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News Articles
N.K. Human Rights Act does little to help refugees in China
by Jane Cooper |
[January 31, 2006]
Getting North Korean refugees out of China to a safe country is
becoming more difficult despite the enactment of the U.S. North
Korean Human Rights Act over a year ago, says a Seoul-based
activist.
The plight of North Korea`s refugees is increasingly desperate
as China steps up a "strike-hard" campaign to crack down on
refugees in the border area between China and North Korea, says
Tim Peters of Helping Hands Korea.
Peters, who is part of the "underground railroad" that gives
refugees passage to a third country, says his job is becoming
more difficult. Previously, North Koreans escaping famine and
political repression were able to hide out in shelters on the
border, but now these safe houses are disappearing.
Added to this is the constant fear of being repatriated by the
Chinese authorities who regard them as "economic migrants" and
not refugees. Back in North Korea they face prison camps or even
execution.
The North Korean Human Rights Act offered hope of getting people
in such a predicament to safety. Peters says that while the act
was a good "symbolic gesture," it has little effect.
In theory, the act makes it easier for North Koreans to enter
the United States as refugees, but Peters said when he has taken
urgent cases to U.S. Embassies, he has been turned away.
When he took a "17-year-old North Korean girl who lost her
father to a firing squad, her mother to the gulag and her sister
to a Chinese police sweep," he felt her case was urgent because
she could be picked up by a human trafficker. He approached a
U.S. Embassy but was "startled by the response of one of the
political officers of the embassy" who told him that there was
nothing he could do.
This is just one of many cases Peters has dealt with.
He said the embassies don`t want to get involved for fear of
causing problems with the host country. Also, the bigger picture
of maintaining good diplomatic relations with China is given a
higher priority.
The U.N. refugee agency, the Office of the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees, has an office in Beijing, but Peters
says that they are also are unwilling to help him get North
Koreans to a third country. He mentioned another case where
someone who had legitimate reason to believe that his life was
in danger "fell through the bureaucratic cracks" between the
UNHCR and the U.S. Embassy.
The purpose of the UNHCR is to protect displaced persons under
the agreements of the 1951 U.N. Convention and 1967 Protocol on
refugees.
Under this international law, fleeing North Koreans are
considered refugees, but China - even though it is a signatory
of the U.N. human rights declaration - sends them back to North
Korea on the basis of them being illegal "economic migrants."
Under a 1995 mission agreement between the UNHCR and China,
China is obligated to allow the UNHCR unimpeded access to the
refugees. At present China refuses to allow the UNHCR into the
border area.
Also under this agreement, in the case of a dispute, the UNHCR
has the right to bring in a third party to enforce the rule on
its unimpeded access.
The North Korean Human Rights Act urges the UNHCR to enforce
this arbitration right:
"Because access to refugees is essential to the UNHCR mandate and to the
purpose of a UNHCR branch office, a failure to assert those
arbitration rights in present circumstances would constitute a
significant abdication by the UNHCR of one of its core
responsibilities."
There are many others who are critical of the UNHCR`s handling
of North Korean refugees. In a February 2005 editorial for the
Wall Street Journal, Claudia Rosett wrote:
"The true horror is the way in which the well-mannered nuances
of U.N. bureaucracy, structure and management have combined to
dismiss demurely the desperate needs of hundreds of thousands of
human beings fleeing famine and repression in the world`s worst
totalitarian state."
The UNHCR spokesperson in Geneva, Ron Redmond, said on CNN that
the UNHCR has had its hands tied by China and for years has been
a "voice in the wilderness."
Peters says that the UNHCR should make a "conspicuous departure
rather than maintain a passive presence" and should make it an
international issue.
The UNHCR`s seemingly passive stance toward China has been
defended as a method of "quiet diplomacy" that deals with the
problem without stirring up fragile diplomatic relations with
China.
Peters says that the implication of "quiet diplomacy" is that
the refugees are being taken care of, but Peters estimates that
200-300 North Koreans are being sent back across the border each
week.
He says, though, that the good news is that people are still
getting across. With all the odds stacked against them, "it`s a
miracle that people can get through," he said.
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