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Human Rights Watch: Raise Human Rights in Bilateral Talks with North Korea

Kay Seok of Human Rights Watch is one of the few people doing laudable work in an industry so invested in defending terrorists of late that it’s often too distracted to address the worst atrocities since the fall of the Khmer Rouge. This time, however, HRW’s letter, addressed to Special Envoy Stephen Bosworth, is a useful contribution to the policy discussion about North Korea:

For too long has the world sidelined human rights in North Korea while single-mindedly focusing on security issues. One and a half decades later, North Korea’s nuclear problem remains unresolved. For a long-term resolution of security issues, one needs to address the repressive system underneath. With that in mind, we welcome Robert King’s statements on November 5 at a Senate panel that the US government should balance its security efforts with human rights concerns.

The letter asks Bosworth to demand an end to public executions (all executions, in fact); cooperation with the UNHCR and the Special Rapporteur on Human Rights, particularly with regard to its “detention facilities;” and humane treatment of returning refugees, among other items. With regard to the food situation, I’ll reprint a longer quotation, just in case Christine Ahn is, like, you know, reading this, and stuff:

Although the country recovered from the 1990s famine that killed millions, North Korea still suffers from widespread hunger. In September 2009, the World Food Programme reported that a third of North Korean women and children are malnourished and that the country will need to import or receive aid of almost 1.8 million tons of food to feed the most vulnerable population.

We believe humanitarian aid should continue and should never be used as a political tool. But we would like to emphasize that it is crucial to monitor the distribution of such aid. Humanitarian aid should reach the most vulnerable, including young children, the elderly, the disabled, and pregnant and nursing women. Donors should make sure that aid is reaching the intended recipients.

The deterioration of the state rationing system as food has become more of a market commodity has made food too expensive for many North Koreans to access in sufficient quantities. Market “trickle down” effects do not ensure that those on the bottom of the economic ladder receive sufficient food. For this reason, we believe that the US should continue to urge the North Korean government to […] [a]ccept proper monitoring of food aid distribution consistent with international standards of transparency and accountability. These standards include access around the country to determine needs and the ability to make visits to places where food aid is delivered.

A nominally socialist system in which the state won’t provide for the vulnerable and restricts the right of the people to provide for themselves combines features of the worst of both systems. The main advantage of the black markets is that for many North Koreans, they’re all that stands between them and mass casualty famine. But I also suspect that in these times, North Korea’s elderly, orphans, sick, handicapped, and mentally ill don’t last long unless they have relatives who can care for them.

I doubt President Obama raised any of these points in Beijing:

* Approach other governments in the region, particularly China, to ensure that all North Korean refugees who seek refuge at US diplomatic facilities receive prompt assistance to be safely transferred to their desired destination, including the US.

* Send clear instructions to all US diplomatic facilities on the principle of receiving and sheltering North Korean refugees and assisting with their transit. Accelerate the screening process for North Korean refugees who wish to settle in the US.

* Press North Korea to abolish penalties on North Koreans who leave the country without official permission, halting their punishment in practice, and enabling international monitoring of those who are repatriated or voluntarily return. The persecution of persons for leaving North Korea creates thousands of refugees sur place every year, and deepens regional instability and tension with North Korea’s neighbors.

* Press China to stop arresting and repatriating North Korean refugees, and to fulfill its obligations to shelter and protect them under the 1951 Refugee Convention. Press China to allow the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees access to North Koreans to determine their status, and assist with their safe and speedy settlement in China or transit to a third country.

Here is an issue where the U.S. government is as full of shit as anyone. There are plenty of reasons the State Department isn’t raising this issue with the Chinese, starting with the fact that State itself is flouting its own U.S. statutory obligations to “facilitate the submission of applications” for asylum by North Korean refugees. State, which measures its success in the number of agreed frameworks with North Korea, isn’t going to let the law, principle, or basic humanity interfere with that larger objective. And really, what kind of chutzpah would it take for our diplomats to demand that China observe principles that it has spent the last five years ignoring?

The last point I’ll leave you with is on the Kaesong Industrial Complex, where capitalism at its most exploitative meets socialism at its most oppressive:

However, in the KIC Labor Law, many fundamental rights are missing, including the right to freedom of association and collective bargaining, the right to strike, prohibition of sex discrimination and sexual harassment, and a ban on harmful child labor. In addition, although the KIC Labor Law stipulates that South Korean companies shall pay the North Korean workers directly in cash, South Korean employers are forced to pay workers’ salaries to the North Korean government instead. If the North Korean government can force South Korean employers to break a regulation designed to protect the workers, there is no guarantee that other such regulations are respected.

The letter then discusses the pernicious “outward processing zones” in the U.S.-Korea FTA, code talk for Kaesong and other initiatives of this kind that arise with stupefying regularity, despite their well established track record. The FTA, an issue that’s ever on the lips of every South Korean diplomat in Washington, will certainly come up when President Obama visits President Lee in Seoul. Here, HRW need not bother. There’s no way this FTA is going to pass with Detroit looking more like Chongjin every year and with the POTUS beholden to the unions that would like to build cars to sell to Korea, but which won’t be able to do so until years after GM is finally sold off and broken up.

Why Kaesong even continues to operate is completely beyond me. There’s no way it’s ever going to attract more investors and turn a profit now. Kaesong’s existing investors are losing money and need government subsidies to survive. Even watchmaker Romanson, one of Kaesong’s biggest and most-touted investors, has invested far less than originally forecast and is backing toward a quiet exit. Romanson, noting that “the political risks are burdensome,” has invested less then half of what was originally planned, canceled further investment plans, and sold off land on which it had originally planned to expand its operations.

In other words, the Kaesong experiment is working out just as I’d expected. What’s more, I can’t see how anyone sees the cash payments to the workers Kim Jong Il as compliant with UNSCR 1718 or 1874 (see sidebar).

22 Responses

  1. Dear;

    As I believe, Kaesung is one of few cooperations between South and North after long conflict and division. USA must support it.

    South and North were divided by Soviet and USA after Japan’s collapse in WWII.
    Two Koreas came to war and class conflict bwtween landlord and tenant, between pro-Japnese, the previliged and revolutionists…. and the result is permanant division and no N Korea’s book, culture permited in SOuth.
    Censorship? Not only N Kora but also S Kora blocks N Korean sites.

    The tragedy is millions seperated families could not even know the life and death of their mother, father, brother seperated during Korean war until now and many of them already died for aging. Only hundred meet 1- 2 day as political show.
    The poor puppets of South and North have competed since birth by foreign powers but if conquer is difficult, their realistic goal is to survive under division and division is possible only under ideology war and censorship with no culture exchange.
    Nuke is actually for N Korea’s survival, who suffered for long by USA’s economic blocking.
    China helps North for the same reason with USA helping SOuth.
    However War with USA worked as good base for dictatorship and limited human rights .

    Sadly, Many shouting N Korea’s human rigjts, sepecially in South now, is actually those who have suppressed dialogue between Koreas and its own peopel or those who sufered most by Korean war and cold war namely such as formal soldiers, those who lost land and job detained at colonial times and fled to South before Korean war, who lost families during the war.
    .
    Foreingers must know the history and background of division and coloney.
    N Koreans believe they have justice in eliminating landlord suppress and pro-Japnese coloneist and insist to liberate South from US imperalism.
    SOuth Korea, the freind of democracy? The SOuth killed about 200,000 real persons, at once, those they listed as leftist(as “Bodo Yeon-maeng”) , just after break of KOrean war. And the revenge, revenge.. Also in Jeju 4. 3 inicident, more than 50000 civilians were killed by South army, only for opposed for the election of divided giovernment in the SOuth in 1948.

    Those killed are their own people,
    Bear in mind that killers have suppressed their people in the South. SInce they are dying safe for aging, it came to possible to talk about the reality. Thats S Korea. visit 4.3 Jeju massacre investigation report by Korean government itself.

    Best way to improve N Koreas human right is to end Korean war now and establish peacy system in the penunsula.

    USA have blocked North Korea since war and this help N. Korea’s present political and economical and human rights difficulties.
    Obama’s goal must be to eliminate nuke? then what was the goal of USA in 1960′ and 70’s?
    Recent Naval clash is just for showing to Obama.

    If Obama should deserve Novel peace medal, he should end Korean war now and reunite seperated families, establishing new order without war.
    SOuth have no choice but to follow the big brohter. Two Korea’s effort for unification is based on too much blood and misunderstanding and it must be started from the basic and concrete exchange with compelled order.

    President Lee’s policy? What its his condition for help to N Korea? abadoning Neke to what extent? and GDP 2000 USD is the condition of what?
    HIs policy will surely increase tension for the good 5 year his term and the division will continue. Ask to Lee if he real want co-existence and reunite of families. He may think differently. Or wait long for N Korea’s collapse or still division?

  2. Brilliant post, Joshua, moreso from the standpoint of an essential component of Plan B – for the Obama administration to not implement the following, is, to say the least, unconscionable:

    I quote:

    * Approach other governments in the region, particularly China, to ensure that all North Korean refugees who seek refuge at US diplomatic facilities receive prompt assistance to be safely transferred to their desired destination, including the US.

    * Send clear instructions to all US diplomatic facilities on the principle of receiving and sheltering North Korean refugees and assisting with their transit. Accelerate the screening process for North Korean refugees who wish to settle in the US.

    * Press North Korea to abolish penalties on North Koreans who leave the country without official permission, halting their punishment in practice, and enabling international monitoring of those who are repatriated or voluntarily return. The persecution of persons for leaving North Korea creates thousands of refugees sur place every year, and deepens regional instability and tension with North Korea’s neighbors.

    * Press China to stop arresting and repatriating North Korean refugees, and to fulfill its obligations to shelter and protect them under the 1951 Refugee Convention. Press China to allow the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees access to North Koreans to determine their status, and assist with their safe and speedy settlement in China or transit to a third country.

    Here is an issue where the U.S. government is as full of shit as anyone. There are plenty of reasons the State Department isn’t raising this issue with the Chinese, starting with the fact that State itself is flouting its own U.S. statutory obligations to “facilitate the submission of applications” for asylum by North Korean refugees. State, which measures its success in the number of agreed frameworks with North Korea, isn’t going to let the law, principle, or basic humanity interfere with that larger objective. And really, what kind of chutzpah would it take for our diplomats to demand that China observe principles that it has spent the last five years ignoring?

  3. Does anyone really think President Obama is really even peripherally concerned with Korea?

    Does anyone really believe this President’s rhetoric is backed up by credible action? (See: dithering in Afghanistan)

    Does anyone really believe he will allow the Combined Forces Commander to pull the trigger on a contingency deployment to North Korea before the PRC occupies it if when it collapses?

    Doe you think an administration that apologizes for liberating 27 million Iraqis from one of the worst butchers of the second half of the 20th century and gives US Constitutional protections and Miranda Rights to Khalid Sheihk Mohammed will stare down Kim Jong Il?

  6. Really? In what ways was President Bush’s strategy more useful or effective than President Obama’s? Not that I’m particularly a supporter of the latter but what you say does seem contrary to most of what I’ve come across on the subject, particularly on this blog.

  7. Dan,
    I cannot defend the Chris Hill debacle disaster, and most of what little I know about it I have learned here on OFK. That said, I think it is circumspect to acknowledge that all 8 years of the Bush administration were filtered through the leftist appeasement policies of Kim Dae Jung and Roh Moo Hyun’s abysmal Sunshine Policy while Obama’s policies are filtered through the manly, hard-spined no-BS policies of Lee Myung Bak.

    From my foxhole, those conditions are as disparate as night and day inasmuch as Seoul’s policies toward the sewer hole known as the DPRK are probably the driving factor behind US policy towards North Korea. If that is not the way it is, I am open to correction.

    Bush would never, ever have allowed a US President to go to North Korea hat-in-hand to grovel for the release of two US journalists while gagged so as not to mention the human rights transgressions of the Juche cult/gulag state. Whatever your view on the Bush years, the 6-Party Talks, the happy-speak about KIC and other illusions, Obama’s tacit suck up to his Porcine Majesty will be remembered here in Asia as the signature action of the young Obama administration.

  8. Even though the past is the past, I think a little discussion of the past is useful here – while some may recall Bush’s temerity to be outspoken to be “cowboy” diplomacy, the reality is that he did not have the ally in the ROK that Obama has now – Bush was up against the “sunshine” years and a media that undermined anything that he tried to do with respect to speaking from his heart and values – aka meeting with defectors such as Kang Chol Hwan, author of Aquariums of Pyongyang, whom he invited to the White House.

    Obama, on the other hand, probably has the strongest ally in the ROK with respect to denouncing the NK regime, which he is taking advantage of – what bothers most of us is that Obama isn’t taking advantage of his “party’s ideals on the rights of human beings” and at the very least, meet with defectors or speak publicy about the unconscionable subjugation of people who seek nothing more than to live freely as human beings and whose suffering is considered to be the most ignored in history. Bush tried to…even under less inviting circumstances, and for this, Bush should be commended – Honestly, I don’t know how the democratic party can be so hypocritical with respect to these people who face a an unprecedented “system” against them – “if the world is silent in the face of your suffering, then it is much harder to endure.”

  10. Don’t take anything I say as justification for Obama or any other supposed leader of the free world ‘grovelling’ before Kim Jong Il or any other dictator. However I think we can all acknowledge that it is traditional among ‘democratic’ leaders to kiss authoritarian ass in order to get something they want; examples past and present abound.

    If what you (KCJ) say in your second paragraph is indeed correct, then Obama himself is rather irrelevant; if he is not entitled to praise in terms of his general policy, nor is he entitled to criticism, since the whole thing is driven by Seoul, and the role of the US president would be merely to rubber-stamp a policy, whether they like it or not. Irene echos this point and while I agree wholeheartedly with the criticism that Obama isn’t doing enough to speak publicly about the subjugation of the North Korean people, there appears to me little novel about this. Furthermore, that’s not what I referred to in my original post: perhaps solely as a result of the facts of the ground in Seoul, Obama’s policy is, on balance, more effective than Bush’s.

  12. With all due respect, Dan O C, you seem to be arguing for the same old, same old…Obama’s policy of “not speaking publicly about the subjugation of the North Korean people” is unconscionable precisely because of the present inviting circumstances in the ROK – but make no mistake, it is time for the USA to lead again as it has historically- it is in our nature, it is what makes us a great nation, and frankly, it is our calling, especially now, in light of our hindsight, mistakes of the past and “inconvenient truths” uncovered to date.

  13. I didn’t suggest that Comrade Obama is irrelevant; only that in comparing and contrasting the two presidents’ Korean policy, one must take into consideration that Bush openly denounced the trangressions of the DPRK but had to deal with two squishy leftist Seoul governments while Obama can hide behind the manly policies of Lee Myung Bak and look tough when in fact he is complicit in the greatest act of direct appeasement of a tyrannical dictator in the 21st century.

    And now SoS Clinton is promising all kind of bennies to his Porcine Majesty to reward him for his late tantrums and nuclear activity. Yeah, that’s real tough.

  16. KCJ, I’d like to discourage conservatives from becoming as bitter in their hatred of President Obama as “progressives” were in their hatred of President Bush. I don’t disagree that Obama’s economic policy takes us in a socialist direction, and it disturbs me, and I certainly argue against those policies, but the title “comrade” implies barricades, block committees, and the Cheka dragging people off to the Lubyanka in Black Marias in the middle of the night. I don’t think we’re close to that, and to suggest so poisons our debate, just as the left’s “Bush is Hitler,” “9-11 was an inside job,” and “Bush lied, people died” venom poisoned debate. And when you hate your own president that much, it’s not a great stretch until a part of you begins to rejoice in your own country’s misfortunes. Michael Moore and Kos have shown us how twisted it can be at its worst. Look, I’m not saying we can’t disagree with a sitting president, I’m just advocating a return to a modicum of respect for the office, some respectful deference to the majority’s choice (notwithstanding our arguments with policies), and adherence to the concept of “loyal opposition.” Surely conservatives can outperform Kos and Michael Moore in this regard.

    Dan, The idea that we achieve our goals by kissing authoritarian ass misapprehends the nature of authoritarian regimes, which by their very nature pursue their ends through the coercive power of the state to impose their will by fiat. The diplomacy of compromise and consensus works well between democracies in which leaders learn to compromise with opposition parties, or factions within parties, or popular opposition. It works badly with with dictatorships, which deal with opposing views with purges, arrests, night sticks, and tear gas. The people who rise in systems like those view negotiations as zero-sum games, in which “kissing ass” signals weakness. It only encourages them to demand more and deliver less (and isn’t Chris Hill’s failure a fine illustration of that?). Such systems also tend to promote nationalism as a substitute for individual worth, which also promotes a zero-sum approach to negotiations. All negotiations with authoritarian regimes are about imposing your will. Maybe you find it distasteful, but history is replete with examples demonstrating that it’s true. When negotiating with an authoritarian regime, the only way to achieve your objectives is to negotiate from strength and show a merciless approach to verification and enforcement of the terms.

  17. Joshua, your point is well made, and as propietor of this blog, I will refrain from calling Barack Obama ‘comrade’ but it is not fair to give him a pass when he names avowed communists as czars in his administration. You can place that at my feet if you like, and I am pro-reverence for the office, but he brings this upon himself with his Jeremiah Wright/William Ayers/Saul Alinsky/Frank Marshall Davis associations.

    It is also a stretch to compare me calling out the president’s overt, unapologetic socialist moves to Bush Derangement Syndrome. You loathe KJI on this blog and with good cause. I expect the same treatment of the current US administration when they adopt DPRK-like policies that are undisguised socialist power grabs.

    I have not attacked President Obama himself, but his policies are fair game, especially if you wear our country’s name tape on your chest everyday in a foreign country (Korea). Let’s be clear here: if one will defend socialism and communism, then calling Obama ‘comrade’ is no pejorative. If communism is a pejorative term, then step up and condemn socialism in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave as you do in the DPRK.

    President Clinton sucking up to KJI is not the diplomacy of compromise and consensus but the diplomacy of capitulation and auto-condemnation that we see when our POTUS apologizes for our country on foreign soil over and over again. I would like to see you countenance these activities with the same prudence, measure and caution you express to me.
    KCJ

  18. KCJ, A few points in response —

    1. I’m not saying you’re not allowed to call the president names here. You are, although I expect you to justify your views and keep it on topic. Mostly, I’m saying I don’t agree and don’t think it’s good for the country.

    2. On some of Obama’s associations, point taken. They’re very troubling. But another way to interpret that — one that may not be so comforting — is that Obama’s ambition and his compulsion for consensus outweigh the sort of principles that would have driven most of us out of Wright’s church years ago.

    3. I don’t think you’re Kos or Michael Moore, and those are some pretty contemptible people I wouldn’t compare you to. I’m just saying showing you where this debate could be heading after a few more years of high unemployment, casualties, and higher taxes. I don’t want to see that kind of invective rise; I’d much rather see a patriotic determination to shift the country away from solutions that are (to borrow Mencken’s expression) simple, easy, and wrong.

    4. Point taken on Clinton as well. Frankly, Clinton’s NK policy was and remains much worse than Obama’s, which causes me much concern about Hillary’s instincts.

  19. I don’t think you’re Kos or Michael Moore, and those are some pretty contemptible people I wouldn’t compare you to.

    Er, thank you Josh… I uh, love you too.

  20. Mr Stanton, I take your point as it relates to negotiations with regimes such as DPRK or Iran who are not allies of the United States. What I meant to refer to however was the rather deafening silence over human rights when it comes to dealing with dictatorships who are nominally allies — ‘our’ sons of bitches. The US and other democracies are quite happy to, for the most part, keep their traps shut about widespread and institutional attacks against human dignity across large swathes of the world for the sake of economics, ‘security’, and so forth.

  21. China, for example? I couldn’t agree more.

    But can you name an “allied” country whose human rights violations are on the same scale as those in North Korea, Burma, or the Sudan? Saudi Arabia probably comes closest. I see plenty of good reasons to put more distance into that relationship, of course, but in terms of proportionality of violations, either in terms of severity or scale, I don’t see any comparison.