NORTH KOREA

The final solution through the collapse of the regime

U.S. is urged to promote flow of refugees from North Korea

11 December 2002

The final solution through the collapse of the regime

How to create the conditions for such a collapse

This paper was presented at the conference on human rights held by Citizens' Alliance in Tokyo on February 9-10, 2002. The idea of the provoked collapse of the regime is now gaining more and more ground as a solution to the human tragedy.

By Willy Fautr, Human Rights Without Frontiers Int.

HRWF Int. (11.12.2002) - Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email info@hrwf.net - The sunshine policy and dialogue have shown their limits. No progress has been made in the field of human rights in North Korea in the last twelve months and it would be na?ve to think that the situation might improve by itself or by the own will of Kim Jung-Il. It is simply not possible to have a constructive dialogue with the leader of a Stalinist Jurassic Park. The rule of law will never be established through the current process and every day, a lot of people die from famine.

The only solution is the collapse of the regime.

Now, there are two options. You either "wait and see" with the hope that a miracle will cause the collapse or you create the conditions that can lead to such a collapse.

How to create such conditions with non-violent means?

Let us remember how communism collapsed in Central and subsequantly in Eastern Europe. It started with a small opening in a barbed wire fence somewhere in HUngary and a couple of hours later, thousands of cars from East Germany, Czechoslowakia and other communist countries rushed into the opening. That was the beginning of the end of communism.

Now, let us come back to North Korea. How can we produce a haemorrhage of population through the border? According to various sources, it has been estimated that 100,000 to 300,000 North Koreans are living underground in China. Each of them has risked his/her life to cross the border and tries every day and night not to be caught by the Chinese police.

Let us imagine that the international community manages to conclude an agreement with China stating that

1) the Chinese authorities will not hunt North Korean defectors any more and will therefore stop deporting them;

2 ) the Chinese Government will allow international humanitarian agencies to install refugee camps all along the North Korea border, offer medical services and food to the refugees until they can be relocated either in China or in another country.

Don't you think that border guards would not be the first ones to defect? You just have to remember that famous picture showing an East German guard jumping over the Wall under construction. With the attraction power of fully equipped refugee camps all along the border in China and a weakly defended border, thousands of North Koreans could defect with a minimum of risks, including soldiers involved in the production of weapons for international terrorism in military factories hidden in the nearby mountains.

Am I a utopian? I dont think so. I think it is quite a realistic scenario.

But how could the international community convince China to drop North Korea and make such a deal? Why not, if the Chinese authorities are proposed an interesting political and financial deal? China has already joined the U.S.-led international coalition against terrorism. China needs to show a better human rights record before the next Olympic Games to be held on its territory. So, why shouldn't they take a spectacular initiative? China would like to trade more with South Korea but needs to be connected to that country through a network of roads and railway lines. Why shouldn't the U.S., the European Union and Japan promise the Chinese to invest money in such projects? The only obstacle is the very presence in the region of Kim Jung-Il's regime.

Someone famous once said I had a dream and his dream came true. I think this scenario is also a dream but this dream can become true because if there is a will, there is a way.

U.S. is urged to promote flow of refugees from North Korea

By James Dao

New York Times (10.12.2002)/ HRWF Int. (11.12.2002) - Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email info@hrwf.net - In 1989, Hungary snipped open its barbed-wire border with Austria, allowing thousands of East Germans vacationing in Hungary to escape communism. The tide of refugees turned into a flood, hastening the collapse not only of East Germany, but of the Iron Curtain, historians say.

Now a growing number of Bush administration officials, policy experts and lawmakers say they are hoping to set off a similar chain reaction inside North Korea. They argue that the stream of refugees from the starved, Stalinist nation into China could sharply increase, particularly if China agreed not to send North Koreans back, and if South Korea and the United States took in more escapees.

``If this regime were actually to collapse, it won't be through an elite coup,'' said Victor D. Cha, associate professor of government and a Korea expert at Georgetown University. ``Real regime change will come from the bottom, from people who can't oppose the regime but who can vote with their feet.''

A senior administration official said: ``When Hungary and Czechoslovakia opened their borders to East Germans, it helped speed the collapse of the Berlin Wall. Supporting refugees from North Korea could stress their system, too.''

In Congress, Senator Sam Brownback, the conservative Republican from Kansas, and Senator Edward Kennedy, the liberal Democrat from Massachusetts, have sponsored legislation that would remove a provision in immigration law that makes it difficult for North Koreans to seek asylum in the United States.

House Republicans have also called on the administration to share the costs of resettling North Korean refugees with South Korea, China, Russia and other Asian countries, much as it did with Vietnamese boat people in the 1970's.

`It looks like factors are lining up and history is clearly against the North Korean regime,'' Mr. Brownback said in a recent interview. ``It's a failed state. It's starving its own people.''

The administration and refugee advocates are also calling on Beijing to give the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees access to the North Korean border region, where it can screen potential refugees and assist their safe movement to other nations. As the flow of refugees rose, China expelled the United Nations from the border in 1999, arguing that most North Koreans were merely trying to better their economic circumstances.

``I think the Chinese are beginning to understand it's a problem,'' a senior State Department official said.

Another senior official said that once South Korea elected a new president this month, Washington would press harder for Seoul to accept more refugees. Although the Constitution states that all North Koreans can become citizens of the South, Seoul has accepted only about 2,000 North Korean refugees since 1954, experts said.

Almost no North Koreans can escape across the heavily mined and militarized border with South Korea, which has also been ambivalent about the difficulties of assimilating such refugees and concerned that some are North Korean agents.

``The South Koreans have not been famously sympathetic,'' said Nicholas Eberstadt, at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington.

But if South Korea accepts more refugees, China may allow the United Nations to shelter and feed them en route, and perhaps open a resettlement office along the border. Doing that, in turn, could encourage more northerners to flee, refugee advocates contend.

``China doesn't want to have to feed tens of thousands of refugees,'' the senior administration official said.

``But if they thought these people would only stay a few weeks, it might change their mind.''

President Bush has appeared to endorse a policy of helping the refugees, telling The Washington Post in a recent interview that he loathed Kim Jong Il and disagreed with those who say ``we don't need to move too fast'' against North Korea because of the financial costs.

``Either you believe in freedom,'' Mr. Bush said, ``and worry about the human condition, or you don't.''

But there are sharp differences within the administration over how hard to push the refugee policy, with some officials arguing that the North Koreans might just crack down harder on border crossers. ``This is not the East German regime,'' said one senior official. ``It's much more brutal.''

No one knows exactly how many tens of thousands of North Koreans are in the neighboring region of China. But the number is thought to have risen with a deepening famine in North Korea, which aid groups say has cost 2 million lives.

Over the summer, refugee groups organized daring attempts by North Koreans to break into embassies in Beijing to seek asylum and to illustrate the refugees' plight. The Chinese allowed some to travel to South Korea but it arrested many others and returned them to the north. The Chinese have since fortified security around the embassy compounds, and escape attempts have declined sharply.