An Open Letter to North
Korea’s Exiles
What
more is there to say about the Government of North Korea, a regime that
wantonly starves, enslaves, impoverishes, and exterminates its population to
maintain the legitimacy and rule of a system? To suffer for one’s family or for
one’s cause is one matter. But to suffer for the Supreme Leader-centered
system: that is another matter entirely.
As a
serving Member of Parliament in the United Kingdom and a Co-Chair of the
All-Party Parliamentary Group on North Korea, I have witnessed Pyongyang’s
march toward ever increasing capacities of evil. My journey has been marked by
scores of exiled North Koreans who have visited London to tell of the horrors
of starvation, poverty, imprisonment, and physical abuse and violence. I have
heard of the state’s psychological weapons of war that have led to North Korean
children being forcibly aborted and women and men being humiliated and
compelled to give their minds to the Kim-family cult.
When
I listen to exiled North Koreans, I always hear of a sense of betrayal. As
exiles, you will have escaped the grip of the North Korean system, but you will
have been forced to pay a heavy price for your freedoms. Many of you will have
experienced brutalities that I will never comprehend. You will all have been
separated from your families or have heard of suffering that befell family
members. Those of you who now shed light on life inside North Korea or those of
you who once worked for the North Korean government may now live under constant
threat. And you will all have now realised a very stark fact: the system that
raised you also betrayed you.
It
may be of little consolation, but five-thousand miles from the Korean peninsula
in London, your stories and your voices are heard. Through reports, oral
testimonies, and exiled media outlets, such as New Focus, the awful realities
of life inside North Korea — once dismissed as fantastical — are no longer
hidden or denied.
To
be frank, global recognition of the horrors that you once faced in North Korea
took far too long to arrive. But today, the evidence against the North Korean
government is so overwhelming that no amount of tourist attractions, paid for
by the blood of twenty-five million citizens, or attempts at dissuasion by
Pyongyang or its apologists can disguise the brutal reality of life under the
Supreme Leader-centered system.
As
exiles, you function as vital relays between hope and despair for your countrywomen
and men who remain in North Korea. Every time you contact a remaining friend in
North Korea, send money back to family members, or another compatriot flees,
the foundations of the Kim dynasty erode ever more. The Kim dynasty is not
simply based on the perpetuation of violence, it is also sustained by
propaganda that justifies the cult of Kim. It is vital that we continue to
break down this communications barrier.
It
is my contention that the exiled North Korean community deserves more credit
than it has received. For all of the good work of the United Nations and the
international community, we must never forget that it has been the tireless
work of exiles that has kept the candle burning for North Korea. The world has
taken much from your community, and we must remember to repay your sacrifices.
The All-Party Parliamentary Group has always welcomed, and will continue to
welcome, you to London to tell your stories to the British public and
politicians.
As I
look forward, I see reasons for hope. Forces such as the black-market, foreign
media, and the growing ability of ordinary North Koreans to make contact with
the outside world are eroding Pyongyang’s ideological grip on its citizens. The
exiled North Korean community that once stood in despair now rallies against
those who abused, tortured and killed their very own.
I
have previously written of my hopes for the 30,000 exiled North Koreans who
now live in the Republic of Korea. The National Assembly has passed the North
Korean Human Rights Act and it is my hope that exiles will play a leading role
in the Act’s implementation. Without the input and leadership of those who have
experienced North Korea, we are all doomed to repeat the failures of the past.
Time
waits for no man and change in North Korea cannot wait. I believe that North
Koreans will soon be freed from their shackles and the exiled community will
surely play a large role in this momentous task.
Fiona Bruce MP is Co-Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary
Group on North Korea, and Chair of the Conservative Party Human Rights
Commission
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Article Written for South Korean Newspaper
South Koreans may be surprised to learn that over five
thousand miles away in London, the Korean peninsula is a hotly debated issue. In
the United Kingdom’s Houses of Parliament, where I am a serving MP, politicians
from across the political spectrum regularly meet to discuss the trials and
tribulations of the Kim Jong-un regime and the plight of the North Korean
people.
In 2004, two of my colleagues, Lord Alton and Baroness Cox, visited
North Korea. Their objective was to raise awareness in the UK parliament of the
human rights, humanitarian, and security issues posed by the North Korean
Government. Upon their return to London, they founded the All-Party
Parliamentary Group on North Korea (APPG) — a grouping of politicians from all
parties that meet to discuss and debate North Korea.
Since the APPG’s formation, we have welcomed North Korean
Government delegations, including the Speaker of the North Korean Assembly,
Choe Thae-bok; we have debated North Korea in both Houses of the UK parliament;
and, most importantly, we have provided North Korean refugees with the
opportunity to speak about their experiences to UK politicians (the UK is home
to the largest North Korean refugee population outside of South Korea).
In December 2015, I met with Kim Son Gyong, Director General
of the European Department of North Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Our
discussion, which is on public record, was cordial, but frank. I told Mr. Kim
that UK parliamentarians asked for changes in the way that his government treated
the North Korean people. I questioned his view that there were no human rights
violations in his country. And I reminded him of the inevitable course of international
justice that is outlined in the report of the United Nations Commission of
Inquiry.
An offer was also extended to his Government for assistance
in the field of human rights — I await a reply.
This, in essence, is the role of a democratically elected
politician. Like my colleagues on the National Assembly in South Korea, I was
elected by the people, for the people. My job is not only to represent and
promote local interests at the national level, it is also to promote universal
interests at the international level.
The North Korean people have no recourse to justice or
democracy. They have no viable political representatives. It therefore falls
upon politicians, like myself, to advocate for their well-being and human
rights.
As a serving MP with a passion for the North Korean people,
I have followed the now decade-long legislative debate in the South Korean
National Assembly on the North Korean Human Rights Act (NKHRA) with interest.
The debate is of course nuanced, but many politicians in the
UK — both liberal and conservative — struggle to comprehend why the NKHRA is yet
to pass into South Korean law.
In the UK, human rights were first set out in law in the Bill of Rights in the year 1689.
In the three centuries that have passed since, there have certainly been
struggles but human rights are now seen as being above politics. Indeed, they
now form a global normative order: which is to say that human rights are
universal and non-negotiable. They are the most basic and substantive component
of modern humanity.
As such, and with profound respect for the views of my
fellow South Korean politicians who oppose the NKHRA in its current form, I urge
them to act immediately to improve human rights in North Korea through
supporting the NKHRA legislation.
Discussing human rights issues with the North Korean
Government and people should not be optional, nor should it be viewed as a political
act. As the Universal Declaration of Human Rights stated, the dignity and worth
of all human beings passes through national borders. It is for those of us who
enjoy freedom to champion it for those who do not.
Is the NKHRA, as the bill is presented in the National
Assembly today, provocative nor detrimental to peace and unification on the
Korean peninsula? I would say it is not. North Korea’s actions — from the
sinking of the Cheonan in 2010 to the border shelling in August 2015 that
followed anti-Pyongyang propaganda broadcasts — have certainly been provocative
and detrimental to peace. But South Korean has a maturing democracy and has
shown admirable restraint. It should not be held hostage by its northern
neighbours.
The APPG has for many years urged the BBC — the UK’s public
broadcaster — to transmit a Korean-language service to the North Korean people.
Following years of consideration and NGO action, a BBC radio service for the
North Korean people will soon become a reality. For the APPG, our support of
this radio service was not a matter of politics. It was a way of ensuring that
North Koreans were able to exercise their freedom to listen to impartial news
and information.
In my view, the aim of the North Korean Government’s
opposition to radio broadcasting and the NKHRA is clear: Pyongyang seeks to
divide South Korean public opinion. If South Korea’s politicians and public stood
united behind a NKHRA, the North Korean Government understands that it would
face its biggest challenge. In truth, Pyongyang fears a politically unified
South Korea.
Will change in North Korea come through unrestrained flows
of money or humanitarian aid? The evidence suggests it will not. Will reform
come through tourism or cultural engagement? Again, all evidence says it will
not. In reality, the small amounts of change in North Korea have emerged from
the North Korean people themselves.
It is the duty of us all to support those who are working
for positive change in North Korea. A NKHRA will not bring an end to the North
Korean Government’s abuse of its population, but it will say ‘enough is
enough’. Time is fast running out for the current North Korean regime. Let
South Korea’s National Assembly be prepared for change by uniting behind the
North Korean people today.
Fiona Bruce MP is Co-Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on North Korea, Chair of the Conservative Party Human Rights Commission, and a serving Conservative Member of Parliament in the United Kingdom.
Fiona Bruce MP’s Christmas message from the House of Commons to North Koreans
Fiona
Bruce (Congleton) (Con): We hear
today that Sony has pulled the apparently joke film “The Interview” about North
Korea. I decry inhibiting free speech, whatever the material, but life in North
Korea is not a joke. It is not a joke that desperate women wade across the
frozen Tumen river to escape to China, only to be caught by Chinese men, sold
into sexual slavery and then, when used up, sent back by the authorities to face
torture in North Korea and the forced abortion of their unborn
children.
It is
not a joke for those hundreds of thousands who live in concentration camps
reminiscent of the Nazi era, many for uttering a few words against the North
Korean regime—or, worse, under the regime’s atrocious “guilt by association”
rule, not for something they have done, but for something their relatives have
done to offend the regime. Prisoners are told they are not humans but animals
and indescribably tortured: steam-rolled to death; killed by having hot molten
metal poured over them; frozen to death; starved to death; worked to death in
factories; hung upside down to have water poured into their nostrils, like so
much beef hanging from hooks in a slaughter house; deprived of clothing and
sleep, then mercilessly pummelled with wooden bats; kept in cells with two holes
in the door for them to stick their feet out to be horrendously tortured; and
frequently forced to watch executions, including of their blood relatives. As my
co-chair of the all-party group on North Korea, an increasingly active group,
Lord Alton, said,
Life in
North Korea is not a joke outside the concentration camps either. It is not a
joke for the thousands of stunted, parentless children—the so-called wandering
swallows—who eke out a living on the streets. The problem of malnutrition in
North Korea is so bad that the minimum height for a member of their armed forces
is just 4 feet 2 inches. It is not a joke for the disabled in North Korea
either. Just when we thought that reports from North Korea could not get any
worse, this week we heard at first hand from an escapee at a meeting of the
all-party group in the UK Parliament about how disabled people, including
children, were sent
“for
medical tests such as dissection of body parts, as well as tests of biological
and chemical weapons. Dwarves are castrated. Babies with mental and physical
handicaps are routinely snatched from hospitals and left to suffer indescribable
things until they die. The disabled in North Korea are simply
disappeared.”
We were
told that by a disabled escapee, Ji Seong-Ho, who, at 14, lost his left hand and
leg after passing out from hunger while scavenging for coal on railway tracks
and was run over by a train. He was told by North Korean Government
officials:
At
Christmas time, let us remember that living in North Korea is not a joke for the
many brave Christians who every day fear incarceration simply for owning a
Bible. One lady has told the all-party group that if soldiers suspect that
someone is a believer, they will ransack their home until they find what they
are looking for. In her home, they did: they noticed a brick slightly out of
position, and behind it they found her Bible, so she was taken to
prison.
I have
mentioned just two of many escapees who have spoken to our group this year and
who are now finding sanctuary in the UK and increasingly giving testimonies of
their suffering to Members of Parliament. For the rest of my speech, however, I
want to speak not to fellow Members, or even to our constituents, but to the
people of North Korea. When I first spoke about North Korea in the House, I was
amazed to receive a letter from supporters in South Korea saying, “You are being
heard” so I know that when we speak here, many of you in North Korea hear what
we say—and that is increasingly the case with modern means of communication,
such as smuggled-in USB sticks.
I want
you, the people of North Korea, to know that your suffering is being heard. Do
not think that no one cares. Do not think that no one is speaking out for you.
In the UK Parliament, more and more people are speaking out and showing that
they care. We have compassion for you in your suffering, and this Christmas
remember that our compassion is as nothing compared with that of Christ. One
day, this too will end. Kingdoms rise and fall. We are praying for you and for
your freedom.
In
addition to praying and speaking out, more and more people are acting. This
year, a 400-page UN report by Mr Justice Kirby catalogued the brutal atrocities
you experience. The world now knows of them and cannot stay silent.
Increasingly, people in the free world are calling for action on your behalf.
Only last week in this Parliament, the all-party group on international freedom
of religion or belief issued a report that can be found at
www.freedomdeclared.org which added to demands made last month at the UN by no
fewer than
111
countries that those responsible for human rights violations in North Korea be
brought to justice by the International Criminal Court. We also called for all
appropriate justice mechanisms to be considered to bring the North Korean
Government to account for their terrible atrocities against their own people.
Here in the UK Parliament, as MPs we continue to press for the BBC World Service
to broadcast to you, the people of North Korea, in the Korean and English
languages, and we MPs continue to press for an increased dialogue with China to
stop its policy of forced repatriation and for humanitarian aid to the people of
North Korea.
So, at
Christmas time our hearts go out to you, the North Korean people, from the UK.
Know that we are with you; know that we are supporting and working with your
relatives and friends who have escaped to this country and know that they have a
voice; and know that we shall continue to speak out for you and to press for
action on your behalf until the day comes, which it surely will, when your
country is free again and your suffering is at an end.
The
Shadow Leader of the House, Thomas Docherty responded
saying:
“As ever, the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) made an impassioned and knowledgeable speech about the situation in North Korea. She has a tremendous track record in relation to the persecution of Christians, and—again, as ever—she made a hugely important contribution. I know that her work has the support of all Members.”
Website of the All Party Parliamentary Group on North Korea, of which Fiona is Co-Chair: www.appgnk.org Fiona Bruce as Vice Chair of the Parliamentary Group on North Korea Co Hosts hearing with the UN Investigator into human rights atrocities in North Korea.
