[USFK Forums] South Korea perpetuates North Korea rights abuse: experts [Reuters]

[C. Y. Lee]

[Uploaded by C. Y. Lee on Friday, Dec. 8, 2005]

Thursday December 8, 5:46 PM

South Korea perpetuates North Korea rights abuse: experts

SEOUL (Reuters) - Inaction by South Korea on human rights violations in North Korea not only perpetuates suffering there but also encourages misguided and dangerous beliefs about the communist state, experts and defectors said on Thursday.

Hundreds of human rights advocates and refugees who fled the North are meeting in Seoul for two days to urge action by the South Korean government and the international community to improve human rights conditions in the North.

South Korea's government argues that it does work to improve human rights but prefers not to make it a high-profile topic for fear of aggravating Pyongyang.

"The North Korean dictatorial regime has left no tactic untried in trying to paralyse human rights in the North," said Hwang Jang-yop, a former North Korean communist party ideology chief and the highest-ranking official to defect to the South.

Hwang defected in 1997 and has been a vocal critic of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. He said North Korean propaganda devised to keep Kim in power has reached the South and stirred up "madness" across the border.
He criticised South Koreans who blindly commit to engaging the North.

People had misguided beliefs about the North that would be immediately dashed if they visited the country to see conditions for themselves, he said.

"We have people who choose to defend the North and oppose the United States only from hearing what Kim Jong-il and his group say," he said. "This is a disgrace." "We need more than talk. It's time to take dramatic actions to save human rights in the North," he said.

Rights activists say the North has a network of prison camps and executes opponents.

CARROT, NOT STICK

Seoul emphasises engaging the North and improving its economy to try to ensure stability on the divided peninsula. "We do care about human rights in North Korea. We just have different approaches to the issue," a South Korean government official said by telephone.

But critics said the South Korean government has chosen to turn its back on abuses in the North. Concern in Seoul and Washington of a possible breakdown in six-party talks on ending North Korea's nuclear programmes has perpetuated those abuses, a U.S. human rights advocate said.

"The South Korean government has abandoned the North Korean people," Suzanne Scholte, head of the Defense Forum Foundation, told the conference.

The government of President Roh Moo-hyun had also chosen to let conditions persist because of concern for the collapse of North Korea and a possible nuclear attack, she said.

North Korea brands any criticism of its human rights record as part of U.S. conspiracy to topple its government. On Thursday, it demanded the European Union turn its eyes away from the North to "the hideous human rights committed by the U.S.".

The EU backed a key U.N. resolution last month that chastised the North for rights abuses. South Korea's unification minister told Reuters last month that Seoul favoured the carrot rather than the stick in dealing with the North. But Scholte said time was not on the North Korean people's side. "How many more North Koreans have to die before we stop this failed strategy?" she said.

(Additional reporting by Jon Herskovitz)