Happy April 1st from HRNK's Raymond Ha

Kim Shifts Course In Surprise Announcement


SEOUL, April 1 -- In an unexpected turn of events, Kim Jong-un, the First Secretary of the Korean Workers’ Party, announced at an Enlarged Meeting of the Politburo that Pyongyang would embark on a major policy shift, seeking to engage with the international community in good faith.

“For too long, the people of North Korea have been deprived of the benefits of the 21st century,” Kim said in the hour-long address, which was also broadcast live by Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). “We cannot wait any longer.”

Kim said that Pyongyang would return to the stalled Six-Party Talks “without precondition,” resume bilateral dialogue with Seoul on “all relevant issues,” including reunions for separated families and the fate of South Korean prisoners of war, and “seek a full accounting” of all foreign abductees held in North Korea. In the address, Kim also acknowledged full responsibility for the sinking of the Cheonan, a South Korean Navy corvette, in March 2010.

He also acknowledged receipt of the letter sent by the UN Commission of Inquiry in 2014 and invited the UN Special Rapporteur on North Korean human rights, Marzuki Darusman, to visit North Korea, promising complete access to all sites, including the country’s political prison camps.

The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva confirmed that it had received a request from Pyongyang to begin high-level talks on technical assistance.

By issuing an invitation to the Special Rapporteur, Kim admitted to the existence of these political prison camps, which the regime had firmly denied until today. These camps had been the focus of the international community's criticism of the North Korean regime's human rights record. Kim added that all UN agencies would be granted humanitarian access to these prison camps, effective immediately.

The announcement also included domestic reforms, including a significant cut to military spending, the abolishment of its discriminatory class system, the lifting of domestic and international travel restrictions, and a series of economic measures aimed at restructuring the North Korean economy and promoting transparency to attract international aid and investment.

International reactions to this address were largely positive.

Immediately after an emergency meeting of the National Security Council, a high-level South Korean official welcomed Kim’s statement, noting that this was “a long overdue first step towards rebuilding trust on the Korean peninsula,” and a “crucial step on the path to reunification.”

White House officials also heralded the move as a “historic decision,” stating that “we will continue to work very closely with our partners in Seoul in the coming weeks and months to respond to this unprecedented development.” They added that no unusual military activity has been detected inside North Korea since Kim's announcement, although the U.S. and South Korean military will maintain a heightened state of readiness for the foreseeable future.

An unnamed official at the State Department said that Kim’s policy shift was “an unambiguous victory” for the proponents of “strategic patience,” the administration’s policy towards North Korea that had come under intense criticism in recent years.

Tokyo also issued a positive statement, saying that it “looks forward to talks with Pyongyang to seek a full accounting of our abducted citizens,” and that it would “review the lifting of bilateral sanctions” that had only recently been imposed.

A spokesperson for China's Foreign Ministry only gave brief remarks, calling for all parties to “exercise restraint and maintain peace and stability on the Korean peninsula.” There have been reports of internal security forces being placed on high alert across China, possibly in preparation for an influx of refugees into the country’s three northeastern provinces.

When asked about the possibility of North Korea being admitted to the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) in light of today’s speech, he said that “all interested parties are welcome to join. We are not aware of this ever being an issue.”

Moscow, which has invited Kim to attend its victory parade in early May, has yet to issue an official statement.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also welcomed Kim’s announcement, stating that all UN agencies would "do their utmost" to provide necessary assistance to the North Korean people.

While assessing Kim's speech positively, Special Rapporteur Marzuki Darusman said "the international community must uphold the 'two-track approach' of continuing to seek full accountability for crimes against humanity even as it engages with North Korea." He added that his office will be arranging a visit to North Korea as soon as possible by coordinating with all interested parties and organizations.

Reactions were mixed among the expert community.

Professor Victor Cha of Georgetown University expressed surprise, stating that the “international community will have to watch very closely to see whether the regime follows through on its promises,” recalling Pyongyang’s past record of reneging on its international commitments. Nevertheless, he said, “it is very encouraging that North Korea is returning to negotiations.”

Others assessed that Kim’s speech reflects the influence of his education in Switzerland. They claimed that Kim had spent the past three years consolidating power in preparation for this shift, and the complete absence of unusual military activity after the speech was particularly notable.


Greg Scarlatoiu, the Executive Director of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK), an organization that focuses on researching the human rights situation in the reclusive state, urged caution even as he welcomed Kim’s speech.


“We need complete, verifiable, and irreversible dismantling of not only Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs, but also its internal security apparatus and the political prison camps,” Scarlatoiu said, adding that “the international community must not be fooled by Kim’s rhetoric, no matter how unprecedented it may be. We cannot believe anything until we see tangible changes on the ground.”

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Categories: committeehrnk, DPRK, engagement, HRNK, humanrights, KimJongUn, NK, NorthKorea, SpecialRapporteur, UNCOI, WashingtonDC

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