[Senate Hearing 107-924]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 107-924
EXAMINING THE PLIGHT OF REFUGEES: THE CASE OF NORTH KOREA
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON IMMIGRATION
of the
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
JUNE 21, 2002
__________
Serial No. J-107-88
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
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86-829 WASHINGTON : 2003
____________________________________________________________________________
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COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont, Chairman
EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah
JOSEPH R. BIDEN, Jr., Delaware STROM THURMOND, South Carolina
HERBERT KOHL, Wisconsin CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa
DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania
RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin JON KYL, Arizona
CHARLES E. SCHUMER, New York MIKE DeWINE, Ohio
RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama
MARIA CANTWELL, Washington SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas
JOHN EDWARDS, North Carolina MITCH McCONNELL, Kentucky
Bruce A. Cohen, Majority Chief Counsel and Staff Director
Sharon Prost, Minority Chief Counsel
Makan Delrahim, Minority Staff Director
------
Subcommittee on Immigration
EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts, Chairman
DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas
CHARLES E. SCHUMER, New York ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania
RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa
MARIA CANTWELL, Washington JON KYL, Arizona
JOHN EDWARDS, North Carolina MIKE DeWINE, Ohio
Melody Barnes, Majority Chief Counsel
Stuart Anderson, Minority Chief Counsel
C O N T E N T S
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STATEMENTS OF COMMITTEE MEMBERS
Page
Brownback, Hon. Sam, a U.S. Senator from the State of Kansas..... 2
prepared statement........................................... 53
Kennedy, Hon. Edward M., a U.S. Senator from the State of
Massachusetts.................................................. 1
WITNESSES
Allen, Hon. George, a U.S. Senator from the State of Virginia.... 12
Dewey, Arthur E., Assistant Secretary of State, Bureau of
Population, Refugees, and Migration, Department of State,
Washington, D.C.; accompanied by Lorne Craner, Assistant
Secretary of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and
Labor, Department of State, Washington, D.C.; and James Kelly,
Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific
Affairs, Department of State, Washington, D.C.................. 5
Gaer, Felice D., Commissioner, United States Commission on
International Religious Freedom, Washington, D.C............... 32
Lee, Helie, West Hollywood, California........................... 19
Lee, Sun-ok, North Korean Prison Camp Survivor, Seoul, South
Korea.......................................................... 16
Liang-Fenton, Debra, Vice Chairman, U.S. Committee for Human
Rights in North Korea, Minneapolis, Minnesota.................. 34
Mason, Jana, Asia Policy Analyst, U.S. Committee on Refugees,
Washington, D.C................................................ 38
Massimino, Elisa, Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, Washington,
D.C............................................................ 42
Vollertsen, Norbert, M.D., Seoul, South Korea.................... 23
SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD
Allen, Hon. George, a U.S. Senator from the State of Virginia,
prepared statement............................................. 48
Defense Forum Foundation, Suzanne Scholte, President, Falls
Church, Virginia, statement and attachments.................... 59
Dewey, Arthur E., Assistant Secretary of State, Bureau of
Population, Refugees, and Migration, Department of State,
Washington, D.C., statement.................................... 72
Gaer, Felice D., Commissioner, United States Commission on
International Religious Freedom, Washington, D.C., statement
and attachment................................................. 75
Kim, Jung-Eun, freelance journalist, statement................... 102
Lee, Helie, West Hollywood, California, statement................ 105
Lee, Sun-ok, North Korean Prison Camp Survivor, Seoul, South
Korea, statement............................................... 109
Mason, Jana, Asia Policy Analyst, U.S. Committee on Refugees,
Washington, D.C., statement and attachments.................... 121
Massimino, Elisa, Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, Washington,
D.C., statement................................................ 135
Rendler, Jack, Vice Chair, U.S. Committee for Human Rights in
North Korea, statement and attachment.......................... 144
Vollertsen, Norbert, M.D., Seoul, South Korea, statement......... 152
EXAMINING THE PLIGHT OF REFUGEES: THE CASE OF NORTH KOREA
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FRIDAY, JUNE 21, 2002
United States Senate,
Subcommittee on Immigration,
Committee on the Judiciary,
Washington, D.C.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:10 a.m., in
Room SD-226, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Edward M.
Kennedy, presiding.
Present: Senators Kennedy, Brownback, and Allen (ex
officio).
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. EDWARD M. KENNEDY, A U.S. SENATOR
FROM THE STATE OF MASSACHUSETTS
Chairman Kennedy. We will come to order. I am pleased to
hold this hearing on the plight of North Korean refugees and I
thank my colleague, Sam Brownback, for his leadership on this
important issue. He has really been out in front on this matter
and all of us are grateful for all the good work that he has
been doing.
Recent press reports have highlighted the seriousness of
the situation facing North Korean refugees, many of whom have
fled their native land seeking safe haven, only to be forcibly
returned to face torture and execution.
The significant number of North Korean refugees is due in
large part to the severe political and religious persecution in
that country. The U.S. State Department estimates that in 2001,
150,000 to 200,000 North Koreans were held as political
prisoners at maximum security camps. The situation has been
exacerbated by the severe famine that has plagued the country
since the mid-1990s, resulting in up to two million deaths from
starvation or famine-related diseases since 1994.
Those who have gotten out of North Korea, most have gone to
neighboring China. It is estimated that in 2001, hundreds of
thousands of North Korean refugees fled to China each month,
amounting to somewhere between 10,000 to 500,000 refugees total
for the year.
China's reaction to North Korean refugees has been
inconsistent. Although China maintains an agreement with North
Korea to return North Korean migrants, Beijing has often looked
the other way as these individuals try to begin new lives in a
safer land. However, in a number of high-profile cases
recently, China has intervened, aggressively rounding up and
forcibly returning refugees to North Korea, even storming
sovereign foreign diplomatic missions to do so. And the Chinese
Foreign Ministry has demanded that foreign diplomatic missions
hand over to the Chinese police those who have sought refuge on
their grounds.
Beijing officials consider the North Koreans as economic
migrants instead of political refugees, and as such, has
hindered the ability of the United Nations High Commission on
Refugees and international nongovernmental organizations to
comprehensively assess the gravity of the situation and set up
refugee camps. I look forward to the testimony of our witnesses
as they will be able to shed greater light on this critical
situation.
This week, the Senate passed a measure sponsored by Senator
Brownback, which I was privileged to cosponsor, encouraging
North Korea, China, and United States to work toward the
favorable resolution of this dire situation. Clearly, the
United States must play a significant role in addressing the
needs of these vulnerable individuals. The severity of the
situation and our tradition of commitment to refugees require
it.
While the focus today is on the plight of the North Korean
refugees, we must remember that the number of refugees around
the world has increased steadily in recent years and our
commitment to all these individuals is more necessary than
ever.
I look forward to the testimony of our distinguished
witnesses and to working with our colleagues to effectively
address the situation in North Korea and other parts around the
world, where far too many refugees languish in need of our
assistance.
Senator Brownback?
STATEMENT OF HON. SAM BROWNBACK, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE
OF KANSAS
Senator Brownback. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and
thank you very much for your leadership and for hosting this
very important hearing.
The purpose of this hearing should be clear and its message
should be direct. The North Korean refugee crisis has been
neglected for too long, partly because many, including the
Chinese government and others, wish it would just go away. As
the graphic reports of North Korean asylum bids at foreign
embassies show, this problem will only continue to escalate.
As you know, Mr. Chairman, our resolution on North Korea
unanimously passed the Senate this week. That resolution
expresses four key points which should serve as guiding
principles for us in this hearing. First, forced repatriation
of the North Korean refugees constitutes a violation of
international law. Therefore, the Chinese government should
immediately stop the forced repatriation of North Korean
refugees.
Second, the Chinese government should allow the
international community to provide open and direct assistance,
such as medical aid and proper facilities, to these North
Korean refugees.
Third, the United Nations, with the cooperation of the
Chinese government, should immediately conduct an investigation
of the conditions of the North Korean refugees as soon as
possible.
And fourth, North Korean refugees should be given legal
refugee status in accordance with international law.
Regarding that last point, I am reviewing various
legislative options, including one that parallels a law from
the early 1990s that helped thousands of Soviet Jews and others
persecuted for their ethnic or religious backgrounds caught in
the breakup of the Soviet Union. I am grateful to the many in
the refugee advocacy community who have offered their support
in helping us craft a bill or an initiative that may similarly
help North Korean refugees. These organizations, many of which
were involved with the legislation back in the 1990s, include
the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, the Lawyers' Committee for
Human Rights, the Southeast Asian Resource Action Center, the
National Association of Korean Americans, the U.S. Committee on
Refugees, and others.
Let me also add that my office received word last night
that a number of leading refugee advocacy groups are ready to
immediately assess assistance needs and relief programs if and
when the North Korean refugee processing initiative is started
in China. They are ready to go now. These groups include
Doctors Without Borders, which I understand withdrew from North
Korea a few years ago, the Citizens Alliance for North Korean
Human Rights, one of the leading groups involved with North
Korean refugees, Life Funds for North Korean Refugees based in
Japan, the Korean Peninsula Peace Project, and others. They are
ready to go and to help now.
North Korea is today's killing field where millions of
people, considered as politically hostile or agitators or just
being innocent children, starve to death while those in power
enjoy luxurious lifestyles, spending billions of dollars on
weapons and actively engaged in the proliferation of weapons of
mass destruction.
Former President Ronald Reagan stated our nation's
tradition best when he said this. ``A hungry child knows no
politics.'' Well, every famine is complicated by politics. The
North Korean famine is the most complicated politically that
many of us have seen in a long time. Politics is killing
people, literally.
How the U.S. and the world community can most effectively
express its sympathy and concern for the North Korean people
and help the North Korean people, including refugees currently
in China, which the chairman stated that we believe is
somewhere in the neighborhood of 150,000 to 200,000, is the
issue before us today.
If I may, I would also like to warmly welcome our
distinguished witnesses on the panels that we are going to have
who are present, particularly two. Ms. Soon Ok Lee is a North
Korean prison camp survivor. Her book, which my wife and I read
two weekends ago, is a chilling, chilling report of what is
taking place in North Korea in the prison camps, Eyes of the
Tail-less Animals. It is an incredible account. I also welcome
Dr. Norbert Vollertsen, an activist on behalf of North Korean
refugees. Both of them have traveled here from Seoul, South
Korea.
I would also like to welcome Ms. Helie Lee, who has
recently published memoirs about her successful effort to bring
her uncle out of North Korea. It highlights the largely hidden
and painful secret among many Korean Americans who still have
family members trapped in North Korea and China. I understand
as many as one in four Korean American families have family
members still trapped in North Korea.
I look forward to working with you, Mr. Chairman, on some
legislative vehicles to help North Korean refugees and I thank
you for holding this hearing.
Chairman Kennedy. It is a privilege to welcome back Gene
Dewey, who has already appeared before this committee once this
year. He has been a distinguished leader at the Department of
State. He serves as Assistant Secretary of the Bureau of
Population, Refugees, and Migration. In that role, he is
responsible for overseeing U.S. Government policies regarding
population, refugees, international migration issues, and
managing refugee protection, resettlement, and humanitarian
assistance. Previously, he served five years as the Deputy
Assistant Secretary of the Bureau for Refugee Programs and he
was named a United Nations Assistant Secretary General. He
served four years in Geneva as the United Nations Deputy High
Commissioner for Refugees.
I am honored he has come back to testify and look forward
to his testimony on this critical issue.
It is a pleasure to have Lorne Craner, our Assistant
Secretary of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and
Labor, responsible for coordinating U.S. policies and programs
that promote and protect human rights and democracy around the
world, goals which he pursued throughout a distinguished
career. Previously, he served as President of the International
Republican Institute, which works to promote democracy, free
markets, rule of law throughout the world. He also served as
Director of Asian Affairs at the National Security Council,
Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Legislative Affairs. We
are delighted to have him here.
And I am privileged to introduce James Kelly, Assistant
Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs. He has
had a long and distinguished career in international affairs.
Before assuming his current position, he was President of the
Pacific Forum of the Center for Strategic and International
Studies in Honolulu. Before that, he served as Special
Assistant for National Security Affairs for President Ronald
Reagan, as the Senior Director for Asian Affairs in the
National Security Council, and as Deputy Assistant Secretary of
Defense for National Security Affairs at the Pentagon. I am
honored to welcome him.
We have Senator Allen here, who has a key interest in the
subject matter. We are delighted to welcome him to our panel.
Senator Allen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Kennedy. Mr. Dewey, Secretary Dewey, we will be
glad to hear from you.
STATEMENT OF ARTHUR E. DEWEY, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE,
BUREAU OF POPULATION, REFUGEES, AND MIGRATION, DEPARTMENT OF
STATE, WASHINGTON, D.C.; ACCOMPANIED BY LORNE CRANER, ASSISTANT
SECRETARY OF STATE, BUREAU OF DEMOCRACY, HUMAN RIGHTS, AND
LABOR, DEPARTMENT OF STATE, WASHINGTON, D.C.; AND JAMES KELLY,
ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE FOR EAST ASIAN AND PACIFIC
AFFAIRS, DEPARTMENT OF STATE, WASHINGTON, D.C.
Mr. Dewey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks to you and
your committee for the opportunity to discuss the plight of the
North Korean asylum seekers in China.
We do not have a lot of information about what goes on in
North Korea and we have little information also about the
situation on the border with China, but we certainly have
enough to realize that this would rank on anyone's short list
of the greatest manmade disasters in the world. It is a
horrific humanitarian tragedy.
Under North Korean law, for example, the very act of an
unauthorized departure from North Korea for China or for
anywhere is grounds for prosecution, which amounts to
persecution.
President Bush said during his February visit to Seoul this
year, ``North Korean children should never starve while a
massive army is fed. No nation should be a prison for its own
people.''
Thousands of people have fled into China in search of food
and work and to flee persecution. We place a particular
priority, as has been mentioned, on the U.N. High Commissioner
for Refugees getting access to the border region in order to
set up a process to sort out who these people are and to
identify those that have a legitimate claim to asylum. That is
not possible now, as has been stated. A second role that makes
it importance for a presence there of the High Commissioner for
Refugees is to be a watchdog against push-backs against
refoulement to North Korea.
In recent days, we have witnessed desperate measures taken
by individual North Koreans to avoid push-backs and to gain
asylum. North Koreans have run the gauntlet. They have sought
refuge in foreign embassies and consulates in Shenyang and
Beijing. Onward settlement to South Korea has been negotiated
for most of them, but 20 still remain in the South Korean
embassy in Beijing and two in the Canadian embassy. One person
was forcibly removed in an intrusion into the South Korean
embassy and remains in Chinese hands.
This transgression of diplomatic premises strikes at the
very heart of the conduct of international diplomatic
relations. It represents a serious violation of the Vienna
Convention, and, of course, we are concerned about the
violations of the Geneva Convention and the protocol to that
convention in 1967, which China has signed, with the evidence
that we do have of persons that have been pushed back to
persecution and perhaps even death in North Korea.
In a normal setting, which this is not, a person seeking
resettlement in a third country would contact the U.N. High
Commissioner for Refugees, requesting a referral for
resettlement. But in this situation and for security reasons,
North Korea is one of the countries where there is a
requirement for U.S. officials in the field to get State
Department and INS approval to accept referrals for asylum in
the United States.
To discuss briefly what we are doing now in response to
this situation, the UNHCR is pressing for a high-level meeting
in Beijing to deal with this matter. They have had meetings in
Geneva to try to set this up and this is in train and, of
course, we are strongly supporting it. We have repeatedly
pressed China to adhere to the 1967 Protocol, which they have
signed, to allow UNHCR access to the border region and to
asylum seekers.
The Department of State is also in the middle of a policy
review on North Koreans in China. This is not diplomatese, Mr.
Chairman, for simply studying the problem or reviewing the
problem or keeping a watching brief on the problem. This is a
serious effort to work the problem and to find solutions that
will work.
Let me also say that with respect overall to admissions to
the United States that despite the security restrictions which
were mandated by the events of September 11 of last year, this
administration is committed to keeping the door open to
refugees. The fact that any have been brought in represents
somewhat of a miracle, given the hurdles that have been agreed
by the Congress and the interagency community in Washington to
make sure the security of American citizens is maintained.
But I welcome the opportunity in this setting to explore
any ideas you may have concerning our admissions program,
either here today or in our annual admissions consultations
with Secretary Powell next Tuesday.
I would like to submit my full statement for the record and
look forward to working with you on this important problem of
North Koreans in China. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Kennedy. Thank you very much, Secretary.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Dewey appears as a
submission for the record.]
Chairman Kennedy. We will do ten-minute rounds, if that is
all right.
It appears that the Chinese are hardening their stance
towards refugees. While in the past they often looked the other
way or agreed on humanitarian grounds to allow certain refugees
to travel to other countries, the Chinese Foreign Minister
recently sent a note to all diplomatic missions demanding they
cooperate with the Public Security Bureau, the Chinese police,
and hand over any North Korean. They argue that foreign
missions have no right to grant asylum on Chinese territory.
Now, I understand that at least two countries, Canada and
South Korea, have rejected the note. Can you tell us what the
State Department's position is on that diplomatic note?
Mr. Dewey. The State Department position is clear, that
although we have not formally rejected, to my knowledge, we
have made it clear to the Chinese that there has to be a
process. That process has to be respected. They have signed the
1967 Protocol, which if they do not agree to a process whereby
the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees plays its role in this
process, they are making of that protocol little more than a
perishable piece of paper. We have made that very clear and we
will continue to make that clear to the government of China.
Chairman Kennedy. Well, what does that mean? Does that mean
you accept it or do you reject the note? How long are you going
to have to go through the process before you reject it? I do
not understand. You said, ``Our position is clear,'' and then
you said, ``They have to go through a process and we are going
to continue the process.'' I do not quite understand what that
answer means. Are you rejecting their position? Are you
accepting their position for a period of time? What is exactly
the status?
Mr. Dewey. It is a de facto rejection.
Chairman Kennedy. Flat out rejection?
Mr. Dewey. We are not handing them over.
Chairman Kennedy. The fact that China considers the North
Korean refugees economic migrants has allowed them, obviously,
to keep any foreign NGOs and the U.N. High Commissioner out of
the region. Recent press reports indicate there are some aid
workers on the ground who have been arrested. There have been
crackdowns on 180 North Korean refugees on the Chinese side.
Can you confirm that the reports are true? Can you detail
incidents of humanitarian aid workers being arrested in China
and North Korea?
Mr. Dewey. I would like to refer to Secretary Kelly,
perhaps, on that. He may have more recent information.
Mr. Kelly. Mr. Chairman, I do not have specific information
on that, but I have seen the same reports that you have. I am
not aware of relief workers in North Korea, because they are
very few in number, of having been interfered with or arrested,
but I have heard the reports, and consider them highly
credible, of interference with relief workers in the
Northeastern part of China.
Chairman Kennedy. We would appreciate any material that you
can provide for us.
Mr. Kelly. I will certainly do that, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Kennedy. We know that North Korea is one of the
most oppressive governments in the world. Many flee in
persecution by the regime and would be able to establish the
well-founded fear of persecution to qualify. So the problem we
face is how to access this population in China, where most have
fled. Under the circumstance, China is unlikely to let the U.N.
High Commissioner operate independently inside its borders. One
option is to organize a multinational effort to establish
temporary resettlement camps in China that would serve as way
stations for permanent resettlement in third countries.
To make the option work, the U.S. would have to play a
leading role in underwriting this effort and accepting North
Korean refugees for resettlement. We have done this in other
places. We have done this in Thailand, for example. Is the
administration willing to consider that, or is it under
consideration?
Mr. Dewey. Yes, Mr. Chairman. The administration would
consider that as an option, a role for international
organizations other than UNHCR, organizations that move people,
organizations that you are familiar with that have been very
helpful in the past, the International Organization for
Migration, for example. That can help us get around certain
sensitivities of continuing to use the word ``refugee.'' If we
could get agreement by the government of China that those
people could be moved to places for settlement, this would be
one agency that could help.
Chairman Kennedy. Is this something that you have tried to
suggest to the Chinese yet? Will you try? What should we
assume? You think it is a good idea?
Mr. Dewey. What you can assume is it is a good idea. It has
to be part of a negotiating package--
Chairman Kennedy. I agree.
Mr. Dewey. --that needs to be dealt with the Chinese--
Chairman Kennedy. But it has to get on the agenda to become
part of a negotiating package.
Mr. Dewey. And it has to be on the agenda for South Korea,
as well.
Chairman Kennedy. What are you telling us? Are going to put
it on the agenda?
Mr. Dewey. We will make that part of the agenda, part of
the package.
Chairman Kennedy. Good. Please keep us abreast of how that
is going. We would like to be helpful to you.
Mr. Dewey. We would like to work this--
Chairman Kennedy. We want to work with you to try and
indicate our of support.
Finally, let me ask you, would the State Department be
willing to designate North Korean refugees as a priority
category to facilitate their resettlement in the U.S.?
Mr. Dewey. I think it is too early to give you a yes or no
response on the willingness. It certainly would be a question
that we would take into account if that would appear to be
useful.
Right now, of course, as you know, the offer, or the law of
South Korea does provide, makes it automatic citizenship for
persons who were born on the peninsula of a Korean father, that
they have citizenship rights in South Korea, so that should be
taken into account first.
Chairman Kennedy. Senator Brownback and I will be talking
to the Department on numbers, because we have very restricted
numbers in any event, but it would appear that these refugees
certainly should have special consideration if we are able to
set up a process. Even taking into account the Chinese
response, I would ask if the United States is prepared and
willing to be the principal responsible nation in terms of the
resettlement if we set up this process?
I think we have got to have an answer to that. Otherwise,
if we say we are not quite sure about that but we still want to
settle it up, I think you would have a difficult time in
convincing them. So I think this is something that we would be
glad to work with you on in terms of trying to indicate that we
are prepared to play a full role and be responsive to these
very, very special and important and significant national
needs.
Senator Brownback?
Senator Brownback. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and
Mr. Dewey, members of the administration, I appreciate you
being here. I have got several questions I would like to ask.
They are somewhat follow-ups to, in some cases, Senator
Kennedy's.
If you go right on this issue of the special refugee
category, the P-2 category, Secretary Dewey, under that
existing P-2 category, we admit refugees only from a very small
number of countries, such as Iran, former states of the Soviet
Union. As I have said, North Korea strikes me as an excellent
candidate for P-2 classification. Can you elaborate some on
what the administration is discussing in granting this P-2
category for North Korean refugees? This, it seems to me, would
be custom made for this type of situation we are seeing today.
Mr. Dewey. It is too early, Senator, to say that that is
actively under discussion, as I say, the situation for South
Korea really has to be addressed in this context first. But, as
you also know, in our efforts to bring in as close to the
ceiling as possible this year, admissions, that we are looking
at every possible P-2 category in the world. So you are right.
There may be a point where North Koreans would join this
category.
Senator Brownback. What is the hesitancy here? I mean, you
have got a high level of persecution taking place in North
Korea. You have starvation. You have the world community
feeding a third to a half of the North Korean population. You
have people fleeing just to remain alive. If you stay for the
next panel or two, you are going to hear some eyewitness
accounts of horrific situations. I would think there would not
be any hesitancy here.
Mr. Dewey. I do not think there is any hesitancy in the
United States taking a leadership role in solving this problem,
of working this problem and working toward a solution, and the
leadership role is going to require going through several steps
of a process. It is going to require the UNHCR getting the
access to determine who these people are, which ones do have a
legitimate claim to asylum and resettlement. That has to be
worked in sequence. That is what we are taking a leadership
role on, getting the Chinese to permit this access by the U.N.
High Commissioner for Refugees.
I think, step by step, yes, we will come to the P-2
category point. But it should be done in an orderly sequence
with our leadership.
Senator Brownback. As we go in an orderly sequence here,
people are dying in this process. Can you give us any time
frame that we could expect some decisions to be made in a thing
like this P-2 category?
Mr. Dewey. I cannot give you a time frame except that we
are attaching the utmost urgency to this, to getting the steps
that would lead up to that accomplished.
Senator Brownback. I hope you can stay to listen or at
least watch the video of some of the next panels that we are
going to have. I have talked with these people ahead of time
and their stories will not let you sleep at night. If you are
in a position to be able to help some of these people get out,
and we are and you are, I would think we really need to move
with some speed and some urgency here.
Mr. Kelly. Senator Brownback, I think it is important to
keep in mind that all of these people can now be resettled in
the Republic of Korea, in South Korea, which has an elaborate
procedure and facilities set up to receive and resettle these
people who are, after all, Korean. Now, those individuals who
have relatives in the U.S. and other claims for U.S.
citizenship should certainly come here.
But the first trick, sir, is we have got to get them out of
China, and when we get them out of China, I would argue that
the presumption probably should be the first destination should
be the Republic of Korea, and if there is some reason, and I am
not aware of any reason that these people would be left adrift
or be left to the insensibilities within China, then we ought
to take them.
But at the moment, and I have had assurances on this from
the Republic of Korea even this week, they are in the process
of expanding their facilities and they are ready, willing, and
able to receive and fund in a rather generous fashion what they
claim to be an unlimited number of such people.
Senator Brownback. Let me ask you about a couple of other
issues. What level of contact have we made with the Chinese
officials about letting people that get from North Korea into
China to pass on through to a third country? Have we made that
at the Secretary of State level, to urge the Chinese? Has this
been a communique at that level?
Mr. Dewey. If I could, Senator Brownback, I think that
since Secretary Kelly--
Mr. Kelly. There have been many contacts. This is not a new
issue, Senator Brownback, and it has been brought up in the 14
months since I have been Assistant Secretary. I have been
present for a number of discussions. We threw together hastily
a list, which I would be happy to provide for the record, of
some 15 contacts. To the best of my knowledge, this is not one
of the issues that has been raised by Secretary of State Powell
with the Chinese leadership. It has been raised by me and by
numerous other American officials, including our Ambassador to
Beijing and various people of our respective staffs.
Senator Brownback. I appreciate that you have raised it,
but I do hope we can press it on up, as well. At the higher
levels, as Senator Kennedy says, we have got to get it on the
agenda. That is a key thing, and China is critical in this
issue, to either allowing some refugee processing or allow them
to pass on through to a third country that would be involved.
As the U.S. Government looks to perhaps have discussions
with North Korea and has been pressed to put forward an agenda
in its discussions with North Korea, is the issue of refugees
and allowing their resettlement on that discussion list?
Mr. Dewey. I have responsibility for that, Senator
Brownback, and it absolutely is on our agenda for the talks
with North Korea. As you may have noted from the press, our
Special Envoy, Ambassador Pritchard, met with the North Korean
mission in New York a week ago today to offer our beginning of
talks. We expect direct talks with North Korea to begin in a
matter of weeks and not months, and human rights is an
important part of the agenda and these refugee issues are an
important part of that agenda.
Senator Brownback. It will be on the agenda and discussions
with--
Mr. Dewey. It definitely will be raised, Senator Brownback.
Senator Brownback. That is excellent. I am very pleased to
hear that that is the situation and that is going to be
pressing forward.
Mr. Dewey, we are going to be talking with the Secretary of
State next week about the number of refugees that the United
States is allowing in. I saw a press report about a week or so
ago that said we had only allowed in 17,000 to date this past
year, and that was about two weeks ago. How many have we
actually allowed into the United States, the current year that
we are in?
Mr. Dewey. It is actually about 16,000.
Senator Brownback. Sixteen thousand? And what is the level
that we have set at the top end of this for this year?
Mr. Dewey. The top end ceiling is 70,000.
Senator Brownback. Okay, and that is for the remainder of
the year? Is that a fiscal year? Is that a calendar year?
Mr. Dewey. That is for the fiscal year.
Senator Brownback. So the fiscal year ending the end of
September. Is there any way we are going to get anywhere close
to that top number, then?
Mr. Dewey. Senator, we are going to get as close as is
humanly possible to get to that number. It appears now, if we
project from current expectations, it will fall somewhat short.
But any falling short is not due to any lack of commitment by
the administration or work on the part of my Bureau and Jim
Ziglar at INS to make this happen. As you know, you had the
commitment from both of us at our initial hearing on this
subject that we were going to fast track, we were going to
streamline, we were going to work these security restrictions
to the maximum extent.
Jim Ziglar and I set up a joint task force which meets
every week. We have gone into a crisis mode to deal with this.
I have assigned one of my deputies, Mike McKinley, as the
battle captain for this crisis action team that is working it
with INS and with the FBI and with the NSC. We have this team
that meets every week. We go problem by problem. We work out
solutions to these problems. And so any failure to come up to
70,000 is not going to be due to lack of commitment, lack of
effort, lack of force and energy.
What we are also seeing as we deal with these problems and
overcome these problems, we are building an infrastructure and
we are salvaging and repairing a very broken and, in many ways,
sick admissions system to the United States. This rebuilding
process is going to serve us very well in 2003 and years beyond
because of the infrastructure we are putting in place, the work
we are doing with referral agencies, such as the High
Commissioner for Refugees, the increased money we will be
putting into UNHCR to increase their infrastructure for
referrals of such categories as the P-2 categories that you
mentioned.
Senator Brownback. As we look to the next year and our
meeting next week, I think we should have North Korea well in
our view as possibilities.
With the plight that is taking place, these are obviously
very desperate people. A number are starving. They are rushing
the embassies. This is happening on a weekly, if not daily,
basis in China now. It strikes me that this is just the front
end of this and that you probably are doing some extensive
planning, or I hope you would be, for more that would be
coming. If boats start arriving in the U.S. with North Korean
refugees, are we going to be prepared for that situation if
that were to occur?
Mr. Dewey. I would hope, Senator Brownback, that anyone
advocating pushing, encouraging North Koreans to run this
dangerous gauntlet would face up to the fact that this
administration is seriously working the problem and seriously
committed to getting a solution to this problem and that they
would take into account the risk that they may be putting these
persons in by encouraging this kind of action.
We have seen this done with other groups of people in the
past in other parts of the world and we know the tragic
consequences of it. Part of it may be lack of communication--
they do not trust the government to really be working on
problem solving. Believe me, they can trust this government. We
are working this problem, just as we worked our problems in the
past that I referred to the chairman about. We have used
creative tools and methods and have used the influence and
leadership of the United States to solve it. This is what we
are doing and this is what we will do with this problem.
Senator Brownback. I would just urge you to get the process
in place of how we are going to deal with this and this issue
of P-2 categories, get that in place because if not, I am
afraid then that is going to push desperate people to be doing
more desperate things, if they do not see a clear process, if
they do not see clear things happening in a fairly short time
frame, because by our numbers, large numbers are starving. By
our numbers, we are feeding much of the North Korean population
today. By our numbers, there are 150,000 to 200,000 of these
refugees in China.
It looks like to me this is something clearly building, and
we have seen this happen before. I really hope we would have
this in place and announcing it soon of what our actions are
going to be and be very, I would think, fairly public about
here is where the U.S. is and we stand to help the North Korean
people.
Mr. Dewey. I certainly hear what you are saying, Senator,
and I want you to know that we appreciate, since we have the
same objectives, we appreciate your support in this as we go
along, and I would like to be able to consult closely with you
and the members of the committee for your input, your advice,
and to keep you up to speed on what we are doing.
Senator Brownback. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Kennedy. Senator Allen, we are glad to welcome
you.
STATEMENT OF HON. GEORGE ALLEN, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE
OF VIRGINIA
Senator Allen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for
holding this hearing. I appreciate your leadership as well as
that of Senator Brownback on this issue. The more and more that
Americans and others around the world see the plight of the
North Koreans, they will naturally and instinctively want to
help those who are seeking to create lives of greater freedom
and opportunity for themselves and their young people.
I am on the Foreign Relations Committee and first became
aware of this when a family called me. The Kim Han Mee family,
fortunately, got out of North Korea. I appealed in early May to
the Ambassador of China to let the Kim Han Mee family go to
South Korea. While there is going to be some concern expressed
by me and others about China, I think as a matter of courtesy
and diplomacy, it should be recognized they responded favorably
and that family is safe now in South Korea. I thank the Chinese
government for following rules and orders and conventions in
that regard.
Being from Virginia, naturally, I love freedom and liberty.
As part of the lineage of the spirit espoused by George Mason
and Thomas Jefferson, I think those principles still endure,
not just in this country, but for all people here on earth. I
have a statement that I would put into the record. I want to
ask you some questions and try to get a perspective of this.
[The prepared statement of Senator Allen appears as a
submissions for the record.]
While Kim Han Mee and his family were released, just last
Thursday, China refused to return back to South Korea a North
Korean asylum seeker who was forcibly removed from the South
Korean consulate in China despite the objections of South
Korean officials. Three weeks ago, China demanded for the first
time that South Korea turn over to Chinese authorities four
asylum seekers who had made it into the South Korean consulate.
When listening to your remarks and the question of Chairman
Kennedy, it is clear that the United Nations High Commissioner
for Refugees needs to have access to refugees residing in China
to evaluate their status and their claims and facilitate the
resettlement of those refugees that are in China to other
countries. Now, what we want to do is halt these forced
repatriations of North Koreans back to North Korea. I think you
know, and I am sure you hear more today from very brave
witnesses in the several panels, that clearly, repatriating or
sending these people back to North Korea is a death sentence or
a sentence of torture and persecution, even worse than what
they were enduring prior to their escape to China.
In your comments, Mr. Kelly, the logical presumption ought
to be that people who have escaped from North Korea ought to be
in Korea. Most likely, that is where their family members are,
although they may not have seen them for 50 years because of
the North Korean government's repressive approaches where there
is not any communication whatsoever.
We understand that the People's Republic of China has a
historic affinity for North Korea versus South Korea. This has
been borne out by wars and similarities in some regards, in
their forms of government. I am not going to say the People's
Republic of China's government is exactly like North Korea's.
Thank goodness, they are better than that. But nevertheless,
they have been allies.
Is it possible that part of the problem with the People's
Republic of China not living up to the conventions and
agreements as far as inviolability of consulates and the
refugee protocols that many countries, including China, have
agreed to, is because of their affinity for North Korea and the
fact that most of these people who have left and are seeking
asylum would go to South Korea? Is that something that is
giving them pause? Is that a reason for it, as opposed to if
they were wanting to go to Vietnam, Singapore or Malaysia or
some other country? Do you all feel that that is one of the
reasons why they are hesitant to live up to their obligations?
Mr. Kelly. Senator Allen, I will be glad to offer an
opinion, and the answer is yes. I think that is one of the
reasons. There is a longstanding, of course, relationship of
the People's Republic of China and North Korea, or the DPRK, as
it is called, which, of course, reached its high point late in
1950 when a million Chinese soldiers came across the border to
fight with Americans.
In recent years, since the opening of diplomatic relations
with South Korea, there has actually been a very warm, many
would say warmer, relationship between Beijing and Seoul than
there has been with Pyongyang. That appears to be being dented
at the moment with this contretemps that Mr. Dewey mentioned of
the people who are in the South Korean consulate.
There probably are other reasons, too. There are three or
four million Chinese who have been in China who are of Korean
descent, considered minorities within the Chinese system, and
it is fairly obvious that most, if not all, of the 21 million
ordinary people, 21 to 23 million ordinary people in North
Korea would rapidly go somewhere else if they could do so. The
Chinese probably are less concerned over 100,000 or 200,000
than they are of having that whole, or much larger refugee flow
and I think that is a part of it.
But these are just characterizations. We do not really
know. The important thing is as we have represented, that China
has to honor their obligations under the refugee conventions in
this case and they need to involve the U.N. High Commissioner
and they need to be registering these people and preparing them
for resettlement either in North Korea or elsewhere.
Senator Allen. We need to recognize the right of any
country to protect its borders and China has the right to do
that. To the extent that they are upset that many would want to
resettle in the Republic of Korea or South Korea, I think that
the United States can take a lead role. Obviously, there are
many people of Korean descent who are now Korean-Americans--
U.S. citizens in all walks of life in this country. The United
States ought to step up to the plate and have them be
repatriated or sent under the asylum laws to this country and
then possibly back to South Korea. I do not know if that would
be any way of making it easier as far as the relationship that
North Korea and the People's Republic of China have.
I think that what Senator Brownback and myself and Senator
Kennedy are all talking about is what we can do to help ease
that burden on people. Really, we cannot wait forever, because
if they are getting or sent back to Korea, we are sentencing
them to persecution at best and death at worst. I understand
protocols and procedures and timetables and agendas and that is
all very important.
This needs to be one of the very most pressing issues that
we need to go forward with and I think you will find strong
support, Mr. Secretary, on a bipartisan basis here in the
Senate to make sure that folks can lead the lives they ought to
be leading with human rights. The United States has to set up a
separate number of asylum seekers from this situation from
North Korea, North Koreans that actually have been able to
escape from that repressive regime. I think there are going to
be many that are in favor of doing so and we would like to be
able to work with you on that.
I would also hope that the Ambassador from China who
responded favorably at least to that one request for a family
for me, would also be able to report back to that country. As
soon as the floodgates open, though, if they ever do open out
of North Korea, North Koreans are naturally going to leave, out
of hunger if not the political persecution. Regimes like that
cannot stand the enlightenment of freedom and opportunity. It
is the North Koreans' repressive government that has so many
people wanting to leave.
I understand People's Republic of China leaders not wanting
to assimilate millions. It is one thing to have hundreds of
thousands, but we need to work out ways, whether they are
refugee camps such as Senator Brownback set up to assist in
China, or other ways to allow them to get to South Korea, which
I know many people from the Republic of Korea would very much
want to have families reunited. It is one of their quests and
probably one of the greatest driving missions of that country,
regardless of the different political persuasions of folks in
the Republic of China.
Senator Brownback. Blood runs thicker than governments.
Senator Allen. Absolutely, so thank you.
Senator Brownback. [Presiding.] Mr. Dewey, I thank you and
I thank the panel. I just would commit to your reading, if you
could, today's Financial Times out of London. There is a story
in there about living skeletons fleeing North Korea. The first
paragraph is, ``Oh Yong Sil, a 55-year-old housekeeper and
mother of two, for her, the realization that she was not living
in a paradise dawned as the piled of emaciated corpses grew
around her. She watched her husband starve to death, her sons
grow up into living skeletons, and her township governor fade
into death still uttering paeans to North Korean's glorious
leader Kim Jong Il, son of Kim Il Sung, whose master plan all
this is.'' That is today's Financial Times, the first paragraph
of that story. I think you are going to see a lot more like
this.
We do look forward to working with you on this issue soon.
I hope we can meet next week. Thank you very much.
Mr. Dewey. Thank you very much.
Senator Brownback. I am honored to introduce our second
panel of witnesses, each of whom has a harrowing story to relay
about his or her own personal experiences in North Korea or
those of family members. I am hopeful that their accounts will
help shed light on the problems facing North Koreans and I
thank them for sharing their experiences with us.
Soon Ok Lee grew up in North Korea as a proud member of the
Communist Party. She fell victim to a legal system without due
process. She spent six years in prison on false charges, forced
to endure brutal treatment. She managed to escape from North
Korea in 1995 and has written a book, Eyes of the Tail-less
Animals, on her ordeal. She now lives in South Korea with her
family, and I noted earlier that my wife and I read this book
two weekends ago and just found it harrowing, incredibly
harrowing.
If these witnesses would care to come forward to the table
as I read this off, we will move forward. Would the panel
please come on up to the table?
Next will be Helie Lee. She is an acclaimed writer who was
born in South Korea and grew up in Los Angeles, where she
currently lives with her family. Her most recent book, In the
Absence of the Sun, details her successful life-risking efforts
to sneak her uncle and his family out of North Korea. I am
hopeful that her testimony will provide insight into the
difficult situation facing approximately 500,000, half-a-
million, Korean Americans who have relatives in North Korea who
they are unable to see.
Dr. Norbert Vollertsen has worked on humanitarian issues in
North Korea since 1999, when he went there to provide needed
humanitarian medical assistance. Over the course of his 18
months there, he found a system worth with corruption in which
ordinary people were forced to forego critical medical supplies
while the government stockpiled those supplies for use by a
small minority. He was later expelled from the country for his
efforts to expose these abuses and he continues to speak out
against the humanitarian situation that is occurring in North
Korea.
I thank all of our panelists here today for their courage
and their bravery and their willingness to speak out about a
corrupt and incredibly difficult situation for the people in
North Korea.
Ms. Lee, we will start with your testimony, and I believe
we will have a simultaneous translation taking place. We are
delighted to have you here, and having read your book, I am
surprised you are alive and I am amazed at how good you look.
Ms. Lee?
STATEMENT OF SUN-OK LEE, NORTH KOREAN PRISON CAMP SURVIVOR,
SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA
Ms. S. Lee [through interpreter]. I would like to first
thank you for this opportunity for me to tell about the
situation in North Korea. Whenever I have a chance to talk
about these kinds of things, I first thank God.
With the assistance of a lot of people that I have
received, I am totally thankful to have this kind of
opportunity to tell about people in North Korea who go dying,
which I have witnessed. Along with my son, I was able to seek
freedom and succeed in that search and I settled in the
Republic of Korea.
I would like to first describe what the real human rights
situation is in North Korea comprehensively. Of course, there
is no minimum level of human rights by any standards in the
world and there is no such thing in North Korea. Of course, 23
million people who live in North Korea are led to believe they
are living on a paradise on earth. Myself, having lived 50
years in North Korea, believed North Korea was the country
where human rights were maximally and best guaranteed on earth.
In North Korea, life of the people is such that anybody can
either live or die for the sake of a person by the name of Kim
Jong Il. Of course, North Korea is a dictatorial country where
father and son, that is Kim Il Sung and his son Kim Jong Il,
have been ruling for the past half-a-century. North Korea is a
country where people cannot truly speak without thinking about
Kim Jong Il or Kim Il Sung. They cannot even move freely. North
Korea is a country where people have no concept or idea what
human rights is.
I served seven years in prison for the first charges which
I never committed. And the judiciary system of North Korea has
no rights or authorities of its own, apart from the leadership
of Kim Jong Il or the party. So anyone can become a political
prisoner or a political criminal once the person does not
follow the instructions or the orders of Kim Jong Il or the
party.
I just told you that I served seven years in prison in
North Korea. My charges were that I failed in my job, which was
to see to it that supplies are properly distributed to cadre
members of the party. In North Korea, there are torture experts
who do nothing but torturing people. Due to the severity of the
torture, many just confess whatever charges they are accused
of. They say they did it because they could not just sustain or
survive the torture they were suffering.
I, myself, suffered 14 months of torture almost every day.
During the course of the torture that I had to go through, the
torturers trampled on my head and I still have the scars and
injuries on my head and I do not have the normal function of my
head and face because of that reason.
There are many different types of torture, including water
torture. The type of torture that I went through was water
torture, and aftermath of that, I still to this day cannot eat
food well.
Then they also have what they refer to as the torture by
freezing, or freezing fish. They literally make people freeze
like the frozen fish and they do this because they believe then
people will listen to them. It gets very cold in the winter in
North Korea. It goes down to 30 degrees below Celsius. They
strip people, have people sit on the frozen ground up to an
hour, exposing themselves to cold. As a result of that type of
torture that I received, I got frostbite and I lost all
toenails from ten toes. It was not just to me, but I know 40
other people who were sentenced to this, or going through that
type of torture. Eventually, they all died as an aftermath of
the freezing torture.
Without understanding what charges and why I was sent to
jail, nevertheless, I was sentenced to 14 years to serve in
prison. When North Korea sends people to jail or prison,
whether political crimes or general crimes or whatever, they
always make up the charges themselves regardless of what the
people have actually done or did not do.
In the prison, North Korea maintains huge manufacturing
plants where they produce products that are unknown to people
outside. It is sort of a confidential secret, the products.
The prison where I was put into was in Kachan, Pyongyang
Province, and there were about 6,000 men and women prisoners.
Among them were about 2,000 housewives. Among them, many of
them were pregnant, which they conceived before they came to
the prison, because they applied the charges not because of
your own faults or anything you have done yourself, but if any
of the relatives or your parents or your fathers or sons
committed a crime, then you are responsible for that crime, as
well, and that is the ground for punishment by North Korea.
And once the mother was in prison for whatever charges they
accused her of, and if she has conceived, she is pregnant, the
baby has no right to arrive. They all killed unborn babies by
inserting the salts and salt liquids into the womb. I have
witnessed hundreds of North Korean women right after they give
birth to babies kill their own babies. Even though they kill
babies with chemicals, but nevertheless there are some times
when babies are still born alive. When that happens, prison
guards will come and will trample with their boots onto the
babies still moving.
You can imagine what kind of pain it would be for a mother
to see her baby being killed. If she cries, then that cry would
be interpreted as protest against the leadership of Kim Jong
Il. Then she will be thrown outside and to be shot. The body of
the woman who has been shot then is taken to the orchard and
they bury the body underneath the fruit trees. I did not know
until I was in prison that some foods are grown from the trees
under which they bury bodies.
I think women are the most tragic victims of the North
Korean system of Kim Jong Il. These women are innocent. They
are not guilty. The only sins or crime they have committed is
because of a shortage of food, non-existence of food, they will
have to seek for food, and that is their crime.
To move from one area to another in North Korea, you
require and you need a travel pass. Without it, you cannot
simply move. Any woman who travels without this travel
authorization, paper document, a travel document, is subject to
the punishment by serving prison terms.
In the prison, I saw a lot of Christians and their crime
was believing in God. In North Korea, Kim Jong Il, along with
his father Kim Il Sung, is god. The most heinous crime in North
Korea would be not to trust or believe in the leadership of the
party and the leader, Kim Jong Il. The Christians are punished
not on their generation but the next two posterity, the
following generations. The sons and their grandchildren will
also be subject to punishment because their grandparents
believe in Christianity.
In prison, no one is allowed to look up to the skies but
they have to keep their heads down all the time, only looking
at the ground. Because of this posture they have to maintain
year after year, by that, I mean prisoners will have to, even
when they walk, they have to keep their heads down looking at
the ground, the result was their neck bends and becomes stiff
and fixed and then their spines go out of normal and it causes
some medical problems, as well.
Prisoners are forced to work 16 to 18 hours a day. Their
diet, of course, is controlled by the prison authorities and
each prisoner gets 100 grams of cornbread a day, along with
this much of saltwater. When they sleep, they have to go into
the same room in a group of 80 to 90 people. They all sleep in
the same room. The space allowed for each prisoner to use when
they go to bed would be about 16 feet long--correction, 19 feet
long and 16 feet wide.
Senator Brownback. For how many people, that size of space?
Ms. S. Lee [through interpreter]. In that space, they put
80 to 90 people, so when they sleep, the feet of another person
will come onto the head of another person and so forth. They do
not lie the same way, but the reverse way, every other person,
so that they can make better utility or use of the space. So a
prisoner, whenever he or she sleeps, will have someone else's
feet on his or her face.
Senator Brownback. You have 80 to 90 people in a room,
then, 16 by 19 feet, is that correct?
Ms. S. Lee [through interpreter]. Yes.
Senator Brownback. Ms. Lee, if we could wrap up, because we
have some other witnesses, and then we will have some
questions, if we can, so if we could get the testimony wrapped
up.
Ms. S. Lee [through interpreter]. The prison I served, I
knew they were, North Koreans were also testing biological
systems, biological weapons systems. I am inclined to think it
is the sort of responsibility of the international community to
see and find out what is going on in North Korea, especially on
top of biological experiments that they are conducting in
prisons.
Many refugees are, of course, escaping to China, and I
believe these people escaped from North Korea because they do
not like the political system they have and the dictatorship
they have lived under. I believe the regime of Kim Jung Il
ought to fall down as soon as possible. The Chinese government
is stopping and blocking the refugees from getting into their
country because of their diplomatic arrangements with North
Korea.
I personally hope that the United States, along with the
international community, to see to it that refugees from North
Korea are regarded, accepted as political asylum seekers. In my
view, for North Korea to collapse, we need more refugees to
leave North Korea. This way, we can prevent war.
In conclusion, I would like to ask each member of this
committee to pay attention to refugees from North Korea and
grant them political refugee status. I would like to thank you
very much for the opportunity for me to appear before your
committee. Thank you very much.
Senator Brownback. Thank you very much, Ms. Soon Ok Lee. It
was a very powerful, very courageous testimony, what you just
put forward, and I look forward to further dialogue with you,
as well. And thank you for being willing to come here and to
state this to the rest of the world.
[The prepared statement of Ms. S. Lee appears as a
submission for the record.]
Ms. Helie Lee, thank you for joining us.
STATEMENT OF HELIE LEE, WEST HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA
Ms. H. Lee. Thank you. First of all, I would like to say I
am honored to be here. I am especially grateful to you Senators
for bringing us all here today.
I would like to say that I am not a scholar, a politician,
an expert, a journalist. I am a writer. I am a Korean American,
but most of all, I am an American, and the reason I am here
today is to testify and be witness to the countless and
thousands, hundreds of thousands of North Korean refugees
hiding out in China, Russia, Mongolia, in absolute fear of
being repatriated back to North Korea.
But I would like to take it to a more personal level. It is
the story of my grandmother, my grandmother who passed away
three weeks ago. In her memory, I am here to honor her memory.
My grandmother had lost her son during the Korean War--he
was her firstborn and her firstborn son--in 1953. He was the
only one who did not make it out of North Korea in 1950. For
years, she had tried to search for him. After the armistice
agreement was signed between the two Koreas in 1953, she wrote
to politicians and ambassadors, missionaries, looking for this
son, and when nothing happened, she had finally lost hope.
But something amazing happened, and this is where I believe
faith comes into play. Forty-one years later, in 1991, we
discovered that her son is alive in North Korea. All of a
sudden, this ghost is resurrected and this missing son is now
alive. Finally, we know. But it is so bittersweet, because we
know that he is alive, but however, the bitterness is not being
able to go to him, because as you know, in 1991 when we found
my uncle, North Korea was then and still is the most closed-
off, isolated, and repressive country in the world.
My grandmother, for six years after discovering that he was
alive, tried to go through all the official channels, the
American Ambassadors, writing to North Korea, writing to Kim Il
Sung, the dictator, to no success. We could not get a visa. We
could not reunite mother and son after 47 years of separation.
But then the most amazing thing happened in 1997. We get a
phone call from China, from this Chinese Korean man. He calls
us collect, I would like to say. He calls us collect from China
and he says, I know this gentleman. He lives in North Korea. He
says he has a mother in America. This is somewhat treasonous,
but if you would like, I would arrange a meeting between mother
and son in China.
After talking to him quite extensively and realizing that
this could possibly be true, my father and I immediately
escorted my 85-year-old grandmother from LAX to Yanji, China,
which is in Northeastern China. It is the closest airport to
the border between China and North Korea. When we get there,
the flight is so long and so grueling on my grandmother, we had
to leave her behind in that city.
My father and I decided to go ahead to the border. Our plan
was to go to the border, make contact with my uncle through
this person's assistance, smuggle him across the river, change
and feed him, clothe him, take him in the car, drive him back
11 hours through mountainous icy trails to my grandmother, have
a few hours of precious reunion after 47 years, and then take
him back to North Korea before the North Korean police discover
he is missing, because if that happens, as Ms. Lee has said,
not only would my uncle be punished, but his entire family,
including babies and elderly. So it is very imperative that we
got him back.
My father and I drove to the river and when I saw the
border of North Korea and China--you know, you are hearing
about it, but I would like to describe it to you. I had
imagined the border between China and North Korea. It is a
watery border. It is the Yalu River. I had imagined it to be
miles wide and treacherous. Having seen the 38th Parallel that
divides North Korea and South Korea in half, I imagined barbed
wires, guard posts, you know, loudspeakers shouting out
propaganda.
What I saw was a river. It was waist-deep. It was barely 50
yards wide. But instead of barbed wires, there was a tall rock
fence on the other side. The rock fence was about seven, eight
feet tall. I believe it was put there not to keep the people
from escaping, but to keep us, the outside world, from seeing
behind the wall, which was all decay and disrepair of homes.
But what was most scary was posted on the riverbank every ten
to 15 yards were armed soldiers.
But even the soldiers are hungry in North Korea, so if you
feed them a piece of rice cake, give them a cigarette or
promise them liquor, they will allow you to talk to the North
Koreans. Otherwise, they will beat the North Koreans for
speaking to the people on the China side.
So that day at the river in April of 1997, I saw my uncle
for the first time, and my father was with me that day and I
heard my father cry for the first time, not because this was my
uncle, because I have never seen such abuse of power. My uncle
was the same age as my father, 62. He looked older than my
grandmother. He was gaunt, and his eyes and cheeks were
hollowed in. He was wearing the old Mao, you know, the green
suit with the high Mandarin collar and the Lenin cap with this
red star, and the clothes looked like they were 20 years too
old and they were much too thin for the freezing weather. All I
wanted to do was give my uncle my jacket, but the soldiers,
trained to shoot, froze my feet that day.
Our plan was to wait until sunset to get my uncle to cross
the river under the protection of night. My uncle never made it
across the river that day because of the famine. He was so
gaunt and emaciated. The shock of seeing us, his American
relatives who have come so far to bring him a care package of
long underwear and beef jerky and Tylenol. Tylenol and Jesus
Christ is my grandmother's balm for everything.
[Laughter.]
Ms. H. Lee. Having this care package, we had come this far.
Unfortunately, my uncle could not cross the river, he was too
frail, and we had come so close to reuniting mother and son
after 47 years of forced political separation, but we had
failed. And when my father and I had to return to the States,
we were so guilt-ridden by what we had witnessed over there. We
were so guilt-ridden for the privileged life that we as
Americans live here. It was difficult to continue on in our
lives. Even though I drove a Toyota, I felt wrong to drive this
Toyota. I felt wrong to go to my parties and write for a
living.
We had to go back to North Korea, so we did. We planned
this risky rescue mission, which I call the 007 Mission, being
the Hollywood freak myself, watching a lot of movies, so I
called it the 007 Mission. My father and I went back. With the
assistance of a lot of very brave South Korean and Chinese
Korean individuals who acted as our guides, our translators,
our drivers, people with safe houses, we were able to plan this
mission. What we originally thought was going to take two to
four weeks took seven long months of flying to China many, many
times, even with my 85-year-old grandmother.
Believe it or not, we planned everything--you have to plan
everything to the minute detail, how many people are going to
cross the river, at what time, two, three, four, where you are
going to go. We planned everything out. But, you know, you
cannot predict how full the moon is going to be. You cannot
predict how high the water is going to be. You cannot predict
how many soldiers are going to be on the river.
But, believe it or not, getting them across the river into
China, defecting to China, was much easier--was the easy part
of the journey. Four-hundred measly American dollars bought us
nine lives, $400. For $400, you cannot even buy a purse in
America sometimes. But for $400, we get them to China.
This is where the difficulty of the journey starts. This is
where the danger starts, because in China, North Korean
refugees are not popular. They are not welcome. They are not
embraced by the embassies. Embassies in 1997 and prior to--
embassies are somewhat opening their doors these days, but back
then were turning refugees away, turning their backs on them,
sometimes repatriating them, knowing they will go back and face
execution for this grievous, treasonous act. So we knew getting
them to an embassy in China was absolutely out of the question
because there was a 50-50 chance.
So we hid them for weeks in China. Finally, we planned a
boat, fell through. Finally, we decided to get them out of
China via Mongolia, via this South Korean embassy in Hanoi,
Vietnam. It was a very dangerous and treacherous journey. We
had to separate the family because of things that we could not
predict, like propaganda of my relatives. Half of them are so
brainwashed that it was very difficult to get them to defect,
and so half of them came out in the early, the other half came
out towards the end.
When we got them to the embassies, that was not a guarantee
that they were going to be able to go to South Korea. I, in
fact, came to Washington, our great capital, spoke to an
ambassador, and he told me to write to my Congressman and
Senator. My relatives, unfortunately, did not have that kind of
time for me to be sitting on my computer composing a letter.
But what we did do was we had leverage to buy their lives,
which means my uncle's family were not politicians and
diplomats who had top secret, military information to barter
for their lives. They were the lowest of the low society. My
uncle's family, prior to the war, were rich landowners, but
also had converted to Christianity. Therefore, he was punished
for his family's, his parents' mishaps prior to the war, so my
uncle was the lowest of the low class and so we knew that the
embassies of the world were not going to take them easily.
So being a savvy American woman and also having worked in
the entertainment business in Hollywood, I knew the power of
the media. We captured everything on videotape, and I believe
it is this videotape and also the publication of my first book
the year before in the United States that convinced the South
Korean CIA to take my family as political refugees, and they
are so lucky. They are the lucky few that made it to South
Korea.
The BBC, when we looked on the Internet yesterday, said
about 1,600 North Korean refugees are living in South Korea.
How shamelessly low is that? The KoreAm Journal, which is a
Korean-English magazine here, said 1,800. Still, that is a
better number, but it is still very little. America, our
greatest country in the world, I believe, having traveled many
places as a woman, as an Asian woman, this is the best place in
the world to be. America, being so generous, has only received
two refugees since 1950 as quoted in Newsweek 1997. Those two
refugees since the Korean War were accepted into the United
States. They were diplomats, North Korean diplomats to the
Middle East. Obviously, they had important secrets to barter
for their lives.
So I am here today in the memory of my grandmother, who got
to see her son after 47 years. She got to see him in South
Korea. We made it happen for her. But you would think I would
be so happy with that and be satisfied with that, but every
day, I am filled with guilt, hearing about the refugees
storming the embassies, because you know they do that in a
last-ditch effort for freedom.
I am hoping that sharing my family's story with you today,
that you realize these are not faceless, nameless people. They
are people in need. They are my relatives. They are mother and
sons and they have relatives who are Korean American. Again,
like Senator Brownback said, one in four Korean Americans have
a connection or have relatives in North Korea. So thank you for
listening.
Senator Brownback. Thank you very much for that very
powerful testimony. Thank you for your heart in doing that.
That is an incredible experience, an incredible story.
Ms. H. Lee. Thank you for letting me go over. I was worried
about the buzzer.
[The prepared statement of Ms. H. Lee appears as a
submission for the record.]
Senator Brownback. Dr. Vollertsen, thank you for being
here.
STATEMENT OF NORBERT VOLLERTSEN, M.D., SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA
Dr. Vollertsen. Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, thank
you for the invitation. I am a German emergency doctor who
lived in North Korea for one-and-a-half years and I took care
for ten different hospitals, several orphanages, and several
hundred kindergartens.
I traveled in North Korea about 70,000 kilometers, mainly
because I am a medical doctor. I am also a drug dealer in this
way. I became very close to the North Korean elite and they are
very keen for German medicine, especially Viagra and all that
kind of stuff, so I became very close with them.
It is convenient to be a doctor sometimes. I got special
experience there because one of my patients, he suffered from a
serious skin burn and the North Koreans do not have any
medicine, no bandage material. North Koreans hospitals are
looking like--there is no electricity, no running water, no
medicine at all, and no food. The people are starving and dying
in those hospitals. I saw them literally dying every day.
So what the North Koreans are doing now, they are donating
their own blood, their own skin, their own bones when there is
an emergency case. We were so excited about this, so moved by
this experience, so my colleague and I, we also donated our own
skin and for this brave act we got the so-called Friendship
Medal of the North Korean people, the first Westerners ever who
got this high honor of the North Korean people.
There was a huge propaganda show in the North Korean media
afterwards and we were awarded this so-called Friendship Medal,
passport, and a private driving license and I was allowed to go
around on my own without any translator, coordinator, minder or
surveillance, whatever, and I have used this possibility. I
traveled 70,000 kilometers. I took around 2,500 pictures,
videotape out of the condition of these normal children's
hospitals and I realized what is going on in North Korea.
This is the lifestyle of the elite in North Korea. They are
enjoying diplomatic shops, nightclubs, a casino in Pyongyang,
in the showcase city Pyongyang, nice skyscrapers. The military
elite is not suffering. They are not starving. They are getting
the food. I was an eyewitness when the food supply of our
German emergency organization was going to those in the elite,
to the military. The medicine was going to the diplomatic
shops, but not to the starving people in the countryside.
And this is the reality of the starving people, especially
the children in the countryside, and those children are not
only looking like children in German concentration camps, they
were behaving like those children. There is no more emotional
reaction and they cannot laugh anymore, they cannot cry
anymore. They are fed up. They are depressed.
That was my main medical diagnosis in North Korea. They
suffer from depression. They are full of fear. They are afraid
to speak out because of this concentration camp. North Korea at
whole is a concentration camp.
I did not ever visit one of these concentration camps. I
was not allowed to go there. No foreigners are allowed to go
there. But I got a lot of rumors, a lot of knowledge, and you
know about German history where we are accused that we stood
silent when there were some rumors about German concentration
camps, some stories, no evidence. So I do not have any photo
out of a North Korean concentration camp. Sorry, I do not have
any video out of the North Korean concentration camps.
But I heard about those people and I realized when I talked
to my patients how afraid they are. They are so full of fear.
That is my main diagnosis, fear and depression. Most of the
people are alcoholics. They are addicted to alcohol. That is
the only thing what you can get in North Korea, no food, no
medicine, but alcohol in order to calm them down, like Aldous
Huxley's Brave New World.
And then I found this. The criminal law of North Korea, and
there in Article 47 it was written, a citizen of the republic
who defects to a foreign country and who commits an extremely
grave offense, he or she shall be given the death penalty and
the penalty of the confiscation of all his property, and a
person who commits acts of terrorism or any anti-state criminal
act shall be committed a reform institution and there he shall
be reformed through labor. Labor camps, reform institution--it
is written here. It is published in Pyongyang in 1992 and it is
still alive. It is still the law.
I wondered, when this is the situation in a normal
children's hospital, how might it look like in those reform
institutions? So I criticized the government. I also simply
believe in the power of information and the power of media and
journalism, so I guided around many, many American journalists.
Together with my driving license, I was able to carry them
around in the capital city and the countryside and I was
finally expelled. Even my Friendship Medal could not help me
anymore.
I was expelled in December 2000 after 18 months in North
Korea and I fulfilled the promise. Instead of going home, doing
business like usual in a German country hospital, I went
straight to Seoul and I spoke to all the international
journalists. I want to create awareness about this country,
about the destiny of these North Korean refugees.
And then I went to get the real image, because when I
stayed in North Korea, despite my access, despite all my
documents and whatever, I am still an idiot. I do not know
anything about North Korea. They are so sophisticated to hide
all of their dirty secrets. They are an upgraded version of
Milosevich's Yugoslavia, Hitler's Nazi Germany, Stalin's
Russia. They are an upgraded version of all these
dictatorships. They are world champions, so sophisticated to
hide those secrets. There is no travel access, no freedom of
travel for diplomats, for journalists, for NGOs.
So I went to the Chinese North Korean border and there I
met all those refugees and all those stories came true. All
those rumors about mass execution, about rape, about biological
experiments. Their Christian believers are used like human
guinea pigs in North Korea.
I talked to nearly 200 North Korean refugees and then I met
those South Korean NGOs, mainly Christian missionaries who are
doing this brave and sometimes very dangerous job there at the
Chinese-North Korean border in order to get those refugees out
in a greater number.
And then we have this idea. I am a German citizen and I do
not only know about the guilt of our history about German
concentration camps, but I know also about 1989, about
reunification in Germany, how it all started, with several
dozen refugees in the West German embassy in Prague, and then
we had the idea, oh, let us repeat history. Why not go to the
West German embassy in Beijing with some North Korean refugees
and enter this embassy and start what will finally lead to the
collapse of North Korea and reunification. Maybe a little bit
naive, maybe a little bit simplistic. I am also not a
politician, not a diplomat, I am simply a German emergency
doctor who has to take care in an emergency case, because these
children are dying and starving.
So instead of choosing the German embassy, there was too
much security, we chose the Spanish embassy. Twenty-five people
managed to go into this embassy, and because of the media
protection, because of the media coverage, they went out,
because China is very much afraid about their reputation, host
of the Olympics, member of the WTO, so they are very much
afraid about media coverage and we finally succeeded to get
these people out.
Today, in the morning, the actual amount of people in the
South Korean embassy is 21. One woman more yesterday entered
the South Korean consulate in Beijing, so this will go on for
the next weeks. We are hoping for some mass escape, like in
former East German and then Prague, and we hope to repeat
history, what will finally lead to the collapse of North Korea
and I think this is the only solution, also for China and for
the people that--and there are many, many people afraid about
this collapse, but I think we have to look into these eyes.
We have to think about those children, look into these eyes
and then try not to care. I think it is worth to do anything,
what we can do. As a German, I have to believe in this history
of reunification and of refugees. I think this is the only
thing that can lead to a collapse of North Korea.
And finally, there are so many people afraid about weapons
of mass destruction that are developed in North Korea and maybe
this is the easiest way without any war, without any bloodshed,
without any civil war, to get rid of this dictatorship. Thank
you very much.
Senator Brownback. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Vollertsen appears as a
submissions for the record.]
Senator Brownback. That is, from all three of you, very
powerful testimony that you have put forward. I am reminded of
a little brochure that I read about the German war situation
and a number of the Jews being moved to concentration camps and
it happening on Sunday morning. They would go by this one
church in particular, and they could hear the cries in the
church coming from the rail cars. Regrettably, people at that
time, instead of looking out and trying to do something, they
just said, well, let us sing a little louder so that they would
not hear the cries that were coming.
When you get into a situation like this where you have seen
so much suffering taking place, what I appreciate that you do
is put a light on it so that people can see what is taking
place and we do not just sing a little louder so we do not hear
what is taking place and let the people suffer.
That is incredible testimony from each of you. We will ask
ten minutes of questions each, because we do have another panel
after this.
Dr. Vollertsen and Ms. Lee, what should the United States
Government be doing to try to help as many people as we can to
survive the situation in North Korea and for it to change?
Ms. H. Lee. My opinion is, Kim Jong, the North Korean
President, in his sunshine policy, I think we should continue
to support him and support any means to feed North Koreans.
However, the situation is desperate. I think the numbers are
staggering, anywhere from 100,000 to 500,000 North Korean
refugees hiding out in China and other neighboring countries.
I believe what is necessary at this point is a safe house
where these people can go, and to me, all my research and all
the people that I have spoken to, it seems like Mongolia is the
most friendly country, not Inner Mongolia, but Mongolia. What
do you think, Dr. Vollertsen?
Dr. Vollertsen. Absolutely. That is our next step. We want
to get an official refugee camp in Mongolia near the Chinese
border and when there is some financial support, the Mongolian
government is willing to do this, when there is some financial
support maybe from the U.S. Government and some negotiations,
some official negotiation.
And I still believe, or I think about the East German
solution when Hungary opens their border. That was really the
final step in this development, and I think the South Koreans
are having a real hardship in their negotiations with China
now. Those 21 refugees are still in the embassy and instead of
the American consulate or American embassy, the Spanish embassy
where China guaranteed a third country and then allowed them to
go to Seoul, here in the South Korean embassy, they are still
in because South Korea is not in the position to maybe talk a
little bit more tough.
Therefore, I urge you for support of the U.S. Government.
That means maybe support in a financial way or try to talk to
China's authorities, that they are so afraid to pay for all
those North Korean refugees. For sure, you are right, they are
afraid about this flood. But when they will know that there is
some support in any way, financial support or Mongolia, that
they can maybe save their face and get rid of this problem,
then I think a face-saving way, with China, there are some
possibilities.
I can see that there are some changes in the Chinese
policy. When we met those Chinese policemen, they are quite
open, and I know so many Chinese businessmen who are trying so
hard to get a change in the Chinese policy in China, in
Beijing. They want to do business with Pyongyang. They want to
do business with South Korea. So I think with a little bit more
pressure on China, face-saving pressure, then they are willing
to do something and be helpful.
Ms. H. Lee. But from there, then where? South Korea has
thus far taken most of the refugees. However, as the panel
before us said, they have a generous program to reeducate and
reassimilate these North Korean refugees in South Korean
society to understand capitalism and the 21st century.
However, that program, which my uncle's family and a total
of nine people had undergone, that program years ago, when
refugees were very few and far in between, used to be about a
year program. They would take these refugees to a walking tour
through South Korea, literally taking them to department stores
that are larger than their entire towns, showing them what an
elevator is, what an ATM machine, all the modern things that we
have today.
However, this program, when my uncle got to South Korea in
1997, was reduced because of the economic crisis that had
occurred that year and the year before. It was reduced from one
year to barely two, three months. The government also provides
these refugees housing, job training, sometimes allowance to
live off. But I really believe it is a tremendous burden on
South Korea and that is why the numbers are very, very
shamefully low.
As Korean Americans, I think it would be great for us to
take responsibility for a lot of those family members, and I
say family members. We are all connected. Just look at our last
names, Lees, Parks, Kims. We are all connected.
Senator Brownback. And I noted you saying about two
refugees being accepted in the United States from North Korea
since--
Ms. H. Lee. Being an American, I am very ashamed of that.
Senator Brownback. Yes. I am, too.
Ms. Lee, you write in your book a story of a particular
incident that occurred where you saw a number of people just
killed for their faith. I think one situation you write in here
of people, if they did not renounce their faith, they were
killed on the spot. Did you see that take place frequently and
could you describe what you saw?
Ms. S. Lee [through interpreter]. I personally believed
there is only living god who was the leader of the country and
I thought we just have to believe in him. Otherwise, we will be
punished. But I realize it is not a crime to believe in Christ
when I saw a number of prisoners who believed in God. The
prison guards treated them as mentally sick people because they
did not believe in their leader.
These Christian prisoners were forced to work in a furnace
where there is iron work. Some of them were serving the prison
more than ten years because their body all changed, because
they had to work about 18 hours every day and their backs would
not support the kind of work they were doing and they all
looked sick.
In the prison, they are not allowed to talk to each other
or even sing. But they were mumbling. Apparently, they were
singing without singing, but they were singing in their mouths
that I could tell. Prison guards said they were singing
Christian hymns. The person who sang, of course, was punished
cruelly by the prison guard, who trampled on her face.
I have seen many scenes of Christians being punished
because they would not change their belief. They would not say,
okay, I will not believe in Christ anymore, and that is what
the prison guards wanted to hear. I have seen eight women who
were dragged out and being punished because they did not say or
they did not say they would not believe in Christ anymore.
These women were burned.
Senator Brownback. Burned to death?
Ms. S. Lee [through interpreter]. Yes. When I first went to
the prison back in 1987, I believe that there were about 250
Christian criminals. But by the time I left the prison, I could
not recall any survivor of the people I first saw.
But in the year 1993 when I left the prison, I saw more,
the greater number of prisoners who were taken there because
they believe in Christ, and I heard by word of mouth that was a
result of Kim Jong Il's instruction. His instruction was,
imperialists are sending advanced aggressors in the name of
missionaries to North Korea to invade our country. I also heard
that Christianity came into North Korea in lieu of China by
missionaries.
In the 1990s, more Christians were arrested and sent to
prison. During the seven years I served in the prison, there
must have been thousands of Christians who died as a result of
punishment. They were treated less then beasts, sub-human
beings, being kicked by the boots of prison guards and lashed
by leather lashes, and I saw these people still had to work.
The prison guard was telling these prisoners to say, we will
not believe in God but we will believe in our leader, Kim Jong
Il. So many people died because they did not say, we do not
believe in God.
Senator Brownback. Thank you very much.
Senator Allen?
Senator Allen. Thanks, Senator Brownback.
I thank each of you for not just your testimony, but also
your bravery.
Dr. Vollertsen, I am not happy with the results of the
soccer game in Korea this morning--
[Laughter.]
Senator Allen. --but let me, as a matter of fair play,
congratulate the Germans in their one-to-nothing victory on the
Korean peninsula.
I remember in 1983 going into Berlin through East Germany
and to the Wall and then actually going over and seeing East
Berlin, obviously driving through East Germany to get there. I
remember the long lines of people getting in line for just a
few pathetic-looking vegetables and no one was impatient. They
were resigned. They accepted it. It is a similar situation that
you are describing.
East Germany had the stores for the tourists and they had
all sorts of nice porcelain and appliances. Of course, no one
who was in East Berlin or East Germany could afford them. If
they had those pathetic motor vehicles, cars, that was one
thing, but then you saw the goose-stepping folks at the tomb
there where Cubans as well as East German military folks were
coming in, and they were driving in Volvos and Saabs and so
forth. That same sort of disparity exists in these supposedly
egalitarian societies where the rulers live like kings--in
fact, they may be kings in North Korea--and the rest living
that way.
I was wondering, how could you ever be able to overthrow
this repressive government, where their only technological
advances are repression? The only place where they are
advanced, is how they use the designs of modern advancements to
keep people from leaving or keep them under control. I just
thought, there is no way. The people do not have guns. You
cannot have an uprising. The way it fell is the Iron Curtain
fell in Czechoslovakia and the Iron Curtain fell in Hungary.
Everyone was coming out of East Germany into Germany,
generally, going back to the other part, to Germany, and they
just could not keep it.
That would be the hope for North Korea, although from
listening to this testimony and studying it, North Korea is
much, much more repressive than East Germany was or Hungary or
Czechoslovakia or Romania. At least you could go in there. I
could observe the people in those lines.
North Korea is only one of seven countries recently, once
again, listed as a terrorist state by our State Department,
along with Iraq and Iran and Cuba, Syria, Sudan, and Libya.
These terrorist states are a threat to our countries.
It is obvious from your testimony, though, that they also
terrorize citizens in their own country. When you look at what
needs to be done, let us not blame America. I am not ashamed of
Americans, so let us not say we are ashamed of America or the
Republic of Korea or South Korea. The people who should be
ashamed are these repressive tyrants and dictators persecuting
the people of North Korea. We are proud of our country. We want
to export our values. We need to figure out a way to use your
evidence, and your concern that we all share, in a positive,
good way.
Now, you mentioned Mongolia as possibly a place that is
willing to have assistance. It is very logical that it not just
be the United States, but also logical that the United Nations
would get involved in assisting, as well. As we determine where
the people from North Korea who can escape should go, it is
again logical that one would go to South Korea, just like the
East Germans went to West Germany. The assimilation, because of
their economy, may be more difficult, but the language is the
same.
And I am wearing a tie from Kyonji. I have set up a sister
state relationship with Kyonji-Dong. The governor's name was
Governor Rhee or Lee at the time. The point is there is such a
proud heritage of the Korean language that no matter who was
oppressing the Korean people, they kept that language alive.
So it would be, very logical because of history, heritage,
and, of course, language, that South Korea ought to be the
place for first settlement. Whenever the tyranny falls in North
Korea, as the South Koreans are coming up to the border of the
38th Parallel, they have these big roads all built for the day
when they are reunified. They are going to be needed to get
that country built, or rebuilt, in the proper way. We ought to
work primarily for repatriation in South Korea.
However, I have been talking to Senator Brownback about
asylum quotas or numbers. There is certainly enough in there to
allocate more than what we have to come to this country where
there are relatives, as well. But I think, ultimately, the
primary place of relocation should be a country where you,
first of all, assimilate most easily if you can communicate
with one another in the same language.
So I would like to hear your views. Do you think the United
Nations can be of assistance in Mongolia and preferences as to
how we can make it easier for North Koreans who have escaped
the persecution and have legitimately sought asylum to locate
in South Korea? I ask Ms. Lee and Dr. Vollertsen.
Ms. H. Lee. I agree with you. My relatives going to South
Korea was the best thing for them. Koreans are very proud
people and the language between North Korea and South Korea are
still one after 50 years. However, it is slightly different,
the Lees and the ``e'' are a little different.
But those who cannot get there and who do have Korean
American relatives living in America, I do believe this is an
option, and it is possible, because in the 1960s, after Mao had
instigated the great leap forward in 1952 and there was a
famine sweeping across China, 250,000 Chinese crossed the
border into Hong Kong when the Chinese had opened up the border
for three months. That is quite a bit, I agree. And Hong Kong
appealed for international help. Then President John F. Kennedy
issued an emergency Executive Order allowing immediate
immigration of 5,000 immigrants from Hong Kong to the United
States. So it is possible, and we do have that leeway of that
number of refugees per fiscal year.
But I agree with you. South Korea is the best place, but
the situation is desperate now.
Senator Allen. What about Canada? As far as Hong Kong was
concerned, many went to Vancouver.
Ms. H. Lee. A good place to go.
Senator Allen. It is closest, in many respects. Do you know
of other countries that share the interests of the United
States? Obviously, South Korea does.
Dr. Vollertsen. There are some European countries, Belgium.
The Belgian government is very much involved in these human
rights issues. They are supposed to do something for North
Korean refugees, and you know about the South Vietnamese boat
people. That is also what we are talking about now, some North
Korean boat people, and then because of the pressure of the
media, the German government in 1979 was forced to accept up to
9,200 of those South Vietnamese boat people because there was a
huge media story about those desperate South Vietnamese
refugees who did not get shelter anywhere on earth, and then
the West German government at that time decided to give asylum,
so that is another possibility. We are also in negotiations
with some European governments, especially the Belgians and
maybe the Germans.
Ms. H. Lee. There are Koreans all over this world. There
are many Korean adoptees in Scandinavia, many Korean Canadians,
many Korean Germans. I think we need to figure out where the
populations are, where the families are, and get those people
involved, as well. It is not just an American issue, it is the
entire global issue.
Senator Allen. Right, and that is why I think all countries
involved in the United Nations, need to pitch in. Again, I
thank you all. My time is up. Again, thank you for your
bravery, but thank you most importantly for advocating what I
like to call Jeffersonian principles.
Senator Brownback. I thank you for advocating for those who
are referred to sometimes as tail-less animals in North Korean
prison camps, for those who do not have faces, but we need to
give them to them, and names. Thank you very much.
Senator Brownback. We have a final panel that I will call
forward, and if you could come up, I will introduce the entire
panel as we go, introduce them at the outset.
The first witness is Felice D. Gaer, Chair-Elect of the
Commission on International Religious Freedom and Director of
the Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human
Rights of the American Jewish Committee. She was appointed as a
public member of nine U.S. delegations to the U.N. human rights
negotiations between 1993 and 1999.
The second witness is Mr. Jack Rendler of the U.S.
Committee for Human Rights in North Korea. Now, at the last
minute, he could not be here, so Ms. Debra Liang-Fenton, that
organization's Executive Director, will offer his testimony. He
has worked with organizations including UNICEF to Amnesty
International and been a human rights activist for more than 25
years.
The third witness is Jana Mason, who is a policy analyst
and Congressional liaison for the U.S. Committee on Refugees.
Before that, she served with the IRSA.
The final witness is Elisa Massimino, who is the Director
of the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights based in Washington,
D.C. She graduated from the University of Michigan Law School
and has a master's degree in philosophy from Johns Hopkins. She
worked with the Lawyers Committee on National Advocacy Program
with a special focus on refugees.
I am delighted that all four of you are here with us today.
Because of the press of time, I think we will run the clock at
seven minutes and get each of you, if you could, to summarize
your testimony. We have your written testimony and that will be
part of the record. But if we could do this in a seven-minute
time period each, I think that would help move us along.
Ms. Gaer?
STATEMENT OF FELICE D. GAER, COMMISSIONER, UNITED STATES
COMMISSION ON INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM, WASHINGTON, D.C.
Ms. Gaer. Thank you, Senator. I wanted to thank you also
for your leadership in holding this hearing, in bringing about
this Senate resolution, and inviting the Commission to testify
today on the conditions of religious freedom and associated
human rights.
The Commission on International Religious Freedom, as you
know, was created by the Congress as an independent government
agency specifically to monitor religious freedom violations
around the world, to review U.S. Government policies in
response to violations of religious freedom, and to provide
policy recommendations to the President, the Secretary of
State, and Congress.
We are very glad that these hearings have been able to
amplify the harrowing testimony that was presented by many of
the witnesses here today. Indeed, the plight of the North
Korean refugees is closely tied to the deplorable human rights
and economic conditions in that country.
Mr. Chairman, the people of North Korea are perhaps the
least-free people on earth. Religious freedom does not exist,
and what little religious activity the government permits is
reportedly staged for foreign visitors. Thus, in an August 2001
letter to Secretary Powell, the Commission on International
Religious Freedom recommended that North Korea be named a
country of particular concern.
Now, in October of that year, Secretary Powell followed the
Commission's recommendation and listed North Korea as a country
of particular concern, or CPC. Now, that means that there are
systematic ongoing and egregious severe violations of religious
freedom, including torture, disappearances, loss of life, et
cetera.
Specific U.S. action should follow from that designation as
a CPC and we await information as to what measures the U.S.
Government will take because of that characterization. In our
recently-issued annual report, we regretted to find that no
action has been taken with regard to any country designated CPC
that has been specifically identified as having flowed from
that designation, whether for North Korea or other countries.
Religion has played an important role throughout the
history of North Korea. Buddhism was introduced there around
the fourth century. Prior to 1953, the capital of what is now
North Korea, Pyongyang, was the center of Christianity on the
Korean peninsula. Yet after the Korean War, the North Korean
government harshly repressed religious practice and large
numbers of religiously active persons were killed or sent to
concentration camps. At the same time, the government
suppressed religion itself and it has since instituted the
state ideology of Juche, which emphasizes, among other things,
the worship of Kim Il Sung, the country's founder.
Today, the North Korean state continues its practice of
severely repressing public and private religious activities,
including arresting and imprisoning and in some cases torturing
and executing persons engaged in such activities. The State
Department reports that in recent years, the regime has paid
particular attention in its crackdown to those religious
persons with ties to overseas evangelical groups operating
across the border in China.
We, in our report, indicated, as has the State Department
and the witnesses, some of whom were here today, who we have
been in touch with, that prisoners held because of their
religious beliefs in North Korea are treated worse than other
inmates. Religious prisoners, including, in particular,
Christians, are reportedly given the most dangerous tasks while
in prison. They are subject to constant abuse from prison
officials in an effort to force them to renounce their faith,
as we heard today, and when they refuse, these prisoners are
often beaten and sometimes tortured to death.
Simply put, there is no freedom of religion, of belief, of
practice, or the right to profess one's faith. The lack of
access to religious or humanitarian nongovernmental
organizations, as well as the United Nations High Commissioner
for Refugees, further exacerbates this crisis.
The situation is so bad that tens of thousands of North
Koreans have fled into China for relief, as we have heard. Some
refugees return home. Anyone suspected of having had contact
with Christian organizations while abroad are detained. Many of
these disappear and are never heard from again.
The Commission urges the United States Government to take
advantage of any talks that may pursue in the bilateral
dialogue to raise U.S. concerns about human rights and the
humanitarian situation in North Korea.
Our Commission has, as you know, Senator, focused
considerable attention on the situation in North Korea. We held
a public hearing with many of the witnesses you saw today. We
have had extensive consultations with U.S. experts on Korean-
U.S. and U.S.-China policy. In addition, our Chair, Michael
Young, has made visits to both South Korea and Japan and
interviewed those with firsthand knowledge of conditions inside
North Korea, including many refugees.
In April of this year, we released our report and
recommendations on North Korea. They have three main areas of
concern: First of all, pursuing an international initiative
against human rights violations in North Korea; secondly,
protecting North Korean refugees; and third, advancing human
rights through bilateral contacts. I will briefly refer to
those, although our full testimony presents those items.
We have recommended that the United States launch a major
initiative to expose human rights abuses within North Korea and
to educate the international community about what is occurring
there. The collection and presentation of information is key to
this effort. Silence is not an answer.
We recommend also that the United States Government should
utilize the Trilateral Coordination Oversight Group, the TCOG,
which held its most recent meeting in San Francisco early this
week, to press Japan and South Korea to raise human rights in
their discussions with Pyongyang. We do not know, and
unfortunately, the Assistant Secretary is no longer here,
whether, in fact, they did that.
We also believe objective information about the outside
world must be provided to the people of North Korea.
As far as refugee relief is concerned, the Commission
recommends that the United States press the Chinese government
to recognize as refugees those North Koreans who have fled from
the DPRK. The key issue here is that the Chinese government
does not allow the UNHCR to operate in the border region
between China and North Korea, thereby preventing that
organization from interviewing those crossing the border or
assessing their status as refugees.
The Chinese government's refusal to recognize North Koreans
who have fled to China as refugees has forced them to remain in
hiding and many have been exploited and abused as a result. The
documentation on this is chilling.
Russia can also be a dangerous place for North Korean
refugees. We heard something about that from one of the
witnesses today. It should not be ignored. There are North
Korean workers in Russia who are forcibly returned. There are
North Korean refugees who have sought asylum.
The issue of the refugees who have sought asylum in the
diplomatic compounds in China is also one that we have
discussed here today. The Commission wishes to make it clear
that the North Koreans who fled to China and elsewhere have a
well-founded fear of persecution if they return to the DPRK.
Senator Brownback. Ms. Gaer, if we could summarize here, I
think it would be helpful if you could do that. We do have your
written testimony.
Ms. Gaer. I would be happy just to say that, as we heard
this morning, there are hundreds of thousands of Korean
Americans and people of Korean ancestry in the United States.
The North Korean government agreed to resume Korean family
reunions. The North Korean government should also allow those
Americans with family ties in North Korea to reunite with their
parents, siblings, children, and other relatives who are still
living in that country. That, they should do as a matter of
right, and this Congress and this government should be pressing
for that as a matter of right.
Mr. Chairman, that concludes my testimony and I ask that
the prepared remarks as well as the Commission's report on the
DPRK be included in the record. Thank you.
Senator Brownback. Without objection, and thank you very
much. Sorry for the truncated time, but we have run long on the
hearing.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Gaer appears as a submission
for the record.]
Senator Brownback. Ms. Liang-Fenton?
STATEMENT OF DEBRA LIANG-FENTON, VICE CHAIRMAN, U.S. COMMITTEE
FOR HUMAN RIGHTS IN NORTH KOREA, MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA
Ms. Liang-Fenton. Thank you, Senator. Thank you for the
leadership you have shown on this pressing issue, and I am also
grateful for the opportunity to speak with you today on behalf
of the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea.
I am presenting testimony submitted by Jack Rendler, Vice
Chair of the Committee, who sends his apologies and regrets for
being unable to be with us today.
Before I begin, I also want to thank you, Senator,
personally for helping to support the showing of the exhibit of
the Gil Su family illustrations in the Russell Rotunda. The
Committee is in possession of 58 of the original illustrations
drawn by the children of the Gil Su family, who sought asylum
in the UNHCR office in Beijing last year.
Senator Brownback. Hold up some of those. This is one where
he is eating a rat?
Ms. Liang-Fenton. Yes. This is actually John Gil Su
himself, the main illustrator, who is eating a rat and snakes,
which is a condition for many desperate people in North Korea
who do not have enough to eat.
As you know, the Kim Han Mee family, the five who sought
asylum in Shenyang, are the five remaining Gil Su family
members, who are now also in Seoul.
This is John Gil Su being forced to confess, and there are
many others. But we are hoping to get this in the Russell
Rotunda so that ordinary American citizens and others visiting
the U.S. Capitol can get a glimpse of what the harsh reality of
life is like for ordinary citizens in North Korea.
One last one, escaping across the Tumen River. These are
two of the brothers of the Gil Su family.
It may be of interest to you that this Committee is the
U.S. manifestation of the International Campaign for Human
Rights in North Korea. There are similar committee structures
in Canada, France, Germany, and Japan, as well as networks and
individual actors throughout Europe and Asia.
The campaign began in December of 1999 at a conference held
in Seoul by the Citizens Alliance for Human Rights in North
Korea. In its written submission, the U.S. Committee has
provided the subcommittee with the following: A summary of what
is known or can be reliably surmised about human rights in the
Democratic People's Republic of Korea, a set of detailed
recommendations for policy and practice, the founding
declaration for the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North
Korea, and Suzanne Scholte, one of our board members, has
requested that we submit officially her testimony.
Senator Brownback. It will be in the record, without
objection.
Ms. Liang-Fenton. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Scholte appears as a
submission for the record.]
Ms. Liang-Fenton. Today, with the mission and purview of
the subcommittee in mind, I would like to highlight some of the
more disturbing aspects of human rights in North Korea and the
impact of those abuses on North Korean refugees in China.
For over 50 years, the people of the Democratic People's
Republic of Korea have been denied even the most basic of their
human rights, denied any contact with the rest of the world,
and isolated from each other. Human rights violations and
abuses affect a large majority of the 23 million North Korean
people. There is precious little specific information available
about human rights in North Korea since the government refuses
entry to international human rights groups. This in itself is
cause for profound concern.
It is estimated that the DPRK is holding over 200,000
political prisoners. The government detains and imprisons
people at will. Political prisoners in North Korea may be held
in any one of a variety of facilities--detention centers, labor
rehabilitation centers, juvenile centers, maximum security
prisons, relocation areas, and sanitoriums. Reeducation means
forced labor, usually logging or mining under brutal
conditions. Entire families, including children, are detained
because of supposed political deviation by one relative.
Judicial review does not exist, and the criminal justice system
operates at the behest of the government.
On July 10, 2002 [sic], the New York Times carried a report
on one of the grimmer aspects of imprisonment in North Korea,
forced abortions and infanticide committed regularly and
routinely by prison officials. The Times recounted instances of
pregnant women tortured or medically induced to provoke
miscarriage. If a baby is born, it is left to die or smothered
with a plastic sheet or bag. Other female prisoners are forced
to assist with abortions and killings. The most savage
treatment is apparently reserved for refugees pregnant with
children fathered in China, who have been forcibly returned to
North Korea.
The population is subjected to a constant barrage of
propaganda by government-controlled media, the only source of
information. The opinions of North Koreans are monitored by
government security organizations through electronic
surveillance, neighborhood and workplace committees, and
information extracted from acquaintances. Children are
encouraged to inform on their parents. Independent public
gatherings are not allowed, and all organizations are created
and controlled by the government.
The government forcibly resettles political suspect
families. Private property does not exist. North Korean
citizens do not have the right to propose or effect a change of
government.
Religious freedom does not exist. The religious activity
that is allowed appears to have one of two purposes, to deify
the founder of the DPRK, Kim Il Sung, and by extension his son,
the current leader, Kim Jung Il, or to demonstrate to faith-
based aid groups that some traditional religious activity is
tolerated. Alternatively, classes to study Kim Il Sung's
revolutionary ideology are held throughout the country.
I am just skipping ahead here to save on time. I want to
talk a little bit about the North Korean refugees in China.
Leaving the DPRK is considered treason, punishable by long
prison terms or execution. Yet, the Voice of America estimates
that as many as 300,000 North Koreans have fled to China. With
the onset of famine in the early 1990s, tens of thousands of
North Koreans, the majority under-nourished women and children,
crossed into China's Northeastern provinces. There are an
estimated 140,000 to 150,000 North Korean refugees currently in
China living in fear of arrest, many women forced into
prostitution or abusive marriages.
Refugees are pursued by agents of the North Korean Public
Security Service and many have reported that the Chinese
government has been offering awards--sorry. Excuse me. The
South China Morning Post has reported that the Chinese
government has been offering rewards to those delivering North
Korean refugees to police.
China claims that it considers these refugees to be purely
economic migrants. While hunger may be one motive for their
movement, there are other realities. It is the nature of the
political system in North Korea, with its discriminatory
distribution of resources, that makes feeding a family
impossible in some areas. Being hungry does not necessarily
prevent these people from also feeling oppressed. The criminal,
political, and social persecution that accompanies forcible
return to North Korea surely makes these people political
refugees once they are in China.
China is a party to the 1951 U.S. Convention Relating to
the Status of Refugees, under which it has agreed not to expel
refugees to a country where their life or freedom would be
threatened.
To save time, I would like to skip to some action
recommendations that the Committee would like to put forward
for consideration.
One, make lifting the seige of the North Korean people by
its own government a human rights priority of U.S. policy. As
he did on his last trip to South Korea, President Bush should
take every opportunity to express his concern for the plight of
the North Korean people and his commitment to assisting in the
restoration of their rights and well-being.
Two, the protections offered by U.S. law and policy to
refugee populations in danger should be extended to North
Korean refugees in China.
Three, urge the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees to take
immediate action to press the PRC to fulfill its obligations
under the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees
and end its practice of cooperating in the forced repatriation
of North Koreans.
Four, find new ways to provide information to the people of
North Korea. Develop multiple channels of exchange and contact.
An undetermined number of radios in North Korea can receive
foreign broadcasts at certain times. Use television broadcasts
where possible to reach leadership elite. Establish exchange
programs, beginning with university students and health care
professionals.
Call for the formation of an informal Congressional caucus
on the model of what has been done on Burma, to participate in
a multinational parliamentary network on human rights in North
Korea. Such structures have recently been formed within the
British Parliament and the Japanese Diet.
Human rights in North Korea should be a constant and
prominent item on the agenda of the ROK U.S.-Japan Trilateral
Coordination and Oversight Group.
Provide humanitarian aid to North Korea while pressing the
government of Pyongyang to ensure that distribution of such aid
is monitored by independent international relief organizations
and concrete progress is made on human rights performance.
Encourage corporations planning to do business in North
Korea to develop a code of conduct similar to the Sullivan
Principles applied in South Africa.
Provide support for new research and a comprehensive new
report. We must begin by acknowledging the lack of reliable
information on any aspect of human freedom in North Korea. We
know that large numbers of people are imprisoned for their
beliefs, but we do not know how many, who they are, where they
are held, how long their sentences are. We know that
imprisonment involves harsh conditions, including forced labor,
poor food and health care, and torture, but we do not know just
how bad it is for which kinds of prisoners at which kinds of
prisons.
We know that the government divides the population into
segments according to perceived levels of loyalty to the regime
and we know that the distribution of goods and services
benefits those perceived to be most loyal and fails to serve
others, but we do not know exactly what the consequences are
for which people.
Such reporting will need to be done by an entity with the
experience and the capacity to get it right and the
independence and reputation necessary to be heard in Pyongyang.
This is work that the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North
Korea is currently undertaking.
The time has come to expose this repression, and by so
doing to make clear that the norms of human rights as defined
by the United Nations apply as much to the people of North
Korea as to the people of other countries. Significantly, North
Korea has ratified the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic,
Social, and Cultural Rights. It, therefore, owes its own
citizens and the world community a commitment to comply with
the provisions of these documents and it must be held
accountable for policies and actions that violate these norms.
Thank you, Senators.
Senator Brownback. Thank you very much.
Ms. Mason?
STATEMENT OF JANA MASON, ASIA POLICY ANALYST, U.S. COMMITTEE ON
REFUGEES, WASHINGTON, D.C.
Ms. Mason. Thank you, Senator Brownback. I would like to
thank you and Senator Kennedy for holding this hearing, Senator
Allen, for your interest and for attending.
Obviously, this issue, North Korean refugees, particularly
North Korean refugees in China, raises a lot of political
sensitivities. We have heard those discussed today. As you are
aware, refugees themselves create political concerns all over
the world, but those concerns should not outweigh our human
rights obligations, so I am very happy that this hearing is
being held.
I am going to focus, since witnesses today have covered
most of the details, I am going to focus on just a few of the
nitty-gritty aspects of international refugee protection, some
policies, procedures, and legalities, and the reason I think
these are important is because these legalities are things that
the Chinese government, the international community, and even
our own government, the State Department and the INS, can look
to as a rationale for not doing all that we can for North
Korean refugees. So I just want to make sure that we are very
clear on where we are on these.
Senator Brownback. If you could make sure to focus on what
actions you think we should be taking--
Ms. Mason. Yes.
Senator Brownback. --that is really what we need to hone in
on as much as we can.
Ms. Mason. Yes, I will do that as I discuss each one.
The first is the question of whether North Koreans are
refugees. After all we have heard discussed today, we would
think that it would be a given that any North Korean who
manages to escape the country would be considered a refugee
under international refugee law. But I can tell you that when
the INS starts interviewing, if and when that happens, there
may be cases where they say because of this reason or because
of that reason, the person does not qualify under the
Convention. China, of course, already labels everybody ``food
migrant'' who comes out. So we need to be clear if we are going
to push the international community, China, and our own
government to accept refugee status for these people, we need
to be clear why they are refugees.
First, as we have heard from many witnesses, North Korea is
a highly authoritarian regime with an abysmal human rights
record. Even without the famine that has racked North Korea
since the mid-1990s, it is likely that most, if not all, North
Koreans who manage to escape would have strong claims to
refugee status. But the famine itself has added to the means by
which the government can persecute its opponents. Despite
tremendous reliance on international food aid, the North Korean
government fails to operate a transparent food distribution
system and often denies NGOs access to the country's most
vulnerable people. That is one of the reasons so many NGOs have
pulled out in recent years.
The government categorizes its population based on
perceived loyalty and usefulness to the regime and it channels
food aid accordingly. The government has also blocked aid to
parts of the country that have seen anti-government rebellions
in recent years.
Now, a government's denial of food aid for political
reasons can give rise to a valid claim of refugee status, in
addition to any other forms of persecution the individual might
claim--religious persecution, some others that we have heard
about today. But the story does not end there.
As we have heard on this panel and others, under North
Korean law, defection or attempted defection is a capital
crime. The criminal code states that a defector who is returned
shall be committed to a reform institution for not less than
seven years. As was mentioned, in cases where the person
commits ``an extremely grave concern,'' he or she shall be
given the death penalty. North Korean authorities are
apparently most concerned with defectors who, while they were
in China, had contact with South Koreans, Christians, or
foreigners. This could be one of those grave concerns that ends
them the death penalty. The government subjects these people,
if not to execution, then certainly to harsh treatment and
torture, placement in work camps, and other forms of
persecution.
So, therefore, the use of food as a weapon, religious
persecution, and the fact that they would fear execution or
very harsh treatment upon return clearly makes these people
refugees, even with little concrete knowledge about what else
they may be going under.
Now, the second issue is China's response to the North
Korean refugees. As I think was mentioned, China has a treaty
with North Korea that says that it will return all defectors.
Notwithstanding that, for a number of years, China informally
tolerated the presence of a lot of North Koreans, and even to
some extent provided assistance.
This situation changed in 1999. That year, China began
forcibly returning large numbers of North Koreans, and since
then, they have accelerated every year. Most recently, we have
what is known as the Strike Hard campaign against crime,
directed very largely at North Koreans. According to some aid
groups, China arrested some 6,000 North Koreans in two months
of 2001 alone, and that is just a snapshot. The overall numbers
are very unclear.
China's treatment of North Koreans in its territory is
clearly a violation of the Refugee Convention that has been
discussed. It is a violation of Article 33, known as
nonrefoulement. You cannot return a refugee to any place where
they could fear persecution.
China has no domestic law on refugee protection, despite
the fact that it has signed on to the Convention. It has no
system for determining refugee status. If it did, it could
interview them one by one, and if it decided they were not
refugees, then legally it could send them back. Of course, we
would have to decide if we thought their system was valid.
But not only does it have no system of its own, but even
though UNHCR operates an office in Beijing and asylum seekers
from other countries can come there and apply for refugee
status and China cooperates with that, it does not allow UNHCR
a role with respect to the North Koreans. Other than that one
highly publicized case last year, the Jung case, North Koreans
rarely can make it all the way to Beijing or get into the UNHCR
office.
The Chinese government has not allowed UNHCR a role with
North Koreans on the border since 1999. That year, UNHCR did a
mission to the border and they actually did some interviews and
determined that some North Koreans were refugees. As a result,
China reprimanded UNHCR for this action and since then has
denied them permission even to travel to the border area. This
is also a violation of the Refugee Convention that says that
countries have to cooperate with UNHCR in carrying out UNHCR's
role, which is to supervise the Convention. So China is
basically attempting to just define these people out of the
Convention.
Obviously, the main recommendation we have is the
international community should pressure China to maintain its
obligations under the Convention, not return North Koreans to
North Korea, and allow international aid in China. It is very
dangerous for any aid worker working in the border area
assisting them.
Now, in terms of refoulement, forced return, I also want to
mention, based on the discussion this morning, that the U.S.
Committee for Refugees does believe that any embassy or
consulate that handed over North Koreans to the Chinese
government would also be committing refoulement. This is a
fuzzier area. The Refugee Convention says you cannot return or
expel any refugee to a place where they would be suffering
persecution. Well, return or expel them from where? We have
already determined embassies are not technically the soil of
the country that they represent, but also because of the
special status of embassies, they are protected against
interference by the host country.
So I think because of this unique status, it could be
argued that if you allowed North Koreans to be taken out by
Chinese guards, that you would be expelling them or returning
them to a place where they could face persecution because China
would then return them to North Korea. So you would be
subjecting them to return to persecution, an argument that has
been used by refugee advocates. So I think, clearly, even
though others may argue otherwise, the U.S. or any government
whose embassy or consulate allowed the Chinese guards to take
these people out of the embassy would also be violating the
Convention and committing refoulement.
The third point I want to make has to do with South Korea's
response. We have heard a lot of people say the answer is just
send them all to South Korea. That is where they want to go
anyway. No argument that, for the most part, North Koreans from
China or elsewhere do want to go to South Korea, cultural ties,
family ties, and South Korea has been extremely generous in
their response to North Korean refugees and giving them status.
But I also think we need to mention that there have been
cases where the South Korean government has been known to
harshly interrogate North Koreans who it suspects of spying,
and in some cases has turned away asylum seekers who do not
have any valuable intelligence information to share. So even
though I have no doubt that South Korea is able and willing to
do even more than they are doing now, accepting 500-and-some
people a year is a far cry from giving automatic status to tens
of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands of people.
So I think if and when we are able to get the Chinese
government to open up more and allow passage for the North
Koreans, I do not think that they can all just flood into South
Korea at once. I think the international community will have to
help them absorb more North Koreans and also be willing to do
our part to take them in.
And that goes to the last thing that I want to say, which
is, as Secretary Dewey stated this morning, there are
procedures to admit people as refugees, but there are some
glitches. Secretary Dewey kept saying we have to get UNHCR a
role there. Once we get a role for UNHCR, then we can resettle
some of these people.
We need to make clear, yes, a UNHCR role, if China were
willing to allow that, would certainly facilitate third country
resettlement, whether in South Korea or elsewhere. But the U.S.
under its own law does not need UNHCR to bring refugees in. We
can bring in Priority One cases through embassy identification
only. The U.S. embassy in any country--yes, North Korea is on
that short list Secretary Dewey mentioned where they would need
permission of Washington, but they could get permission for a
U.S. embassy in any country, including China, to refer to the
U.S. resettlement program a North Korean who was vulnerable and
who needed protection.
Second, since we discussed the P-2 mechanism this morning,
the U.S., the State Department can set up a Priority Two
refugee processing system. Theoretically, they could do it for
North Koreans out of China. Again, you would need China's
permission. And they could bring in significant numbers of
North Koreans without any role whatsoever for UNHCR. So we
should not make a mistake, once again, of using UNHCR as a
gatekeeper to prevent us to do something that we have the
mechanism to do by ourselves.
So, obviously, we need to pressure China to recognize these
people as refugees, not send them back to North Korea, allow
aid in, allow safe passage to where they want to go. We need to
help South Korea absorb large numbers that the U.S. and the
international community need to be prepared to resettle through
whatever mechanism they have in their domestic laws, North
Koreans who have family ties here or for whom there is some
other reason that this is the best place for them to go. Thank
you.
Senator Brownback. That is an excellent statement, very
thoughtful, very well reasoned.
I met with some Chinese officials and asked them, how many
numbers do they think of North Korean refugees are in China,
and the official said, ``Well, there are none.'' I said, well,
what would you do if there were any? ``Well, there are not
any.'' Well, what would you do? Would you make them go back to
North Korea? ``Well, it would be on an individual case-by-case
basis.'' They are being pretty disingenuous to me, given the
facts and the numbers that are in front of us. I am hopeful
that official is catching some of the summary of this hearing.
Thank you for a very good statement.
Senator Brownback. Ms. Massimino?
STATEMENT OF ELISA MASSIMINO, LAWYERS COMMITTEE FOR HUMAN
RIGHTS, WASHINGTON, D.C.
Ms. Massimino. Thank you. Thank you so much for inviting
the Lawyers Committee here today to provide our views and
recommendations on this important issue.
I note yesterday, celebrating World Refugee Day, it was a
great opportunity for us to celebrate the contributions of
refugees to our own society, but it was also a time for
reflection about those refugees who, like the North Koreans,
have been driven out of their homes by their own governments,
persecuted by so-called host governments like China, and then
failed by the international system that has been designed to be
their safety net. So I really am grateful to you--we all are--
for this opportunity to talk about what we can do.
I would like to focus my remarks on exactly that. There is,
thanks to you and to other members of Congress and the courage
of humanitarian workers and those courageous refugees who have
been able to get out and speak about their experiences, the
challenge we now face is not one of lack of interest in this
issue. It is easy to condemn North Korea. What could be easier?
But to help North Korean refugees is going to cost the United
States something. It is going to cost some money and it is
going to cost some diplomatic capital and the question is, what
is the United States willing to do to alleviate this suffering
and ensure protection for North Korean refugees?
First, the administration has to make clear to all
concerned countries, in particular China and South Korea, that
resettlement of North Korean refugees in the United States is a
serious option that we are immediately prepared to pursue.
While it is certainly true that China should be granting North
Korean refugees asylum and South Korea should be more
aggressively offering to take North Korean refugees in, that is
just not the current reality.
There are so many times that we have seen the prolonged
failure of the United States to make an offer of resettlement a
real option for those for whom no other solution is possible is
used by other countries involved in the refugee crisis as an
excuse for inaction. It is way past time for the United States
to step up and make really clear that we are willing to open
our doors to these refugees if others will not.
Second, the United States has to bring more pressure on
China to abide by its obligations, clearly under the Convention
and protocol. If it is not willing to grant asylum to North
Korean refugees, then it must, first and foremost, refrain from
sending them back to face persecution and death. The Chinese
government is obligated under the Convention and the protocol
to facilitate convention for North Korean and for all refugees
in its territory if it is not willing to grant that protection
itself.
The administration should strongly urge China to permit
UNHCR to operate in the border region between China and North
Korea so that it can interview those crossing the border and
assess their status as refugees, and the administration should
strongly urge China to permit North Korean refugees to leave
China and either be resettled or be free to seek asylum in
other countries.
Third, the administration has to ensure that it is not
sending China mixed signals about its international obligations
towards refugees. When questioned last week about the
administration's view of this diplomatic communication from the
Chinese government that was sent to embassies in Beijing that
purportedly demanded that asylum seekers be turned over to
Chinese authority, I was astonished to read the exchange at the
press briefing at the State Department where spokesman Richard
Boucher seemed to go to great lengths to avoid saying that the
United States would not comply with such demands. The United
States needs to make very clear to the Chinese government that
it has no intention of handing asylum seekers over to a
government whose stated policy is in clear violation of
international obligations.
Fourth, the administration must make absolutely sure that
the United States is in no way complicit in the Chinese
government's violations of international human rights law being
perpetrated against the North Korean refugees. The United
States provides a substantial amount of financial assistance,
as well as training, to the Chinese to assist them in
combatting alien smuggling and illegal migration. How sure are
we that this assistance is not being used by or enabling the
Chinese government to combat the flight of North Korean
refugees seeking to escape from oppression and persecution?
I would urge the Senate to diligently monitor the uses to
which U.S. anti-smuggling assistance to China is put. North
Koreans who have fled China have been doubly victimized. I urge
you to do all you can to ensure that the United States is not
an unwitting accomplice to that abuse.
Finally, in order to continue to lead effectively on this
and other refugee protection issues, the administration has got
to make sure that our own house is in order. The situation of
the North Korean people is extremely dire and deserves the
urgent attention that we are giving it today. But we need not
look halfway around the world to see injustice being done to
refugees.
Yesterday, in his statement commemorating World Refugee
Day, the President promised that, ``America will always stand
firm for the non-negotiable demands of human dignity and the
rule of law.'' But as we sit here today, asylum seekers who
came to America seeking protection and freedom sit in U.S.
jails, or worse, are being turned away unjustly without the
chance to even ask for protection.
A little over a year ago, many of us sat in this room
transfixed by the testimony of refugees from Tibet, Cameroon,
and Afghanistan who came here seeking freedom and found, to our
shame, handcuffs and a prison uniform. Those present were
deeply moved, as we have been today, by their courage, their
love of freedom, and of this, their new home, despite the
injustices that they suffered under our misguided immigration
system. Thankfully, following that hearing, which was chaired
by you, Senator Brownback, a bipartisan group of Senators and
Representatives, which you led, introduced a bill that would
restore American values to our asylum system called the Refugee
Protection Act.
The National Association of Evangelicals, in its Second
Statement of Conscience released last month, focused
specifically on the human rights crises in North Korea and
Sudan. The statement concludes, and I quote, ``In the case of
both countries, we will, in particular, work for enactment of
the Refugee Protection Act, legislation profoundly consistent
with American traditions of opening our doors to genuine
refugees of religious and political persecution.''
The U.S. must lead the way to safety for North Korean
refugees. It must pass the Refugee Protection Act. I can think
of no more fitting way to put the President's eloquent words of
yesterday into practical effect. Thank you.
Senator Brownback. Thank you very much, and thank you for
the added plug on the Refugee Protection Act. That is language
that we need to get moving forward and move with the issue.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Massimino appears as a
submission for the record.]
Senator Brownback. This has been an excellent panel. It has
been a very thoughtful panel and it has been a lot more, I
think, than the nuts and bolts of what we need to press forward
with here. I look forward to working with you and with your
organizations as we push this issue on forward.
Some of you were here, I think maybe all of you were here
for Secretary Dewey's statement and I think we have some work
to do to press this on forward. But I am hopeful that with the
visibility that some of this is gaining, some of the interest,
some of the focus that is taking place, we are going to be able
to have a better dialogue to get something resolved soon.
This is happening now. This is on us now. I do not think it
is one of those things that we can say, we are going to study
this for six months or this or that. I think it is one of the
things that we really need to press on at this point in time,
because people's lives are in the balance at this time. The
longer we wait, the longer we dawdle, the more people suffer
and the more people die in the process.
So I hope we can work together and team up on pressing on
the legal grounds. I think there is very clear and very
convincing legal grounds for us to press forward in China and
with the Chinese in the United States, and what we would do for
helping these refugees resettle there, here, various places, as
long as this regime is in place that chooses to so abuse power.
I thought that was a very well put phrase by Ms. Lee, to so
abuse power to treat its people so poorly. So I want to thank
the panel for being here.
Senator Allen?
Senator Allen. Thank you, Senator Brownback.
Thank you all for your eloquent remarks. Ms. Gaer, Felice
Gaer, my middle name is Felix after my grandfather, whose
birthday is today. He is no longer alive, but he had been
imprisoned by the Nazis during World War II because of pathetic
French resistance. He is from Tunisia, French Tunisian.
The three of you brought up the food aid, the food
assistance there and a concern about making sure that the food
is getting to the people. We heard from our friend from
Germany, the doctor, earlier about who is getting the food. Do
you have any way of tracking this aid? Obviously, it is not
going to be simple. The principle is right. How, as a practical
matter, could we concretely make sure that the humanitarian
food aid, is actually getting to the people who are starving?
Is there any strong, clear guidance you can give us or to
others who are helping out with this food aid to make sure that
is being done?
Ms. Liang-Fenton. I think it is quite simple.
Senator Allen. All right, good.
Ms. Liang-Fenton. Pyongyang could allow for the
humanitarian aid groups to distribute and monitor their food
packages and to keep records, to get records from the North
Koreans on where the food is going. I do not think that is too
much to ask.
Senator Allen. Would the North Korean government allow
that?
Ms. Liang-Fenton. No.
Senator Allen. What would they say? They would say no. So
then we are in the dilemma of, since they say no, will there be
an understanding and recognition that because of their not
acquiescing to nongovernmental organizations distributing the
food, that we are doing all that we can, because otherwise all
we would be doing is helping prop up and feed the tyrants as
opposed to the people.
Ms. Liang-Fenton. It is a very controversial issue. It is
an important issue. It has been reported that North Korea can
produce enough food to feed its own military. If that is the
case, and if they are getting--they are getting a lot of food
from the World Food Programme and others, although that is
diminishing, I suppose that what you could say is that if some
of the food is getting to some of the most vulnerable in that
society, meaning the under-six crowd, that it is worth
continuing humanitarian aid. But by the same token, we really
need to be pushing for them to be responsible for their own
people and for where this food is going. These are coming from
donor countries. I think that it behooves North Korea to let
the donor countries in to see where the food is going.
Senator Allen. That makes sense. Let me ask another
question that was brought up. You all made so many good points,
and I have such a short time to ask you all questions. I do
agree with you that whether it is the issue of the
nonrefoulement obligations, which is a bedrock principle that
China must follow. Maybe they have conflicting laws because of
their arrangements with North Korea. Nevertheless, there are
bedrock principles that apply, just like the Statute of
Religious Freedom as a national concept.
Regardless, you get to this issue that Ms. Massimino
brought up. You did not number your pages, but you are talking
about the United States providing a substantial amount of
financial assistance to the Chinese as well as training to the
Chinese to assist them in combatting alien smuggling and
illegal migration. Now, why are we providing that? What is the
problem in China with illegal migration and alien smuggling
that the United States would be providing any taxpayer dollars
for that?
Ms. Massimino. That, Senator, was initiated and stepped up
after situations like the Golden Venture boat that brought more
than 300, I think, Chinese to New York Harbor, and many of them
fleeing, of course, family planning policies of the PRC.
Senator Allen. Otherwise known as forced abortion for
having more than one child.
Ms. Massimino. Exactly, enforced sterilization. The Clinton
administration launched a program of training of Chinese law
enforcement and assistance to help the Chinese prevent people
from leaving in boats to come to the United States, to be
blunt. I have not been able to get the kind of assurances I
would want from our government that that aid is being monitored
closely enough to make sure--I mean, this category, alien
smuggling and illegal migrants, from the Chinese perspective,
as we have heard today, the Chinese would view that as
applicable to North Korean refugees coming across the border.
So I am just concerned, and I would hope that is not
happening and I would want to make sure that we are monitoring
that aid and that all parts of our government are kind of
talking together about that to make sure that that is not
happening.
Senator Allen. Thank you for bringing that to my attention.
It was something I was completely unaware of until you brought
it up. I think that whole program ought to be reviewed, period.
If it is going to continue, we need to properly monitor it.
I thank you all, and I especially want to thank Senator
Brownback for his great leadership on this. We are going to
work together. We both do serve on the Foreign Relations
Committee, as well, so from various angles, we want to work to
make sure that people of North Korea hopefully some day soon
will enjoy basic human rights. Most importantly, we need to
move as expeditiously as possible to alleviate the suffering
and have people settled, hopefully in South Korea, maybe
Mongolia, and some in the United States. We all need to do our
part, and I thank you all for your commitment to these
wonderful principles.
You have two Senators here, and I believe also Senator
Kennedy, as well, to make sure the American people know what is
going on in North Korea. We will be advocates alongside of you.
Thank you all so much.
Senator Brownback. That is excellent. Thank you, Senator
Allen. This is an excellent panel.
I was reading in Isaiah the other day and the prophet was
noting that people's prayers were not being answered, and they
were fasting and they were not being answered, and the prophet
responded, ``Is this not the fast that I have chosen to loose
the bonds of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, to let the
oppressed go free, and that you break every yoke. Is it not to
share your bread with the hungry and that you bring to your
house the poor who are cast out. If you want to have your
prayers answered, that is the fast that I want, is that you
would do those things.'' I think that is pretty good advice to
us, as well.
I want to thank the panelists for being here. I think it
has been an excellent, illuminating hearing, certainly for me.
I want to note a couple of things will be made a part of
the record. The first is Ms. Jung Yoon Kim, producer of
``Shadows and Whispers,'' a documentary on North Korean
refugees living in China that was shown on ABC News
``Nightline'' as a three-part series a few weeks back, she has
a statement for the record.
Senator Brownback. The second is a statement for the record
from UNHCR.
Finally, I would like to ask that a letter from World
Relief, a subsidiary of the National Association of
Evangelicals, be made a part of the record. This letter notes
World Relief's willingness to assist with resettling refugees
from North Korea.
The record will remain open the requisite number of days
for additional comments.
The hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 1:08 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
[Submissions for the record follow.]
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