| |
 |
|
Menu |
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
| |
News Articles
Update 4: Envoy to China: Treat Defectors Better
Associated Press [12.09.2005, 06:43 AM]
The U.S. envoy for human rights in North Korea on Friday urged
China to improve its
treatment of North Korean defectors and expressed hope the
United States could also become an accessible haven for some
refugees.
"We have called on China to live up to its own international
obligations," Jay Lefkowitz told a news conference, saying
Beijing should grant the U.N. refugee agency access to the
border region. "We will continue to try to work cooperatively
with the Chinese."
Lefkowitz, on his first visit to the region since his
appointment earlier this year, said the issue of North Korean
refugees was one of the "real personal human tragedies" of the
situation around rights in the communist nation.
At a Seoul conference on human rights in the North, activists
repeats calls to China not to send North Korean defectors back
to their communist homeland, where they can face harsh
punishment. They also pressed the United States to accept
refugees under a U.S. law passed last year on North Korea's
human rights that created Lefkowitz's position.
Michael Horowitz, senior adviser to the Washington-based Hudson
Institute, said the U.S. has to push China to change its stance
on defectors by threatening sanctions.
"China must be forced to choose between supporting this regime
and sending those refugees to death camps in violation of law
and good relations with the U.S.," Horowitz said at the
U.S.-supported conference.
As a key ideological ally of Pyongyang, China views North Korean
defectors as "economic migrants," not refugees, and is obligated
to send them back under a bilateral treaty. Activists say China
repatriates up to 400 defectors to the North every week.
But China has allowed those involved in high-profile cases to
travel to South Korea, usually via a third country, to avoid
international opprobrium.
Joel Charny, vice president of Washington-based Refugees
International, said no solution will be possible unless China
changes its policy - something critics expect is unlikely to
happen in the near future.
Still, he said tough measures - like sanctions and campaigns to
either boycott or switch the venue of 2008 Beijing Olympics -
would grab Chinese attention but also backfire.
"If China retaliated with sanctions, for example by stopping to
purchase U.S. Treasury debts, the U.S. economy would be in huge
trouble very quickly," Chary said.
South Korea and China have largely remained silent on North
Korea's human rights situation out of fear that their vocal
criticism could anger the North and complicate international
effort to end its nuclear program.
Human rights activists also criticized the United States for
being reluctant to accept ordinary North Korean defectors who
sought asylum in American missions abroad.
Tim Peters, founder of Helping Hands Korea, said U.S. diplomats
refused to accept North Korean defectors in China, Vietnam and
Thailand over the past six months. "They told me, 'Don't bring
them here to the U.S. embassy, please take them to the UNHCR
office,'" Peters said.
>> Go back to main News Article page
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
|
|
