“Constructive Enragement” versus “Constructive Engagement” in North Korea

By Greg Scarlatoiu

Executive Director
Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK)

As Dr. James Chin-kyung Kim, a tireless advocate and practitioner of academic engagement with North Korea participated in the annual National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C. on February 6, spiritual and thought leaders from all over the world likely prayed for his success. Dr. Kim is the president and founder of the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (PUST). Funded by Evangelical Christians and based on faith and hope in emancipation through exposure to English speaking foreign professors, North Korea’s only private university professes to be grooming the next generation of leaders. The university’s foreign staff and faculty have no control over the admission process or post-graduation job placement.

A recent BBC Panorama documentary offered an unprecedented inside view of PUST. All 500 PUST students are men, said to be the sons of the elites. The only women on campus are the watchful and ubiquitous uniformed guards. All students appear to be in their early 20s. In North Korea, all men age 17 must join the military for at least 10 years. Have these young men been exempted from military duty for being North Korea’s best and brightest? Do they have to join the military after graduation? Do the years they spend at PUST count toward their military service?

Why would highly militarized North Korea relieve hundreds of bright, healthy, loyal sons of the elites from their obligation to serve in the military? The skills they acquire, especially English, computer engineering, international finance and management present the potential of dual use in North Korea’s cyber warfare operations or international illicit activities needed to sustain the regime. While all of North Korea’s universities are heavily regimented, PUST students certainly march, sing, talk, walk, and act like dutiful soldiers of the Kim regime.

Are PUST students those young men likely to lead the country in a positive direction, or those most likely to perpetuate the Kim regime? Dr. James Chin-kyung Kim claims: “Inside there, we truly have freedom.” According to a recent Voice of America interview with Sandralee and Robert Moynihan, former PUST professors, the couple was denied visa renewals, possibly because Mrs. Moynihan brought into the classroom a copy of the North Korean Constitution, asking students to determine whether it was adequately observed.

Proponents of engaging North Korea through academic exchanges, in the hope of creating agents of positive change, have put forth the precedent of the first Soviet students brought to the United States. Changing hearts and minds through training those hand-picked by totalitarian regimes is problematic, at least over the short to medium term. Twenty years after spending a year at Columbia University, then KGB General Oleg Kalugin masterminded the infamous 1978 “umbrella murder” of Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov in London.

The long-term benefits may come in due course: Oleg Kalugin helped counter the Soviet coup attempt in 1991, before resettling in the United States in 1995. The dark chapters of U.S.-trained Leopoldo Galtieri in Argentina and Manuel Noriega in Panama suggest that long-term benefits of exposure to freedom and democracy may never come. Jang Sung-taek, the former number 2 of North Korea, executed in December 2013, would likely attest that his nephew’s Swiss education may have enhanced his love of ski resorts, water parks, landscaping, and NBA hall of famers, but has not been conducive to allowing North Koreans the right to life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness.

In the 1980s, the late Congressman Stephen Solarz called for “constructive enragement” of economic sanctions as a moral imperative to end apartheid in South Africa. His appeal rebuked “constructive engagement,” which implied refraining from criticism of Pretoria. Congressman Solarz would favor “enragement” over “engagement” to change North Korea today. After meeting with Kim Il-sung in 1980 and 1991, a disenchanted Stephen Solarz declared: “My own experience in North Korea suggests that its commitments have about the same value as Tsarist war bonds.”

Today, North Korea is a post-communist, post-industrial, totalitarian kleptocracy that continues to control access to food, opportunity, and education based on loyalty to the regime. As its people suffer from food shortages, the North Korean regime presses on with the development of ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons. For more than a decade, the Washington, D.C.-based Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK), an organization once co-chaired by Stephen Solarz, has researched and reported on developments inside North Korea’s political prison camps, where 120,000 prisoners are held, often together with members of three generations of the detainee’s family.

On February 17, the UN Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in North Korea, aiming to determine if crimes against humanity have been committed in that country, will make its findings and recommendations public, a month ahead of the formal report submission to the UN Human Rights Council. The likelihood of “constructive enragement” over North Korea’s egregious human rights violations will be higher than ever before.

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Categories: analysis, committeehrnk, engagement, HRNK, humanrights, NK, NorthKorea, PUST, Solarz, UN, UNCOI, USA, VOA, WashingtonDC

North Korea Human Rights Outlook for 2014… ‘Concerning of Political Camps Expansion and Reign of Terror’

By Voice of America (VOA)

At Panmunjeom, south of the DMZ, a visitor is watching video footage of a political prison camp in North Korea.

People point out that the North Korean human rights issue deteriorated last year. We examine how the human rights situation will pan out in the new year with journalist Yung-kwan Kim.

Anchorman: There were many occurrences inside and outside North Korea which affected human rights last year, weren’t there?

Journalist: Yes, there were. The UN Human Rights Council established the UN Commission of Inquiry (COI) on North Korean human rights, which brought a lot of attention to the issue. However, the situation of those attempting to defect is worsening as surveillance, punishment and overall control of the people are on the increase. The execution of Jang Song-thaek was an example of the strengthening of Kim’s regime through “fearpolitik.”

An anchorman: What is your view on North Korea human rights issues this year?

Journalist: Many human rights organizations anticipate that the human rights situation in North Korea will not improve this year. Greg Scarlatoiu, Executive Director of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, pointed out three trends indicating that the outlook for this year is not bright.

[Tape-recording: Scarlatoiu] “ I do not anticipate spectacular improvements”
First, the Kim regime has intensified the crackdown on attempted defections in the border region between China and North Korea. Second, Kim has continued to exercise his “fearpolitik,” his reign of terror as we observed in the Jang Song-thaek execution and purging of associates. Third, the restructuring of the political prison camps will continue, and the number of prisoners will likely increase, due to the other two trends.”

Anchorman: It seems that North Korea’s dismal and deplorable human rights situation will continue this year.

Journalist: That is right. Human rights organizations are especially concerned with the possibility of an expansion of the political prison camps. The UN and human rights organizations estimate the current number of prisoners to be between 80,000 and 120,000, but that number is likely to increase.

Anchorman: Why do you think it will increase?

Journalist: That is because Kim Jong Un, the first secretary of the KWP secretariat, has been trying to strengthen his own regime through measures including the execution of his own uncle. According to sources inside North Korea, those families who were close to Jang Song Thaek have been imprisoned in political prison camp 15 at Yoduk. South Korean Minister of Unification Ryu Gil-jae also said, on December 30, that the purge in North Korea continues.

An anchorman: You mean to say that there may be more prisoners now because of the purge and the “reign of terror?”

Journalist: Yes. Some say that Jang’s execution brought more light to the human rights issue than even the UN Commission of Inquiry (COI). The execution has reminded the international community about political prison camps in North Korea. What we have learned is that North Koreans who attempted to defect to South Korea but were apprehended are no longer held in Kyohwaso (long-term prison labor facilities where prison terms are generally assigned), but in Kwanlisos (political prison camps, where imprisonment is generally indefinite). North Koreans caught watching or distributing smuggled South Korean TV shows have also been sent to political prison camps or executed. Due to these developments, the number of political prisoners is likely to increase.

An anchorman: What kind of response do you anticipate from the international community?

Journalist: The international community will strengthen their pressure against North Korea more than ever. That is because the UN Commission of Inquiry (COI) will release their final report about the North Korea human rights. Here is a comment by Greg Scarlatoiu, Executive Director at The Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, about the UN Commision of Inquiry’s report.

“If the UN Commission of Inquiry establish that……”

[Taping-recording: Greg Scarlatoiu] “If the UN Commission of Inquiry establishes that…”

If the UN Commission of Inquiry’s final report confirms that the North Korean regime has been committing crimes against humanity, the international community will intensify efforts to focus attention on North Korean human rights violations, and step up the pressure meant to bring about positive change.

Anchorman: What stage is the COI’s final report in?

Journalist: According to UN sources in Geneva contacted yesterday (December 31st), the first draft will be completed around the middle of January, and it will be viewed by members of the council of the United Nations. The report will be finalized in mid-February, and it will be officially submitted to the U.N. Human Rights Council in March.

Anchorman: What is the UN’s next step after releasing the final report?

Journalist: It depends on the result of the final report. The report’s recommendation will be essential in eliciting an international response. If determined that crimes against humanity have been committed, this could lead to further debate within the U.N. The UN Security Council could refer the case to the International Criminal Court. However, experts estimate that China and Russia will not be on board. Because of this, other suggestions have been made, such as creating a U.N. ambassadorship to North Korea, tasked with promoting human rights and managing humanitarian assistance, including North Korean human rights issues in the permanent agenda of the U.N. Security Council, together with the nuclear issue, or establishing a special tribunal similar to the one established to address the Khmer Rouge genocide in Cambodia.

Anchorman: Many nonprofit organizations were very active last year. What do you think about this year?

Journalist: I anticipate that these nonprofit organizations will be more active this year. Human Rights Watch, headquartered in New York, is currently looking to hire a Seoul-based researcher. Amnesty International, headquartered in New York, is planning on expanding its field research. The Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, headquartered in Washington, D.C., is planning on continuing its collaboration with organizations with a longstanding tradition of addressing human rights abuses, such as Holocaust Museums in the United States, aiming to dismantle North Korea’s political prison camps.

Anchorman: We have looked at what the international community should do regarding North Korean human rights in 2014, with journalist Kim Young-kwan.

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Categories: analysis, DMZ, fearpolitik, HRNK, humanrights, interview, NK, nonprofit, NorthKorea, UN, UNCOI, VOA