North Korea Human Rights Act

NORTH KOREA HUMAN RIGHTS ACT

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I believe this body is about to consider and pass the North Korea Human Rights Act and our amendment in the nature of a substitute. It is cleared through the House of Representatives and is on our consent calendar. It is about to clear through here, I believe, and I am thankful to the Foreign Relations Committee, the staff of the committee, the chairman and ranking member, for their work getting this moved forward.

This is about the fundamental human rights of the people of North Korea. It is my hope that this will pass today-and if not today, at least Monday.

It is no secret that North Korea policy continues to be a matter of intense debate at the highest levels of our Government and governments around the world. Reasonable people with good intentions disagree vehemently on various aspects of what an appropriate North Korea policy should be.

This is why I am pleased that the Senate, along with the House of Representatives, will soon be able to come together in unity and speak clearly on one particular set of issues regarding North Korea, and that is the most fundamental rights, human rights, of the people of North Korea, and to put that in a policy position.

The people of North Korea have endured some of the most horrendous assaults on the inherent dignity of human beings of any group of people in the world. Inside North Korea, the totalitarian dynasty of the Kim regime permits no dissent and maintains an inhumane system of prison camps that houses an estimated 200,000 political inmates.

I have held a hearing on this. We have had satellite photography. People who have left the country have testified about this system of gulags that exists and is in operation today in 2004.

The regime strictly prohibits freedoms of speech, press, religion, assembly, and movement. Torture and execution, often in public, are regular tools of state control. Since the collapse of the centralized agricultural system in the 1990s, more than 2 million North Koreans are estimated to have died of starvation and related diseases. That is nearly 10 percent of the total North Korean population-over 2 million people.

North Koreans outside of North Korea are also targets of abuse. Many thousands are hiding inside China, which currently refuses to allow the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees to evaluate and identify genuine refugees among the North Korean migrant population. This is so even though China is a signatory and has obligations as a party to the U.N. Refugee Convention.

China forcibly returns North Koreans to North Korea where they routinely face imprisonment and torture and sometimes execution. The stories from North Korean refugees who are able to get out are absolutely horrific.

Inside China, North Korean women and girls are particularly vulnerable to trafficking and sexual exploitation. Recent reports also indicate that chemical and biological experiments are going on in the country's gulags inside North Korea.

Let me explain what the bill does. The bill promotes the human rights of North Koreans by funding private, nonprofit human rights and democracy programs, increasing the availability of nonstate-controlled sources of information to North Koreans and U.S. broadcasting into North Korea, urging additional North Korea-specific actions by the U.N. High Commission on Refugees and by the U.N. Human Rights Commission.

The bill promotes responsible assistance to the North Korean people by increasing funding for humanitarian assistance to North Koreans outside North Korea. This would include refugees, orphans, widows, and trafficking victims.

The bill endorses U.S. support for providing humanitarian aid inside North Korea but conditioning increases over current levels upon significant improvements in transparency, access, and monitoring. To date, we have had no transparency; very little monitoring has been able to take place of the humanitarian aid we have provided to North Korea. It conditions future direct aid to the North Korean Government on substantial progress on human rights and transparency benchmarks.

Let me elaborate a little bit on this final point. In an AP story this morning that ran in the Kansas City Star, appearing in many papers across the country, the headline reads: "North Korea Asking for More Foreign Aid." The article quotes an NGO official that the North Korean Government wants not only additional humanitarian aid but also technical assistance and developmental cooperation.

At the same time, we have stories and information from Secretary of State Colin Powell warning North Korea against conducting a new missile test.

It would be naive for us to think that North Korea was not making a connection between the two. That is, if aid is not forthcoming, they will test new missiles. If that is not blackmail, I don't know what is. This bill will make it clear that as a matter of U.S. policy, we will not give in to those threats.

At the same time, I doubt that anyone in this body would oppose providing aid if there were assurances that the distribution and use of such aid were conditioned on substantial improvement in human rights and transparency benchmarks, that NGOs would get complete access to vulnerable populations, that such aid would be clearly marked and targeted for children and people in need and not the North Korean military apparatus, and that the North Korean Government demonstrates that it is cooperating with NGOs.

The bill additionally protects refugees by clarifying U.S. policy toward North Korean refugees, and the eligibility of North Koreans for U.S. asylum and refugee processing; urging the U.N. High Commission for Refugees to use all available means to gain access and provide assistance to North Koreans in China; and seeking solutions to North Korea's lack of access to refugee protections.

As amended, the bill also asks the President to appoint a special envoy for human rights in North Korea, a person of high distinction. We have in mind someone such as former Senator John Danforth, now the U.N. Representative for the United States to the U.N., who was so instrumental in bringing together the north/south peace accords in Sudan.

In addition, the bill requires a number of reports that will keep the issue of human rights front and center so that even as we continue to seek a resolution to the nuclear issue, which we should, that this matter of human rights is not swept under the carpet and that the matter of human rights does not become a mere afterthought.

For too long, we have challenged rogue regimes on such fundamental issues and values as freedom of thought, religion, assembly, and press to back down now. We are not going to. We are going to continue to challenge rogue regimes, such as North Korea, on how they treat their own people.

As experience has taught us, during the Cold War and the battle over ideas during that period, these are some of the most effective ways in which we can promote freedom: open and democratic institutions within these countries.

Recently, a leading member of South Korea's Congress said to me in my office that North Koreans fear the West's criticism of its human rights more than any criticism about its nuclear program. North Korea will throw up all kinds of bluster when it comes to their threat as a potential nuclear power, but if you engage them on human rights, they become silent because even they know they cannot hide from the shame of the crimes they have committed against their own people.

With this bill, the regime in Pyongyang will now have to answer for itself in multiparty talks or any other setting on such matters as the gulags, chemical experiments on human beings, the denial of food and deliberate policies of starvation as a political tool, and a thousand other ways they violated human rights by which this regime in Pyongyang maintains its tenuous hold on power.

I know some were concerned about the impact of the bill, but the bill does not tie the hands of the President and ongoing negotiations over North Korean nuclear activities. Rather, I believe this bill will strengthen our negotiating position.

As I said at the outset, I thank the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and the ranking member, Chairman Lugar and Ranking Member BIDEN, and their staff for their assistance in getting this bill to the floor. Hopefully, as I said, it will clear on Monday.

I thank the International Relations Committee, Chairman Leach of the Asia Pacific subcommittee and his staff, Jamie McCormick and Doug Anderson. Both Chairman Hyde and Congressman Lantos were critical in securing a bipartisan consensus in getting this bill to the floor in the House.

I also recognize Peter Yeo of Mr. Lantos' staff and Sean Woo of my staff for the tremendous work in getting this moving forward.

There is a humanitarian crisis in North Korea, a human rights crisis, and I believe on a humanitarian basis, we are seeing in places such as North Korea and the Sudan a use of a humanitarian tool to maintain power and, in the process, people are dying and being killed.

Countries such as North Korea and Sudan have created an axis of death on their own people. This should not be, and it should not be allowed to take place in this world today. We need to stand up for the human dignity of every person, wherever they are located in the world.

The North Korea Human Rights Act highlights this problem and establishes a position for this country that hopefully will be a model position for many countries around the world in dealing with the human rights tragedy inside North Korea.

I thank the Members of this body for allowing this presentation. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.