Studying North Korean human rights: A South Korean’s perspective | NK News - North Korea News

Studying North Korean human rights: A South Korean’s perspective | NK News - North Korea News




Studying North Korean human rights: A South Korean’s perspective
Years of experience indicate that working with the North the only way to achieve progress


Ji-young Song
December 28th, 2015


Before inter-Korean relations reached the peak of the 2000 Summit, South Korean businesses, civil society and academic communities had already reached a heightened mode of economic cooperation and cultural exchanges with the North.

In 1999, Hyundai cruises were boarding South Koreans and passing through the sea border to Mount Kumgang. I was on the second Kumgang tour, waking up with the mesmerizing sight of the mountain and malnourished young soldiers who were guarding the port. It was a moving moment for a graduate student in North Korean studies.

Later that year, I also went on academic fieldwork to northeastern China, in Yanbian, a city close to the border with the North to interview a dozen North Korean irregular migrants who had fled the country, mainly for economic reasons, to seek food and shelter. Among the defectors we met were unaccompanied minors as young as 15. I was new to North Korean refugee studies and very emotional, listening to their stories while reflecting on the sad reality of our divided Korean Peninsula. It is this emotion that captures the minds of many young students in South Korea and the West who are interested in North Korean human rights issues, just as it was when I first started studying North Korea in 1999.


(Human rights groups and humanitarian groups) were complementary, not antagonistic, to each other

1999 was also the year I started volunteering for non-governmental organizations (NGOs) on North Korean human rights and humanitarian assistance. I visited almost every NGO in South Korea to learn about their involvement with North Korea. The Citizens’ Alliance for North Korean Human Rights organized annual events to campaign against human rights violations in North Korea while Good Friends and the Eugene Bell Foundation paid regular visits to provide humanitarian aid to villages and hospitals. They were complementary, not antagonistic, to each other. The two groups often gathered to discuss how to improve the dire humanitarian situation in the northern half of the peninsula.

The so-called Sunshine Policy was the only sensible way to improve inter-Korean relations, slowly break down barriers and make progress for our Northern brothers and sisters. President Kim Dae-jung (1998-2003) won the Nobel Peace Prize for this.

After Roh Moo-hyun entered the Blue House in 2003, politics in the South got in the ways of dealing with the North. The progressive vs. conservative approaches to the North became more prominent, dividing society in a mutually exclusive manner. I joined the National Human Rights Commission as a human rights officer in November 2002 and, together with three other senior members of the commission, set up an internal study team on North Korean human rights. We met regularly to discuss how to approach the highly politicized issue given the commission’s mandates and produced several internal publications. I was the executive officer for this study group until I left the commission in April 2004.

The founding members of the National Human Rights Commission of South Korea were largely composed of former democratic activists and lawyers, the so-called “progressive” faction. Although the progressives were sincerely worried about human rights in North Korea, they were reluctant to address the issue publicly as they prioritized friendly inter-Korean relations to human rights campaigns against the Northern regime that could jeopardize the former. Human rights do not always trump their values and ideals for greater national goals.

There was still a sense of political agreement among the progressive that amicable inter-Korean relations would eventually change elite minds in the North. It was a perfectly rational policy that needed long-term political vision and implementation. However, since Lee Myung-bak took power and Park Geun Hye continued the hawkish policy toward Pyongyang, the engagement approach has been labeled “pro-North Korea” or chongbuk (followers of the North).

HIGHS TO LOWS

Back in 2004, a stint at the National Assembly as a political advisor offered me an exclusive opportunity to witness the “governmentality” of the former democratic activists entering the legislative power. The MP I worked for was one of the newly elected members of parliament of the then-ruling Uri Party. The 2004 General Election felt like the ultimate victory of former democratic and student activists from the ’80s. Many of the newly elected were termed the “386 Generation,” i.e. in their 30s, went to university in the ’80s and born in the ’60s. They were highly inspired by their own victory. Many, however, were not competent to run a divided South that could prepare the future generation for the 21st century. There were many drunken nights, celebrating the generational victory and heroic past against human rights violations in the South. The ongoing violations in the North felt like a pain in the gut but not something they would raise in upcoming ministerial meetings with Pyongyang.

In the same year, the United Nations (UN) broke the its long silence and appointed the first Special Rapporteur (SR) on North Korean human rights. In a meeting with first SR, Vitit Muntarbourn, I remember him being careful not to make politically immature judgments in dealing with a difficult country like North Korea. He widely consulted with various groups in Seoul, Tokyo and Washington.

At the time, studying how North Korea understands and utilizes concepts of human rights, was a natural doctoral thesis topic for anyone who was interested in North Korean human rights. I didn’t have to be “pro-North Korea” in order to make scholarly inquiries about the country’s constitution, criminal law, the Rodong Sinmun newspaper, the works of their leaders, their magazines, the Kunroja or the Chollima movement for clues on this topic. It was also a perfect subject as no one had ever done it before.

This sentiment would not last.

While Seoul was trying to maintain good relations with the North, Washington was busy passing the North Korean Human Rights Act (NKHRA), which included large funding for NGOs. The NKHRA funded many NGOs, mainly Christian groups advocating against Pyongyang’s violations and encouraged others operating underground churches in China to rescue North Korean asylum seekers. It was not surprising to see the surge of North Korean arrivals in the South after the 2004 NKHRA.

Since the right-wing shift in South Korea after Roh Moo-hyun, the North Korean studies community in the South has been so severely polarized that it could never reach any consensus on how to proceed. It was also joined by new North Korean arrivals, some of who turned themselves avid human rights activists against the North Korean regime. Since then, the subject has been owned by right-wing groups.


Maintaining good relations with the North to change them gradually is no longer a persuasive logic

With the appointment of the second Special Rapporteur, Marzuki Darusman, in 2010, along with the UN Security Council resolutions and the establishment of the Commission of Inquiry in 2013, it’s clear the international community has started losing tolerance with Pyongyang and its young and militant leader. Killing his own uncle, shipping weapons from Cuba, shelling a South Korean island, occasional missile tests and detaining Americans were good enough reasons to lose many former sympathizers in the South, too.

Defending North Korea’s human rights situation is almost a sin now. Maintaining good relations with the North to change them gradually is no longer a persuasive logic for any party in the South or internationally.

At the end of 16 years’ of watching North Korea, what I still struggle with is accurate information and access to the country. Without this access, human rights campaigns would only stay as void allegations and analyses of North Korea are only informed guesses at best. The country has long been isolated, mainly for its own faults. It needs to be open for any independent investigator to probe alleged violations.

Yet, whether we like it or not, interactions with the country are the only way to open up its society. It is also a more sustainable method to bring changes to the North. No matter how we do it, opening up is the only viable option to stop human rights violations in North Korea and to verify our loaded and frequently ideological assumptions about the country.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR


Ji-young Song

Jiyoung (Jay) Song is a senior lecturer in Korean studies at the Asia Institute of the University of Melbourne, Australia. Previously, she was a director of migration at the Sydney-based Lowy Institute and assistant professor of political science in Singapore. She is the author of Human Rights Discourse in North Korea: Postcolonial, Marxist, and Confucian Perspectives (London: Routledge 2010).READ MORE ARTICLES