Archive for March, 2000
Posted by Joshua on March 7, 2000 at 10:27 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
First, does anyone suppose John Bolton would have been nominated if things weren’t going at least reasonably well in Iraq? Or abyssimally within the U.N.?
Granted, as Kipling told us, triumph and disaster are two impostors, and the crowing that it’s all over (or a even new 1989) may be a bit premature, even if we hope earnestly that they aren’t. I never considered Iraq a case of guerrilla war, which most military people will define as a resistance movement that hides and shelters among broad-based popular support. If it was that anywhere, it was in the Sunni Triangle, but only until we shrewdly pulled back and let the “insurgents” control part of it for a few months. By November, they’d beheaded their own popular support even in their own base. And by January, the idea that the Michael Moore’s minutemen were carrying out anything more than a politically-motivated crime wave with no political goals was refuted by the empirical evidence of votes.
Today, we also hear the most encouraging news yet about the state of the Taliban’s disintegration. Whatever is left of it, Mullah Omar appears not to control. It must be disspiriting to see the value of his head fall so low. We’ll be more certain in about six weeks, after the fighting season has started.
Yep, plenty can still go wrong. But success seems to have many fathers of late, just as a few of its true fathers seemed ready to deny paternity for the colicky wriggler last May. We have learned that many people across the political spectrum are made of wobbly stuff. No one will ever say that about John Bolton.
* * * * *
Plenty of other alarming things are being said about Bolton, particularly here in the New York Times. For all its shrill hyperbole, the piece is still informative. Of course, if you’re reading this blog, odds are you’ve read the Times enough to spot the familiar tricks, such as the old standard of vicarious editorializing-by-quotation:
“Mr. Bolton is seen as among the most hawkish of President Bush’s advisers, and as among those who are most sympathetic toward unilateral action, and perhaps least sympathetic toward a multilateral approach to things,” said Robert Hathaway, director of Asia studies at the Woodrow Wilson International Center in Washington.
Yeah. You say that like it’s a bad thing. More on Bolton and that tired old “unilateralism” horse later.
“Certainly, many people around the world will see this nomination as raising questions about the president’s sincerity in wanting to work in a cooperative fashion, a multilateral fashion,” he said. Mr. Hathaway predicted the nomination would be seen as “disquieting” and curious.”
You can’t get a lot more condescending than that. You can almost see the brows furrow in Paris and Brussels.
After a period in which the Bush administration has emphasized a desire for international cooperation, underscored by the president’s trip to Europe, the nomination of Mr. Bolton appeared to show that hard-liners on foreign policy still carry clout in a clearly divided administration.
I’d grant that it’s a victory for those the Times calls hard-liners, but “divided?” With the exit of Colin Powell, Richard Armitage, and a whole rick of dead wood at the CIA, I’m not sure who stands in opposition to the Bolton faction. We’ve all seen Bush’s Braveheart speech, and nothing I’ve read suggests that Bolton was ever at odds with Condi Rice, who’s far to the right of Powell and Armitage. And as the Times points out, “Mr. Bolton has been championed in the past by Vice President Dick Cheney.” Seems to me that gives Bolton the full trifecta. Mathematically speaking, divided by one is more like it. Now brace yourself for a parade of horribles that should send you scurrying for your beaujolais:
Mr. Bolton is widely quoted as having said at a panel discussion in 1994 that “if the U.N. secretariat building in New York lost 10 stories, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference.”
Granted, that one wouldn’t pass in the post-9/11 world, but of course, Bolton wasn’t suggesting bombing or destruction or loss of life; he was merely pointing out the belief–since confirmed a dozen times over–that the United Nations doesn’t really do anything competently above the level of delivering modest amounts of emergency relief and innoculating kids. Those are good things, of course, but when it comes to making peace or foreign policy or stopping man-made disasters (Rwanda, Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, Darfur, Somalia, North Korea) the U.N. is worse than useless. Not only does the U.N. generally fail to offer so much as empty words to console the corpses, it tends to interfere with saving the living. Those who believe in expanding the power, prestige, and influence of the U.N. should not be satisfied with this and ought to recognize that doing something about it begins with listening to the uneasy truths that Bolton is telling them, if they’ll listen. And of course, Bolton was not in government in 1994. If Jack Pritchard can open his mouth as a private citizen, then Bolton should have the same rights.
And in 1998 he dismissed a vote at the United Nations as irrelevant, saying, “this will simply provide further evidence to many why nothing more should be paid to the U.N. system.” Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, who served as the United Nations Ambassador under President Ronald Reagan, said in 2003 that Mr. Bolton “loves to tussle,” adding, “He may do diplomatic jobs for the U.S. government, but John is not a diplomat.”
As I said. And you can’t really call it criticism when it’s coming from Jeanne Kirpatrick. I’d agree with her that not only is Bolton no diplomat, that might not be what’s called for when dealing with people whose language consists of “human scum,” “sea of fire,” “Great Satan,” and “bloodsucker.” Those people are only looking for conciliation in the way that wolves scrutinize deer for limping and shortness of breath. Countries like North Korea and Iran don’t respond positively to diplomacy as they know it in Brussels. They respond to what they deal in themselves: fear. Consider for a moment that Bolton’s dangerous outbursts are more studied that they appear to the Times.
Of course, Bolton probably isn’t the hissing bomb they claim him to be if he’s managed to successfully negotiate such important matters as an arms reduction treaty with Russia and Libya’s disarmament. Yes, I promised you proof of John Bolton’s success at multilateralism. Here’s John O’Sullivan from the National Review:
He devised a practical way of halting the supply of weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups and rogue states — namely, the Proliferation Security Initiative — that the international community has now signed onto. The PSI advanced U.S. interests by recruiting those allies who could offer America real help to prevent its enemies obtaining weapons of mass destruction. That was pragmatic multilateralism of a high order.
The Times’s parade continues:
His hard line, and blunt talk, on nuclear negotiations with North Korea - he
has staunchly opposed concessions to Pyongyang unless it first rolls back its
nuclear program - has roiled the Bush administration’s already-difficult
dealings with the government there. In July 2003, as delicate six-party
talks including North Korean were about to start, Mr. called Kim Jong Il, the
North Korean leader, a “tyrannical dictator” of a country where “life is a
hellish nightmare.”
Come here and smell this. No, really–just stop long enough to consider how many supposedly intelligent folks at various editorial boards and think tanks take crap like this seriously when it’s hard to believe that the North Korean leadership itself does. This is landfill for the consumption of the masses in Wonsan (and at Yonsei University, of course; mustn’t forget the true believers).
North Korea responded furiously, saying that “such human scum and bloodsucker is not entitled to take part in the talks” and that Pyongyang no longer considered Mr. Bolton to represent the administration. The State Department removed him from its delegation.
So what part of that is not true? I see where you’re going here, which is that telling the truth is a bad thing in diplomacy. I differ.
Let’s review the benefits of happy talk with North Korea. Jimmy Carter and Bill Richardson talked happy and we got the Agreed Framework, followed by instantaneous North Korean cheating thereon. Madeleine Albright and Bill Clinton offered happy talk, and we got more cheating. Bush eventually chose to recognize the fact of the cheating, which meant that the talk got less pleasant and the minor annoyance of the U.N.-IAEA inspectors was summarily removed. But then for a very long time, to conspicuously include the SOTU and the inauguration speech, Bush held his tongue. And look what that got us.
Frankly, the only parties affected one way or another by what Bolton says are those parties eager to pretent that it actually matters. That would be the South Koreans, whose state of delusion is so far advanced that like a gangrenous limb, it may simply require amputation from the larger body. Democracy means at lot of things, including the freedom to have your capital become Kim Il Sung City.
As for Bolton being taken off the delegation, the State Department officially denied it, but if neither the Times nor National Review is buying it, that satisfies me . . . that the State Department suffers from testicular atrophy.
Mr. Hathaway of the Wilson Center said other parties to the Korean
nuclear talks had at least privately challenged Mr. Bolton’s confrontational
approach. But he also noted that the United Nations, for now, “is not where the
action is on the North Korea question.”
As I’ve said before, Bolton’s appointment was a statement. What it probably means is that Bolton will be locked and loaded to challenge North Korea’s proliferation and human rights records at the U.N., and very likely at the Security Council. I suspect that if you want to know “where the action is,” the bouncing ball you should be following has “Bolton” written all over it.
Mr. Bolton also raised concerns when he was quoted by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz in early 2003 as saying that the United States, after defeating Iraq, would “deal with” Iran, Syria and North Korea. And in June of that year he told the BBC that in the case of Iran, “all options are on the table.”
Like this one, for example. The horror! (it sounds cooler if you whisper it twice in hushed, Kurtzian madness)
In a 2002 interview with The New York Times, Mr. Bolton was asked about what seemed to be mixed signals from the Bush administration on North Korea. He grabbed a book from a shelf and laid it on the table. Its title: “The End of North Korea.” “That,” he told the interviewer, “is our policy.”
First, thanks for finding me that quote. And as you’ve probably guessed, those are my sentiments exactly. Now, it’s hard to know whether Bolton was trying to scare North Korea back to the bargaining table, hawk-engagement style, or whether he meant it. If I were the North Korean generals, I’d wager the latter, but since I’m not, count me skeptical.
I will close with a question for those of you who see this as a sign of the Apolcalypse–just what would be so damned bad about calling for democracy and human rights in North Korea just the way we’ve called for these things in Saudi Arabia or Lebanon? Would the harm of a “chaotic” change of regime really be worse than Zarkawi with a dirty bomb or another two million dead North Koreans? The main criticism of Bolton appears to be that he’s the guy who just stand up and say that.
Posted by joshua on March 7, 2000 at 5:27 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
First, does anyone suppose John Bolton would have been nominated if things weren’t going at least reasonably well in Iraq? Or abyssimally within the U.N.?
Granted, as Kipling told us, triumph and disaster are two impostors, and the crowing that it’s all over (or a even new 1989) may be a bit premature, even if we hope earnestly that they aren’t. I never considered Iraq a case of guerrilla war, which most military people will define as a resistance movement that hides and shelters among broad-based popular support. If it was that anywhere, it was in the Sunni Triangle, but only until we shrewdly pulled back and let the “insurgents” control part of it for a few months. By November, they’d beheaded their own popular support even in their own base. And by January, the idea that the Michael Moore’s minutemen were carrying out anything more than a politically-motivated crime wave with no political goals was refuted by the empirical evidence of votes.
Today, we also hear the most encouraging news yet about the state of the Taliban’s disintegration. Whatever is left of it, Mullah Omar appears not to control. It must be disspiriting to see the value of his head fall so low. We’ll be more certain in about six weeks, after the fighting season has started.
Yep, plenty can still go wrong. But success seems to have many fathers of late, just as a few of its true fathers seemed ready to deny paternity for the colicky wriggler last May. We have learned that many people across the political spectrum are made of wobbly stuff. No one will ever say that about John Bolton.
* * * * *
Plenty of other alarming things are being said about Bolton, particularly here in the New York Times. For all its shrill hyperbole, the piece is still informative. Of course, if you’re reading this blog, odds are you’ve read the Times enough to spot the familiar tricks, such as the old standard of vicarious editorializing-by-quotation:
“Mr. Bolton is seen as among the most hawkish of President Bush’s advisers, and as among those who are most sympathetic toward unilateral action, and perhaps least sympathetic toward a multilateral approach to things,” said Robert Hathaway, director of Asia studies at the Woodrow Wilson International Center in Washington.
Yeah. You say that like it’s a bad thing. More on Bolton and that tired old “unilateralism” horse later.
“Certainly, many people around the world will see this nomination as raising questions about the president’s sincerity in wanting to work in a cooperative fashion, a multilateral fashion,” he said. Mr. Hathaway predicted the nomination would be seen as “disquieting” and curious.”
You can’t get a lot more condescending than that. You can almost see the brows furrow in Paris and Brussels.
After a period in which the Bush administration has emphasized a desire for international cooperation, underscored by the president’s trip to Europe, the nomination of Mr. Bolton appeared to show that hard-liners on foreign policy still carry clout in a clearly divided administration.
I’d grant that it’s a victory for those the Times calls hard-liners, but “divided?” With the exit of Colin Powell, Richard Armitage, and a whole rick of dead wood at the CIA, I’m not sure who stands in opposition to the Bolton faction. We’ve all seen Bush’s Braveheart speech, and nothing I’ve read suggests that Bolton was ever at odds with Condi Rice, who’s far to the right of Powell and Armitage. And as the Times points out, “Mr. Bolton has been championed in the past by Vice President Dick Cheney.” Seems to me that gives Bolton the full trifecta. Mathematically speaking, divided by one is more like it. Now brace yourself for a parade of horribles that should send you scurrying for your beaujolais:
Mr. Bolton is widely quoted as having said at a panel discussion in 1994 that “if the U.N. secretariat building in New York lost 10 stories, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference.”
Granted, that one wouldn’t pass in the post-9/11 world, but of course, Bolton wasn’t suggesting bombing or destruction or loss of life; he was merely pointing out the belief–since confirmed a dozen times over–that the United Nations doesn’t really do anything competently above the level of delivering modest amounts of emergency relief and innoculating kids. Those are good things, of course, but when it comes to making peace or foreign policy or stopping man-made disasters (Rwanda, Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, Darfur, Somalia, North Korea) the U.N. is worse than useless. Not only does the U.N. generally fail to offer so much as empty words to console the corpses, it tends to interfere with saving the living. Those who believe in expanding the power, prestige, and influence of the U.N. should not be satisfied with this and ought to recognize that doing something about it begins with listening to the uneasy truths that Bolton is telling them, if they’ll listen. And of course, Bolton was not in government in 1994. If Jack Pritchard can open his mouth as a private citizen, then Bolton should have the same rights.
And in 1998 he dismissed a vote at the United Nations as irrelevant, saying, “this will simply provide further evidence to many why nothing more should be paid to the U.N. system.” Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, who served as the United Nations Ambassador under President Ronald Reagan, said in 2003 that Mr. Bolton “loves to tussle,” adding, “He may do diplomatic jobs for the U.S. government, but John is not a diplomat.”
As I said. And you can’t really call it criticism when it’s coming from Jeanne Kirpatrick. I’d agree with her that not only is Bolton no diplomat, that might not be what’s called for when dealing with people whose language consists of “human scum,” “sea of fire,” “Great Satan,” and “bloodsucker.” Those people are only looking for conciliation in the way that wolves scrutinize deer for limping and shortness of breath. Countries like North Korea and Iran don’t respond positively to diplomacy as they know it in Brussels. They respond to what they deal in themselves: fear. Consider for a moment that Bolton’s dangerous outbursts are more studied that they appear to the Times.
Of course, Bolton probably isn’t the hissing bomb they claim him to be if he’s managed to successfully negotiate such important matters as an arms reduction treaty with Russia and Libya’s disarmament. Yes, I promised you proof of John Bolton’s success at multilateralism. Here’s John O’Sullivan from the National Review:
He devised a practical way of halting the supply of weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups and rogue states — namely, the Proliferation Security Initiative — that the international community has now signed onto. The PSI advanced U.S. interests by recruiting those allies who could offer America real help to prevent its enemies obtaining weapons of mass destruction. That was pragmatic multilateralism of a high order.
The Times’s parade continues:
His hard line, and blunt talk, on nuclear negotiations with North Korea - he
has staunchly opposed concessions to Pyongyang unless it first rolls back its
nuclear program - has roiled the Bush administration’s already-difficult
dealings with the government there. In July 2003, as delicate six-party
talks including North Korean were about to start, Mr. called Kim Jong Il, the
North Korean leader, a “tyrannical dictator” of a country where “life is a
hellish nightmare.”
Come here and smell this. No, really–just stop long enough to consider how many supposedly intelligent folks at various editorial boards and think tanks take crap like this seriously when it’s hard to believe that the North Korean leadership itself does. This is landfill for the consumption of the masses in Wonsan (and at Yonsei University, of course; mustn’t forget the true believers).
North Korea responded furiously, saying that “such human scum and bloodsucker is not entitled to take part in the talks” and that Pyongyang no longer considered Mr. Bolton to represent the administration. The State Department removed him from its delegation.
So what part of that is not true? I see where you’re going here, which is that telling the truth is a bad thing in diplomacy. I differ.
Let’s review the benefits of happy talk with North Korea. Jimmy Carter and Bill Richardson talked happy and we got the Agreed Framework, followed by instantaneous North Korean cheating thereon. Madeleine Albright and Bill Clinton offered happy talk, and we got more cheating. Bush eventually chose to recognize the fact of the cheating, which meant that the talk got less pleasant and the minor annoyance of the U.N.-IAEA inspectors was summarily removed. But then for a very long time, to conspicuously include the SOTU and the inauguration speech, Bush held his tongue. And look what that got us.
Frankly, the only parties affected one way or another by what Bolton says are those parties eager to pretent that it actually matters. That would be the South Koreans, whose state of delusion is so far advanced that like a gangrenous limb, it may simply require amputation from the larger body. Democracy means at lot of things, including the freedom to have your capital become Kim Il Sung City.
As for Bolton being taken off the delegation, the State Department officially denied it, but if neither the Times nor National Review is buying it, that satisfies me . . . that the State Department suffers from testicular atrophy.
Mr. Hathaway of the Wilson Center said other parties to the Korean
nuclear talks had at least privately challenged Mr. Bolton’s confrontational
approach. But he also noted that the United Nations, for now, “is not where the
action is on the North Korea question.”
As I’ve said before, Bolton’s appointment was a statement. What it probably means is that Bolton will be locked and loaded to challenge North Korea’s proliferation and human rights records at the U.N., and very likely at the Security Council. I suspect that if you want to know “where the action is,” the bouncing ball you should be following has “Bolton” written all over it.
Mr. Bolton also raised concerns when he was quoted by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz in early 2003 as saying that the United States, after defeating Iraq, would “deal with” Iran, Syria and North Korea. And in June of that year he told the BBC that in the case of Iran, “all options are on the table.”
Like this one, for example. The horror! (it sounds cooler if you whisper it twice in hushed, Kurtzian madness)
In a 2002 interview with The New York Times, Mr. Bolton was asked about what seemed to be mixed signals from the Bush administration on North Korea. He grabbed a book from a shelf and laid it on the table. Its title: “The End of North Korea.” “That,” he told the interviewer, “is our policy.”
First, thanks for finding me that quote. And as you’ve probably guessed, those are my sentiments exactly. Now, it’s hard to know whether Bolton was trying to scare North Korea back to the bargaining table, hawk-engagement style, or whether he meant it. If I were the North Korean generals, I’d wager the latter, but since I’m not, count me skeptical.
I will close with a question for those of you who see this as a sign of the Apolcalypse–just what would be so damned bad about calling for democracy and human rights in North Korea just the way we’ve called for these things in Saudi Arabia or Lebanon? Would the harm of a “chaotic” change of regime really be worse than Zarkawi with a dirty bomb or another two million dead North Koreans? The main criticism of Bolton appears to be that he’s the guy who just stand up and say that.
Posted by Joshua on March 6, 2000 at 4:58 am · Filed under Uncategorized
Resolution Sixth International Conference on North Korean Human Rights and Refugees Seoul, South Korea, February 16, 2005
We have gathered for the 6th International Conference on North Korean Human Rights and Refugees from the countries of France, Poland, Norway, Republic of Korea, Russia, Taiwan, Singapore, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States of America, as well as defectors from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, to affirm to the people of the world, especially to the people of the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea, that they are entitled to the same freedoms, democratic values and human rights enjoyed by free people everywhere and enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The regime of North Korea is among the worst violators of human rights in our time despite having obligated itself to protect human rights by becoming a state party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women.
In addition to these activities we have pledged to undertake during the conference, we call for the following actions:
To the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, we call upon the regime to abide by the four human rights treaties it has signed, specifically to abolish the political prison camps and detention centers in North Korea where people are subjected to inhumane and cruel treatment, to end the use of torture, forced abortion and infanticide; to end the use of the testing of weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical weapons experimentation on political prisoners, and to release all returnees, detainees, abducted citizens of Japan and South Korea, prisoners of the Korean War, and any citizens currently being held in North Korea against their will;
To the People’s Republic of China, we call upon the PRC to release all humanitarian workers, including its own citizens and citizens of South Korea and the United States and any nation, it has jailed for helping North Korean refugees.
We furthermore call upon the PRC to abide by the international agreements it has signed, the 1951 U.N. Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, and Article III, paragraph 5 of the 1995 agreement on the Upgrading of the UNHCR Mission in the UNHCR Branch office in the PRC, and end the forced repatriation of North Korean refugees and provide unimpeded access to the UNHCR to interview all North Koreans seeking refuge.
To the International Community, We applaud the United States Congress for its recent unanimous passage of the North Korean Human Rights Act and encourage the U.S. administration to implement the provisions of the Act in a timely manner in order to save lives of the North Korean people and we applaud the legislators in the Republic of Korea and Japan who have pledged to adopt similar humanitarian measures, and furthermore, we call for other legislatures around the world to adopt similar humanitarian measures to help the North Korean refugees, to reach out to the North Korean people, to ensure that food aid reaches its intended recipients, and to make human rights a central component of any policy with North Korea.
We call on the citizens of the world to join in the peaceful demonstrations to be held on April 28, 2005, at the embassies and consulate offices of the People’s Republic of China which are aimed at changing the PRC’s policy of forced repatriation of North Korean Refugees and at gaining the release of Chinese citizens and international humanitarian workers who have been incarcerated for providing food, shelter and safety to North Korean refugees.
We especially appeal to those countries in the region to allow safe passage of North Korean refugees, to consider adopting a first asylum policy to protect at-risk North Korean men, women, and children, and to work cooperatively towards a multilateral agreement that provides safe haven.
We call for the adoption by business firms investing in the DPRK, especially South Korean and Japanese firms of a code of fair labor standards, including protecting children, similar to the Sullivan principles which were adopted during the Apartheid era in South Africa.
We also call upon the international trade union movement, especially the labor organizations in South Korea, to defend and protect their brother and sister workers in the DPRK from being exploited as a source of slave labor and subjected to inhuman working conditions.
To the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, we applaud the Commission for its condemnation of the North Korea regime for its human rights abuses, for their appointment of a Special Rapporteur for North Korean human rights and urge that the Commission continue to support his work and use all possible means to see his recommendations are carried out, and furthermore we applaud the Special Rapporteur’s findings defining nationals of the DPRK who cross the Chinese border as “refugees” or “refugees sur place.”
To the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees, we ask you to simply do your job, to implement your mission to secure your right to unimpeded access to the North Korean refugees in China and any nation by invoking binding arbitration and call upon the nations in the region to allow safe passage for North Korean refugees.
To the International Olympic Committee, we call upon you to change the venue of the 2008 Olympics from Beijing to another city, unless the People’s Republic of China ends its violent action of repatriation of North Korean refugees who face imprisonment and execution when they are returned to North Korea.
To the people of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, we especially want to affirm to you that we have heard your cries and know your suffering and that we stand with you in solidarity and pledge to work for the day when you may enjoy the same human rights and freedoms as enjoyed by free people throughout the world.
To this 6th International Conference on North Korea Human Rights and
Refugees, we pledge to continue to expand the international network devoted to saving the lives of North Koreans, working with as individuals and with our respective governments to focus the greatest attention on the human rights of the North Korea people until the light of human rights will shine on the entire Korean peninsula.
We express our deep appreciation to the Citizens Alliance for North Korea Human Rights and Refugees and the people of Seoul for hosting this International Conference and look forward to gathering in Norway next year for the 7th International Conference.
Resolutions Committee
Suzanne Scholte, Chairman, USA
Seong-Phil Hong, ROK
Pierre Rigoulot, France
Ann Buwalda, USA
Fumiaki Yamada, Japan
Posted by joshua on March 5, 2000 at 11:58 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
Resolution Sixth International Conference on North Korean Human Rights and Refugees Seoul, South Korea, February 16, 2005
We have gathered for the 6th International Conference on North Korean Human Rights and Refugees from the countries of France, Poland, Norway, Republic of Korea, Russia, Taiwan, Singapore, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States of America, as well as defectors from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, to affirm to the people of the world, especially to the people of the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea, that they are entitled to the same freedoms, democratic values and human rights enjoyed by free people everywhere and enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The regime of North Korea is among the worst violators of human rights in our time despite having obligated itself to protect human rights by becoming a state party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women.
In addition to these activities we have pledged to undertake during the conference, we call for the following actions:
To the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, we call upon the regime to abide by the four human rights treaties it has signed, specifically to abolish the political prison camps and detention centers in North Korea where people are subjected to inhumane and cruel treatment, to end the use of torture, forced abortion and infanticide; to end the use of the testing of weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical weapons experimentation on political prisoners, and to release all returnees, detainees, abducted citizens of Japan and South Korea, prisoners of the Korean War, and any citizens currently being held in North Korea against their will;
To the People’s Republic of China, we call upon the PRC to release all humanitarian workers, including its own citizens and citizens of South Korea and the United States and any nation, it has jailed for helping North Korean refugees.
We furthermore call upon the PRC to abide by the international agreements it has signed, the 1951 U.N. Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, and Article III, paragraph 5 of the 1995 agreement on the Upgrading of the UNHCR Mission in the UNHCR Branch office in the PRC, and end the forced repatriation of North Korean refugees and provide unimpeded access to the UNHCR to interview all North Koreans seeking refuge.
To the International Community, We applaud the United States Congress for its recent unanimous passage of the North Korean Human Rights Act and encourage the U.S. administration to implement the provisions of the Act in a timely manner in order to save lives of the North Korean people and we applaud the legislators in the Republic of Korea and Japan who have pledged to adopt similar humanitarian measures, and furthermore, we call for other legislatures around the world to adopt similar humanitarian measures to help the North Korean refugees, to reach out to the North Korean people, to ensure that food aid reaches its intended recipients, and to make human rights a central component of any policy with North Korea.
We call on the citizens of the world to join in the peaceful demonstrations to be held on April 28, 2005, at the embassies and consulate offices of the People’s Republic of China which are aimed at changing the PRC’s policy of forced repatriation of North Korean Refugees and at gaining the release of Chinese citizens and international humanitarian workers who have been incarcerated for providing food, shelter and safety to North Korean refugees.
We especially appeal to those countries in the region to allow safe passage of North Korean refugees, to consider adopting a first asylum policy to protect at-risk North Korean men, women, and children, and to work cooperatively towards a multilateral agreement that provides safe haven.
We call for the adoption by business firms investing in the DPRK, especially South Korean and Japanese firms of a code of fair labor standards, including protecting children, similar to the Sullivan principles which were adopted during the Apartheid era in South Africa.
We also call upon the international trade union movement, especially the labor organizations in South Korea, to defend and protect their brother and sister workers in the DPRK from being exploited as a source of slave labor and subjected to inhuman working conditions.
To the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, we applaud the Commission for its condemnation of the North Korea regime for its human rights abuses, for their appointment of a Special Rapporteur for North Korean human rights and urge that the Commission continue to support his work and use all possible means to see his recommendations are carried out, and furthermore we applaud the Special Rapporteur’s findings defining nationals of the DPRK who cross the Chinese border as “refugees” or “refugees sur place.”
To the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees, we ask you to simply do your job, to implement your mission to secure your right to unimpeded access to the North Korean refugees in China and any nation by invoking binding arbitration and call upon the nations in the region to allow safe passage for North Korean refugees.
To the International Olympic Committee, we call upon you to change the venue of the 2008 Olympics from Beijing to another city, unless the People’s Republic of China ends its violent action of repatriation of North Korean refugees who face imprisonment and execution when they are returned to North Korea.
To the people of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, we especially want to affirm to you that we have heard your cries and know your suffering and that we stand with you in solidarity and pledge to work for the day when you may enjoy the same human rights and freedoms as enjoyed by free people throughout the world.
To this 6th International Conference on North Korea Human Rights and
Refugees, we pledge to continue to expand the international network devoted to saving the lives of North Koreans, working with as individuals and with our respective governments to focus the greatest attention on the human rights of the North Korea people until the light of human rights will shine on the entire Korean peninsula.
We express our deep appreciation to the Citizens Alliance for North Korea Human Rights and Refugees and the people of Seoul for hosting this International Conference and look forward to gathering in Norway next year for the 7th International Conference.
Resolutions Committee
Suzanne Scholte, Chairman, USA
Seong-Phil Hong, ROK
Pierre Rigoulot, France
Ann Buwalda, USA
Fumiaki Yamada, Japan