[USFK Forums] U.S. urges Seoul to speak out on N Korea human rights [AFP]

[C. Y. Lee]

[Uploaded by C. Y. Lee on Saturday, December 10, 2005]

US urges Seoul to speak out on NKorea human rights

AFP, Fri Dec 9, 9:56 AM ET

The United States urged South Korea to break its silence on human rights in North Korea, dismissing Seoul's concerns that Pyongyang could break off dialogue over the nuclear standoff.

Jay Lefkowitz, appointed human rights envoy by President George W. Bush in August, said he had "candid and direct" talks with South Korean government officials in which "differences" emerged on North Korea.

The South Korean government insists that confronting North Korea is counter-productive and dangerous at a time when six-way dialogue on ending North Korea's nuclear weapons drive hangs in the balance.

The top priority, said a lawmaker for the ruling Uri Party, was removing the fear of starvation from North Korea and then guaranteeing peace and security on the Korean peninsula by maintaining dialogue.

A famine in the mid-1990s killed around two million North Koreans and millions are still at risk from starvation, according to Western aid groups.
The two Koreas are also engaged in bumpy six-way talks with the United States, China, Japan and Russia on how to end the three-year-long North Korean nuclear standoff.

Human rights were "last but not least," said Chung Eui-Yong, who chairs the National Assembly's foreign affairs committee, speaking at a human rights conference on North Korea here.

Lefkowitz, however, said the time was ripe for human rights discussions.
"Millions of people in South Korea recognise that given the situation and lack of freedom in North Korea it is important to participate and be a bit vocal ...," he told journalists after speaking at the conference.

Seoul rarely criticizes the North and has been branded an appeaser by conservative critics.

"Silent diplomacy has killed many North Korean people and many North Korean defectors are suffering," Kim Moon-Soo, a member of the National Assembly for the opposition Grand National Party, told the three day conference bringing together hundreds of officials and human rights activists.

South Korea abstained from voting on a UN General Assembly resolution adopted last month expressing concern about lack of basic freedoms in North Korea.

But ruling-party lawmaker Chung, a former diplomat, denied Seoul had turned a blind eye to human rights north of the border. "We are not just a country of pacifists and appeasers as some critics have said," Chung said.

He said that the best way to deal with the unpredictable regime was not to impose pressure or demands but to engage with Pyongyang.
Pyongyang's official media said Washington and its allies were using human rights as part of a campaign to overthrow the communist regime in North Korea.

"Only those imbeciles ... are obsessed by their daydream to 'bring down its system'," the official Korean Central News Agency said in a dispatch monitored here.

"Such stupid guys who bark at the moon cannot know about the DPRK (North Korea till their death."

Lefkowitz said there was no hidden agenda on regime change.

"A lot of people have asked me what my real agenda is," he said. "So let me be very clear ... it is to try to help to improve the lives of people who are suffering because of a lack of freedom in North Korea."

He said that he had the full backing of new US ambassador to Seoul, Alexander Vershbow, a former US envoy to Moscow whom he described as a "real hero when it comes to human rights."

Vershbow, who took over as ambassador in October, upset South Korean officials on Thursday when he referred to North Korea as a criminal regime engaged in weapons proliferation, drug dealing and counterfeiting.