[USFK Forums] U.S. Seeks to Pressure Pyongyang [Korea Times]

[C. Y. Lee]

[Uploaded by C. Y. Lee on Saturday, December 9, 2005]

US Seeks to Pressure Pyongyang

The Korea Times, Friday, December 9, 2005

By Reuben Staines, Staff Reporter

A U.S. envoy for North Korean human rights Friday dismissed South Korean concerns that speaking out on humanitarian abuses by the Pyongyang regime will undermine peace on the Korean peninsula.

Jay Lefkowitz, who was appointed by Washington earlier this year to monitor rights conditions in the communist North, made the comments during the Seoul Summit, a high-profile conference organized by U.S. pro-democracy group Freedom House.

``We do not threaten the peace by challenging the status quo,’’ Lefkowitz told several hundred activists, diplomats and officials gathered at the Shilla Hotel.

``Indeed, failing to follow this path and take steps towards liberalization is a far greater risk to the long-term security and economic prosperity in the region.’’ Lefkowitz was responding to concerns expressed by the South Korean government that raising the human rights issue could cause North Korea to pull out of delicately balanced negotiations over its nuclear weapons programs.

Pyongyang has reacted angrily to past criticism of its rights record. ``I am aware that many in South Korea are wary that calling for greater human rights for North Korea is proxy for other aims, or an excuse to isolate and antagonize North Korea,’’ he said.

But improving the humanitarian conditions in what Lefkowitz called a ``deeply oppressive nation’’ was the only way North Korea could rejoin the international community, he argued. On Wednesday, the U.S. special envoy visited the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade to urge the government to take a more active stance on the human rights issue.

Friday, Lefkowitz directed his call to action at the South Korean people. ``We want to work with you to address the shocking affront to human dignity that holds the North Korean people in bondage,’’ he said.

North Korea sternly criticized Washington for raising the human rights issue. ``This is part of the U.S. strategy to realize regime change in our country,’’ the North’s Minju Choson newspaper charged in a commentary.

Apprehensive about the backlash from Pyongyang, South Korea declined to send an official representative to the conference, the second in a series of U.S.-funded events aimed at spotlighting North Korean human rights.

However, governing Uri Party Rep. Chung Eui-yong sought to defend Seoul’s ``silent policy’’ on the human rights issue in his address to the forum. ``I believe North Korean human rights should be seen from a more balanced perspective and also should be seen from a wider context,’’ said Chung, who is chairman of the National Assembly committee on foreign affairs.

He said South Korea’s top priority is preventing the reoccurrence of war on the Korean peninsula and trying to coerce the North could destabilize the peace process. ``We believe the best way to resolve the problem is reconciliation and cooperation, not confrontation,’’ Chung said. Speakers at the summit, including prominent North Korean defectors and religious leaders, stressed the desperate living conditions and lack of political freedoms in the communist state.

Around 40 international and local human rights groups participating in the summit jointly released a six-point action demanding North Korea put an end to public executions and torture.

Dubbed the Seoul Declaration, the document also called for the repatriation of the estimated 80,000 South Korean prisoners of war and abductees believed to be living north of the Demilitarized Zone.

Also attending the conference, Alexander Vershbow, U.S. ambassador to Seoul, flatly denied North Korea’s accusation that Washington is using humanitarian issues as a tool to topple leader Kim Jong-il.

``The U.S. government has no hidden agenda in raising the issue of human rights in North Korea, we simply want to improve the living conditions of the people of North Korea,’’ Vershbow told the Seoul Summit.

The ambassador also refused to back down on his description of Pyongyang as a ``criminal regime’’ during a meeting with journalists in Seoul on Wednesday. Vershbow rejected North Korean demands for the U.S. to lift financial sanctions imposed against Pyongyang-linked firms that Washington accuses of drug smuggling and counterfeiting American money.

North Korea said this week it will not resume six-party talks over its nuclear weapons programs until the sanctions are eased. But the U.S. diplomat said North Korea must ``stop creating artificial obstacles to negotiations and to move quickly to implement fully its commitment’’ to disarm.

rjs@koreatimes.co.kr 12-09-2005 16:54