Search Results for: brownback hill hold

Dear Ban Ki Moon: A Letter from the Commitee for Human Rights in North Korea

CHRNK,  taking heart from Ban’s words in a July 4th speech in Seoul, hopes that they will mark the beginning of something more sustained, and perhaps even remotely effective. You are reported to have called upon the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to “take the necessary steps to improve their human rights situation”¦,” and said, “There are still many areas where human rights are not properly protected and even abused. This is an unacceptable situation.We agree, and trust your singling...

Senate Confirms Kathleen Stephens as Ambassador to Korea

[Updates below and in the text.] A couple of days ago, while traveling on business, I was informed that Sen. Brownback would lift his hold on the nomination of Kathleen Stephens to become Ambassador to the Republic of Korea. She was confirmed in a voice vote later that day. This is the first time I’ve had a chance to post about it. The Senate confirmed a new American ambassador to South Korea on Friday, after a senator dropped his objections...

George W. Bush: A Uniter at Last!

For all the failings of his accord with Kim Jong Il, Bush has made remarkable progress in unwittingly brokering an accord between a liberal Democratic presidential nominee, the House’s most conservative Republicans, and the Republican presidential nominee. To various degrees, all have noted the inadequacy of Kim’s declaration and declared their opposition to de-listing North Korea as a state sponsor of terror unless it permits verfication. (Which it won’t, of course): This is a step forward, and there will be...

Kathleen Stephens Nomination Woes Deepen

In  March, I explained why I believe that Kathleen Stephens is the wrong person to be our next ambassador to South Korea.  In  April, I  explained why  Senator Sam Brownback had placed a hold on Stephens’s nomination, effectively blocking it.  Brownback announced his opposition  by going to the Senate floor to deliver an impassioned speech — “Google Earth has made witnesses of us all” — that made use of my own satellite image grabs  of Camp 22.  State had applied...

Growing Congressional Opposition to De-Listing North Korea as a Terror Sponsor

Well, other than the omission of North Korea’s nuclear weapons, uranium enrichment, proliferation to other terror-sponsoring regimes, and an oddly low figure for fissile material, North Korea’s disclosure is a full disclosure. Other than the nearly complete 50-megawatt reactor and an unfinished 200-megawatt reactor, it (sort of) caps North Korea’s ability to produce one kind of fissile material.  Other than the unknown quantity of completed nuclear weapons left in Kim Jong Il’s hands, it’s a breakthrough for disarmament.  And other...

North Korea’s Largest Concentration Camps on Google Earth

The Committee for Human Rights in North Korea estimates that North Korea holds as many as 120,000 people in its system of concentration and detention camps, and that 400,000 people have died in these camps from torture, starvation, disease, and execution. These reports, in the context of estimates that North Korea has allowed between 600,000 and 2,500,000 of its people to starve to death while its government squandered the nation’s resources on weapons and luxuries for its ruling elite, suggest that...

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...

Korean Church Coalition Joins N. Korean Human Rights Movement, and an Appeal for a Condemned Man

[Update:   Barack Obama endorses  the rally and its cause with a nicely written letter.  Read it here.  Of course, it would be great to think that Obama will be as persistent and passionate on this issue  as Sam Brownback, who introduced this resolution  in the Senate.  That’s two presidential candidates, one from each party.  In a particularly  bipartisan gesture, one prominent  Republican staffer even  sent me a copy of Obama’s letter(!).  If the KCC turns out a good crowd...

An Image I’ll Never Shake

… the head of a murdered child, laid out in a field in a North Korean village, with residents brought down to see if anyone knew whose child this had been. Like twelve other wandering, homeless children before him, he had been lured into one of the last remaining restaurants in the starving district. Once the owner lured the children in, she would bathe them, and then strangle them. And butcher them. And then, she would sell their flesh to...

Keynote Address by Suzanne Scholte, North Korean Human Rights Conference, Seoul, December 2005

I’d like to thank my friend Suzanne Scholte for forwarding the full text of her keynote address at Freedom House’s North Korean Human Rights Conference in Seoul. Keynote Speech for Seoul Summit: Promoting Human Rights in North Korea Remarks by Suzanne Scholte . . . December 8, 2005 I am deeply honored to be a part of this Seoul Summit: Promoting Human Rights in North Korea and thank the Organizing Committee and Freedom House for asking me to be one...