Living Under Father Kim Il Sung
A few weeks back I covered a little bit about what it is like to be a Christian and live under religious persecution in North Korea. Today Front Page Mag.com has a nice interview with David Hawk, a former director of Amnesty International in the USA.
FP: How can we help those who are persecuted because of religion in North Korea? What do you recommend US policy should be toward this issue? How can it help the oppressed?
Hawk: Several things: most immediately, US citizens should press both the Executive Branch and the Congress to fully implement the North Korean Human Rights Act of 2004. That Act has many modest but concrete steps that can be taken. Unfortunately it is not being implemented. Secondly, NGOs that seek to raise human rights issues about North Korea, groups such as the US Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, desperately need financial support. US policy-wise, in the longer run, or larger geo-political picture, with the exception of famine relief or Nunn-Lugar type expenditures for the dismantlement of North Korea’s nuclear weapons materials and programs, economic assistance – bilateral or such multi-lateral assistance as the US can influence – such as loans or grants from USAID, the World Bank or ADB, the IMF or access to US markets and investments should be conditioned on North Korean human rights improvements, starting with cooperation with the ICRC and UN human rights officials. If North Korea wants to remain the juche version of the “hermit kingdom” there is little the outside world can do. However, if North Korea wants to join the international community and economy of the 21st century, then the international community can insist that North Korea begin to seriously comply with the international human rights norms and standards of the modern world, including freedom of thought, consience, religion and belief.