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News Articles
U.S. pressures N.K. by accepting defectors '
by Lee Joo-hee |
[May 08, 2006]
The first ever acceptance by the United States of six North
Korean defectors as refugees is widely seen as an attempt by
Washington to ramp up the pressure on the communist regime over
its human rights abuses.
The United States has been extremely vocal about the North's
rights abuses in recent years, but was more hesitant when it
came to accepting defectors seeking asylum.
In a similar case, on April 27 Los Angeles immigration accepted
Suh Jae-seok as a political refugee. Suh had defected to South
Korea in 1999.
At the time, the American authorities explained Suh's case was
just one of numerous immigration rulings and that the North
Korean Human Rights Act applied only to defectors directly from
North Korea and China.
U.S. President George W. Bush signaled the start of Washington's
more proactive position by meeting North Korean defectors and
families of Japanese abductees last month.
Bush promised to pressure the communist regime to change its
ways, according to the families.
In Oct. 2004, Congress passed the North Korean Human Rights Act
into legislation, providing wider latitude for North Korean
refugees to settle in the United States.
But the administration remained cautious, saying hasty
acceptances could risk national security.
Then in February, Jay Lefkowitz, Bush's special envoy on North
Korea's human rights, said the United States would soon begin
accepting North Korean refugees.
"We will be in a position relatively soon to welcome North
Korean refugees into the United States," Lefkowitz told a
Congressional hearing, where lawmakers criticized the
administration for a delay in accepting the refugees.
The human rights situation has also been complicated by the
efforts of the United States and four other nations to persuade
North Korea to abandon its nuclear programs.
While the United States and Japan wish to address the human
rights problem together with the nuclear issue, South Korea and
China remain uncertain about the wisdom of this.
South Korea's Unification Minister Lee Jong-seok said in March,
"There now also exist voices (in Washington) that they (the
United States) need to first confirm the North's willingness to
open up, and that it may be better to tackle other issues such
as human rights at the same time."
But he added that such ideas have yet to make their way into the
mainstream of the U.S. administration.
However, that situation was to change. Washington hardliners
increased their presence in the mainstream and added weight to
the overall offense against the communist state as the six-party
talks bogged down.
The next round of the negotiation that brings together the two
Koreas, the United States, China, Japan and Russia is being
delayed by Pyongyang's protest against financial sanctions
imposed by Washington.
Lefkowitz even criticized the Seoul government during the North
Korea Freedom Week in Washington, saying that North Korean
workers at the inter-Korean industrial complex in Gaesung were
being ill treated.
Seoul is being pressured by Washington to take harsher measures
against North Korea's human rights abuses.
Lefkowitz said during his visit to Seoul last year, "I would
hope that in the future, when resolutions like that (endorsed in
Nov. 2005 on North Korean human rights) are put before the body
that the South Korean government can join."
Bush included the North in the "axis of evil" along with Iran
and Iraq in his 2002 State of the Union address. The
administration followed up the speech with additional
name-calling such as the "outpost of tyranny," taking aim
against the hermit state's brutal retaliation against escapees
and the operation of concentration camps.
Tim Peters, the head of North Korean defector support group,
Helping Hands Korea, told a hearing on Capitol Hill that he
tried to help a 17-year old defector but the U.S. Embassy in
Beijing refused to assist.
U.S. lawmakers continued to express frustration with the State
Department over what they saw as a lack of progress on the law
that should help refugees to settle in the United States.
At the Feb. hearing, lawmakers pointed out that no North Koreans
had been offered asylum since Bush signed the North Korean Human
Rights Act into law.
Republican Sen. Sam Brownback and 10 other members sent a letter
to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice this February, calling
for the acceptance of North Korean escapees.
Some observers said Washington's decision to offer asylum to the
refugees this time could also be aimed at putting some pressure
on China.
Lefkowitz has expressed his frustration over Beijing's refusal
to cooperate with the United States or the U.N. High
Commissioner for Refugees to alleviate the plight of North
Korean refugees, most of whom are in China.
He warned that Washington could force China into "arbitration"
at the world body to resolve the issue.
According to human rights groups, up to 300,000 North Koreans
have fled to China, escaping oppression and starvation in their
Stalinist homeland.
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