Hello all, I’m Hamel, a guest blogger here. Thanks to Marmot for giving me the honour of testing out my blog baby teeth here. The issues that I will be primarily focusing on are human rights issues related to North Korea, North Korean defectors, and any weird stuff that pops up unless Marmot gets to it first.
Some of you may be aware that next week from the 14th to the 17th of September, the 7th International Conference for National Institutions , or 7th ICNI -great acronym isn’t it? - will be held in Seoul. It is being hosted by the National Human Rights Commission of Korea (NHRCK), at the Lotte Hotel. On the outside wall of the NHRCK’s building in downtown Seoul, just to the right of City Hall if you’re standing on the new lawn there, you can see a big banner draped down the wall of the building already, advertising the big event. If you want to read more about the event or the NHRCK in Korean, you can check their homepage here.
According to the Korea Times, “more than 180 government delegates, NGO activists and members of international bodies from 70 countries will take part in the meeting, which will be hosted by the NHRC and the International Coordinating Committee of National Institutions for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights (ICC), an independent body for state human rights organizations.
This year?????s conference will center on preventing human rights violations occurring during conflict and while countering terrorism, which have steadily increased following the Sept. 11 terrorist attack in 2001 and the subsequent war declared against terrorism. ”
Now, it seems interesting that amongst the issues to be discussed there at a major international conference on human rights in Seoul, one issue not on the agenda is that of North Korean human rights, or anything relating to refugees/defectors at all. Sure, somebody might mention it in one of the sessions or working groups, but for something so topical and relevant to Korea not to be an actual item on the agenda of a conference being held here in Seoul, isn’t there something wrong with that?
Then again, the NHRCK is the same official government body that apparently has no evidence of any human rights violations occurring in the Kim Jong Il regime. At least, that is what the commissioner said in testimony to the Nationall Assembly in April last year. The Commission also endorses the abolition of the National Security Law, with Chairman Kim saying ???Korea has to accept the opinions and decisions of international society as a member. Its attitude toward North Korea also needs to reflect the changes in our time and its surroundings.???? Does it matter that North Korea may not have changed at all?
Are North Korean human rights to become the elephant in the room at the Lotte Hotel next week? Everyone knows they’re there, but nobody wants to talk about them. Hopefully, the delegates and muckety-mucks will have to file past a crowd of North Korean refugees who go to the Lotte Hotel to make their presence known.
12 Comments
Hi Hamel. Hope to see more from you in the future. A few things…
RE: “7th International Conference for National Institutions ..”
I think you mean the “7th International Conference for National Human Rights Institutions.”
RE: “NHRCK is the same official government body that apparently has no evidence of any human rights violations occurring in the Kim Jong Il regime. At least, that is what the commissioner said in testimony to the Nationall Assembly in April last year. ”
The article you link to that statement says “The national human rights commissioner, in testimony before the South Korean parliament in April, stated he had “no details” about rights violations in the Kim Jong Il regime.”
While I have always had respect for human rights commission head Kim Chang Guk, I don’t doubt for a moment that the commission isn’t doing enough on human rights in NK. After all, the commission said in June of last year that it would begin studying NK human rights situation. Kim Chang Guk said “???°€??¸?¶Œ?œ??????Œ??? ?¶???œ??¸?¶Œ ??¸??œ?°€ ??°??? ?????Œ??? ?§¤??° ?¤‘??”??œ ??¸?¶Œ ?????? ?°€??´??° ????????¼??” ?Œ???¨??? ??´????³?…”, in other words, that NK human rights are an important human rights issue for “our society.” Still, a year later and I don’t remember hearing much about that project since.
Nevertheless, I think it’s a little much to take he said he’s got “no details” from the article you link to and turn that into “has no evidence of any human rights violations.” I also haven’t been able to find the original quote in Korean, but the things that would usually be translated into “no details” would be close to something implying that he doesn’t have concrete figures or data. I realize that I’m being a little picky, but to take that and say he said he has “no evidence” is a little dangerous.
RE: “Now, it seems interesting that amongst the issues to be discussed there at a major international conference on human rights in Seoul, one issue not on the agenda is that of North Korean human rights, or anything relating to refugees/defectors at all. Sure, somebody might mention it in one of the sessions or working groups, but for something so topical and relevant to Korea not to be an actual item on the agenda of a conference being held here in Seoul, isn?€™t there something wrong with that?”
At the conference web site, I don’t see any reason to think it has anything to do with issues that are specifically “relevant” to Korea. Actually, I don’t see any discussion planned about specific cases of human rights abuses. If there was talk about Sudan and the National Security Law and then nothing about NK human rights, then I’d feel comfortable saying NK human rights were missing from the agenda. I think it’s quite reasonable to want NK human rights discussed, but looking around on the conference web site, I don’t see a glaring absence.
I imagine Korea’s human rights commission might be put in an awkward position by the many questions, if only at the lunch table, about NK human rights.
Oranckay, you’re totally nitpicking. SK’s human rights commission has criticized the US over Iraq, but remains silent on the Norks. They’ve been criticized roudly for this many times, including by this group: http://www.nknet.org/en/keys/l...../13/06.php
which quotes Kim as saying ?€œWe (the NHRCK) don’t have any substantive information on North Korea’s human rights situation.?€?I’m glad to see you allow that “the commission isn?€™t doing enough on human rights in NK,” although I’d amend that to “doing basically squat.” I think that’s the point of Hamel’s post, to rightfully scold the Roh administration for its negligence. Apparently the conference has a narrow agenda (”to protect and promote human rights during conflict and while countering terrorism, and to strengthen the cooperation between NIs and NGOs at sub-regional, regional and international level”) but that doesn’t dilute Hamel’s criticism.
RE COMMENT: “I think that?€™s the point of Hamel?€™s post, to rightfully scold the Roh administration for its negligence. ”
I thought the point of Hamel’s post was to say the conference that includes human rights officials (from places as far away as Uganda and El Salvador) should come here and have NK human rights on the agenda. But hey, maybe I just can’t read.
I think that’s unreasonable to expect as much. And more importantly, if they don’t have NK human rights on the agenda, that’s as much the fault of the UNHCR and other groups as it is the SKorean human rights commission, as can be seen here..
I was recently at an international conference of newspapers held in Istanbul. Naturally, being in Turkey, everyone wanted to know about how much press freedoms had improved there, and when the Turk prime minister spoke he boasted that there’d been much progress. But when we met in various sessions on the agenda, we talked about page layout, tabloids, and hwo to make money off news websites. That’s how international conferences work, and the host country does not usually get to decide what happens.
Frankly I would say Korea was being pretty arrogant if it insisted that officials from all over the world come here to talk to each other about how they go about their work AND strategize about what to do about NK.
Roh’s govt can be criticized for much, but not getting an international conference to spend special time on things Korean is not one of them, however important the issue may be in this case. If SK government or human rights commission is guilty of not getting NK human rights on the agenda, the UNHCR and others are just as guilty for not insisting that it be on the agenda.
The problmes with Roh government’s approach to NK human rights don’t mean you get to turn “no details” (however cowardly a statement) into something slighly more serious, even if in our (Hamel’s, mine) view might be pretty close.
Knowing the mystery figure Hamel personally, I know he potentially has much that’s valid to say about NK, NK human rights, and SK’s approach to both… but in my humble opinion, the upcoming conference just ain’t one of them.
I would wager that the South Korean Government will forcibly keep any North Korean refugees away from such proceedings, since the reality of their complaints would run counter to their wishful thinking about the Korean “minjok” and all that. Hypocrisy, thy name is South Korea.
Oops! The following paragraph from comment above should be followed have a link in it like this:
I think that?€™s unreasonable to expect as much. And more importantly, if they don?€™t have NK human rights on the agenda, that?€™s as much the fault of the UNHCR and other groups as it is the SKorean human rights commission, as can be seen here.
If the alleged “human rights violations” in the North aren’t even in the newspaper, what’s the big deal.
And you gotta cut Seoul’s Human Rights Commission some slack; the details are pretty scanty, if they exist at all.
And to boot - it would take boatloads of gall for Seoul, whose still working out its post-liberation past, to criticize Pyeongyang, whose past is pure?
The agenda for this human rights pow-wow must needs focus exclusively on Abu Ghraib and Ariel Sharon.
3rd para:
And to boot - it would take boatloads of gall for Seoul, who’s still working out its post-liberation past, to criticize Pyeongyang, whose past is pure.
(Preview is my friend).
I love how SK tolerates NK telling it to scrap that National Security Law while SK doesn’t even DARE to bring up the NK death camps that house hundreds of thousands in any Unification talks.
Heres a thought: If the NK gov’t is supposed to stay intact through peaceful reunification, are the death camps supposed to keep operating through post-unification?
…one of the many details that don’t even occur to South Koreans…
Oranckay–maybe I was overly harsh in my earlier response, and if so I apologize. I did note that the conference agenda basically precluded discussion of NK because it focused on conflict and terrorism, two areas NK isn’t (recently) involved in. But I do see Hamel as rightfully taking the Roh administration to task for failing to “see” human rights abuses in NK–and beyond that, it actively discourages other countries from criticizing the North. That still seems the “point” of the post, not whether NK was on the conference agenda. It isn’t just stating “no evidence,” its the Human Rights Commission’s wholesale refusal to even consider defectors’ testimony and other sources on NK that is inexcusable.
This is so old probably no one will read it, but it makes me happy to note the last line here: International Human Rights Experts Gather in Seoul
SEOUL, Sept 14 (Yonhap) — South Korea will play host to a series of international conferences on human rights this week, officials said Tuesday.
Participants include Louise Arbor, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and other high-profile U.N. officials, professors, and activists in the field.
The seventh International Conference for National Human Rights Institutions will open today at 2 p.m. at Lotte Hotel in downtown Seoul and close Friday, the National Human Rights Commission said.
The presidential agency added that Arbor is scheduled to give a welcoming speech at the opening session.
The biennial meeting, aimed at protecting and promoting human rights, will draw about 180 participants from 60 countries, most of whom are working for nongovernmental organizations.
The main theme of the Seoul meeting will be how to uphold human rights during conflicts and while countering terrorism, organizers said.
“Participants will also discuss the issue of North Korean defectors’ human rights,” Park Sook-mi, an official from the organizing body said.
Hey that’s good to hear. I quote this from a recent e-mail from Dr Norbert Vollertsen:
Demos in Seoul at the 7. International Conference
for National Human rights institutions
Time : Sept. 14 - 17, 2004, 9:00 am - 6:00pm,
Sept 13 : Opening ceremony with 450
diplomatic deligates, Gov. officilas
and NGO-Activists
Place : Lotte Hotel, near City Hall, Seoul
Because North Korean human right issues are not
included in the official agenda we will stage several
protest with North Korean defectors in front of the
Lotte Hotel every day from Sept 13 - Sept 17 around
11: 00 am. Right after we will try to get access to
the high secured Chinese embassy…
Host : The National Human Rights Commission of Korea
Co-Host : UNHCHR ( UN Office of the High Commisionar
for Human Rights)
For more informations : http://www.icni.org
Hamel,
Glad you told me about your post - well written and I’m looking forward to reading more of what you have to write. My offer to host a blog for you and our mutual friend D still stands, just let me know.