canard is that the U.S. still has nukes in South Korea, and that it must withdraw its security guarantees from South Korea (more tempting every day, I know).
• At the very core of talks is North Korea’s reactors, which it says are partially for power generation. Yet North Korea still insists on keeping its “peaceful” nuclear programs.
• North Korea demands that the U.S. establish full diplomatic relations as a precondition for its disarmament, something the administration has publicly said it wouldn’t do.
• For several years now, it has denied its once-confessed uranium program, despite the fact that we’ve found some of the uranium in Libya. North Korea still appears to be denying.
• North Korea’s demand that the U.S. guarantee the security of its regime is beyond ridiculous–no competent U.S. diplomat would even send it to the Congress.
• Isn’t it reasonable, as a sign of good faith, to start by returning hostages you’ve kidnapped from another nation you’re negotiating with? Is it reasonable to react with open hostility to this most reasonable of demands?

And of course, the United States put an offer on the table last June, only to see the North Koreans disappear for thirteen months without a response. Today, the talks are on again, and the North has finally gotten around to rejecting it. Yet not one of the accounts I have read suggests that the subject of human rights has even come up, which makes sense. Basic negotiation principles would suggest leaving thornier issues until later so that both sides can generate some “momentum” on easier issues.

And the Chosun Ilbo’s suggestion? That the human rights issue be relegated to the U.N. Human Rights Commission. Yes, the same United Nations that gave out seventeen stern resolutions to Saddam Hussein, declared Srebrenica a “safe area,” and wrung its hands while 800,000 Rwandans were hacked to death. The Chosun also fails to mention that this has been tried before, and just who stood in the way.

I’m utterly unsurprised that South Korea would so easily betray the United States to align itself with the North Korean regime’s demands, despite billions of American dollars and thousands of American lives expended in South Korea’s defense. South Korea all but unilaterally abrogated its own obligations in its alliance with the U.S. when it declared itself a “regional balancer.” Its betrayal of the North Korean people to align itself with the North Korean regime–and the Chosun Ilbo’s assent to this–will be more difficult to explain.

Meanwhile, the people of North Korea continue their stubborn refusal to die quietly:

At 11:30 am on Wednesday, 27 July, 2005, a group of five North Korean refugees entered a Japanese residential quarter in Tentien, China, where a Japanese international school is located. According to reports, the five climbed the fence surrounding the compound but were arrested by Chinese Security police 50 meters from the school. The five refugees are now in the custody of Chinese Security Police and are being investigated.

They are three North Korean women, ages 52, 48 and early 30s. Accompanying one of the women were her son, age 22 and daughter age 14. The family of three had defected from North Korea only a week earlier.

To the extend that my country is the only one representing their interests at these talks, this is a proud day to be an American.