[USFK Forums] U.S. officials call for human rights changes in North Korea [AFP]

[C. Y. Lee]

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

U.S. officials call for human rights changes in North Korea

The Associated Press. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2005

SEOUL - The U.S. envoy for human rights in North Korea argued Friday that the lack of basic liberties in the communist country was an international issue and called on the world to press the North to make changes.

Jay Lefkowitz, speaking at a U.S.-supported international conference on the issue in the South Korean capital, said a campaign to improve human rights in North Korea - which he labeled a "deeply oppressive nation" - would serve to strengthen regional stability, not shake it.

"We do not threaten the peace by challenging the status quo," Lefkowitz said in his first public appearance in South Korea. "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's remarks appeared to be pointed at the South Korean government, which has pursued a path of reconciliation with the North and has refrained from openly criticizing the human rights situation there.

South Korean officials say their policy of maintaining stability on the divided peninsula takes precedence over public demands for improving human rights. Chung Eui Yong, chairman of the foreign relations committee of the South Korean National Assembly and a member of the governing Uri Party, said Seoul was not ignoring human rights issues in the North.

"Human rights and economic aid are linked, but the government has no reason to officially confirm it," he told reporters at the conference. Chung said Seoul sought to refrain from "unnecessarily provoking North Korea," which might react by suspending inter-Korean negotiations. Lefkowitz, who was appointed this year to his position, has been charged with raising human rights issues in the North and providing assistance to North Korean refugees.

North Korea has railed against any criticism of its human rights record as a U.S.-backed effort to overthrow the regime led by Kim Jong Il. The North Korean newspaper Minju Joson said Friday: "The U.S. has become loud in trumpeting that there exists a human rights issue" in North Korea.

"This is, however, a product of its strategy to realize a regime change," the newspaper said in a commentary carried by KCNA, the official North Korean press agency.

The U.S. ambassador to Seoul, Alexander Vershbow, said that Washington was simply urging the North to make changes and live up to its obligations under the UN charter and other international treaties.

"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 said.

The United States wants North Korea "to change its policies and undertake reforms that end the hardships endured by its people," he said. Lefkowitz said there were growing signs that more information was reaching inside the isolated North, where citizens are denied access to outside media and subjected to omnipresent propaganda glorifying the regime founded by Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il's father.

"As dark as the situation may seem today, there may be some light beginning to peer through," Lefkowitz said. He said his office would try to increase efforts to get information inside the North. Calling on China to stop sending North Korean refugees back to their homeland, Lefkowitz said Beijing should also allow the UN refugee agency to have access to the defectors.

Fumiko Saiga, newly appointed Japanese special envoy on North Korea human rights, who was attending the conference, told reporters she hoped the event would have an impact there and also called for international cooperation on the issue.

The conference was organized by South Korean human rights groups and Freedom House, a pro-democracy organization partly funded by the U.S. government.