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Consistent evidence of wide-scale, systematic and extreme forms of human rights abuse presents a prima facie case against North Korea. Freedom of expression and religion are strictly controlled. Freedom of movement, assembly and association are strictly curtailed. Any persons deemed to be less than entirely loyal or worthy citizens are subject to swift and harsh penalties. It is not possible to obtain a systematic overview of punishment, but there is now a body of evidence from victims and perpetrators of human rights abuses. I have interviewed some of those who have escaped to South Korea and there are many reports that give a spine-chillingly consistent picture.
Arrest and interrogation routinely involve water torture, severe beatings, sexual assault and sleep deprivation. After interrogation, political prisoners who are not executed are sent to a detention facility from which they may never emerge alive. For those who do, conditions in prisons and camps are brutal, with severe undernourishment, appalling sanitary conditions and long hours of gruelling labour. Prisoners are deformed as a result of abuse, malnutrition and hard and dangerous work.
The report Failure to Protect estimates that there are at least 200,000 in gulag-like camps and prisons, including the families of offenders who are often sent to prison alongside the alleged offender. One witness described how even young children may be interned in such prisons. They are not allowed any contact with
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Constant hunger has been described as worse than beatings. Prisoners are crammed into overcrowded cells and may not be able even to lie down. They are deprived of sleep and given minimal clothing, even in the extreme cold of North Korea’s mountain regions. North Koreans frequently refer to witnessing executions. Typically, victims who have obviously been tortured are dragged out in front of an assembled crowd to be executed by firing squad. The victims are prevented from speaking by stones thrust into their mouths.
Religious freedom is harshly oppressed. North Koreans systematically report that being a Christian is viewed as a serious crime. Korea has a history of persecution and martyrdom. In the 18th and 19th centuries, over 8,000 Christians died for their faith. Martyrdom continues today. One escapee told me how he had witnessed the martyrdom of three Christians in his labour camp, which operated an iron foundry. One day, all the inmates were forced to stand in a large circle. The guards brought the three Christians into the centre and ordered them to recant or face death by having molten iron poured over them. They refused to recant and died singing while they fried in the molten iron.
One urgent issue is repatriation, especially by China. Those who have fled from North Korea are forced to return to virtually certain brutal punishment and probably execution. In returning them, China consistently refuses to acknowledge its international obligations.
North Korea is committed to provide free healthcare, but is failing to do so. Nationwide, but particularly in rural areas, health facilities and equipment levels are poor or non-existent, training of healthcare workers is weak and modern drugs are often not available. In May 2004, the British medical organisation Merlin—I declare an interest as a founder trustee—assessed the humanitarian needs of South Hamgyong province in the north-east of North Korea. This area, characterised by large urban populations and mountainous regions, is often difficult to access by the Government and international NGOs, particularly during winter. Therefore, the region has been starved of essential resources. In 2004, no other medical NGO was providing healthcare in this region and to our knowledge that remains the case.
Severe food shortages have caused high levels of chronic malnutrition, to which my noble friend Lord Alton has referred, known as stunting, among children under six. In 2004, UNICEF’s nutrition survey estimated that 37 per cent of children were malnourished, with the figure rising in South Hamgyong province to 47 per cent. Maternal malnutrition was also serious.
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In response to Merlin’s assessment, the North Korean Ministry of Health agreed that Merlin should work to enhance the capacity of the existing healthcare system at community, county and provincial levels. But despite this agreement and financial support from the European Union, Merlin was unable to gain permission from the Government to work in-country for more than a few weeks at a time, making the implementation of a health programme impossible. Merlin made representations to the ambassador in London, but could not gain any concessions and decided reluctantly, and tragically, that it was unable to proceed.
I ask the Minister whether Her Majesty’s Government will ensure that humanitarian access remains a key focus of their bilateral and multilateral discussions with the North Korean Government. In particular, will Her Majesty’s Government make representations to North Korea to lift restrictions on the operation of humanitarian NGOs? Those restrictions are so stringent and impractical that they prevent the NGOs from operating in areas where they are desperately needed.
In conclusion, North Korea’s leaders manifestly feel extremely precarious and consequently they are increasingly a threat to international security. The nuclear test can be seen as a symptom of that perceived vulnerability. Classified as part of the “axis of evil” and isolated from the rest of the world, the North Koreans believe that they are targets for hostile conspiracies, especially by the United States. These fears dominate Pyongyang’s world view. The challenge is how to find ways forward that do not exacerbate the situation by driving the leadership further down the road of volatile and dangerous policies adopted for its perceived self-defence. Wisely construed humanitarian and economic engagement could demonstrate to the authorities in Pyongyang that the rest of the world is not hostile and is not conspiring against them. That approach could help to allay Pyongyang’s fears, thereby reducing North Korea’s threat to the security of the global community.
The United Kingdom, with diplomatic representation in Pyongyang, is well placed to act as a mediator and confidence builder as well as to urge the North Korean Government to give safe and unhindered access to all parts of the country for the UN and international organisations to provide humanitarian assistance and to secure the release of all political prisoners. Such measures would pave the way for further provision for fundamental freedoms, including political and religious freedoms.
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I hope that your Lordships will acknowledge that I am not known as a soft touch as far as human rights and fundamental freedoms are concerned, but I am also a realist, and I believe that it is possible to make progress in improving the plight of the people of North Korea only by working with the situation as it is. Its leadership is not going to relinquish its nuclear weapons capacity as a result of further threats, intimidation and isolation. The issue is not the existence of nuclear weapons, but the beliefs and behaviour of the leadership, which will decide if and when to use them. Therefore, I reiterate that a policy with incentives for constructive engagement that encourages regional economic development and looking outside is the best way forward for the leadership of North Korea. That will reduce the insecurity, and thereby the fears, of the regime, which is the ultimate cause of its security policy and military build-up. If and when that closed society begins to open, fears can be allayed and the problems of human rights violations and humanitarian crises can begin to be addressed.
Her Majesty’s Government, who have an established relationship with North Korea, are well placed to undertake such a constructive engagement. I hope that the Minister will be able to give such an assurance. Such a policy would not prevent criticism of the utterly unacceptable and barbaric policies that I have described, and which no one could condone, but it could represent the most propitious way forward for the leadership of North Korea in its present state of mind, for the international community and for the long-suffering population facing another bitter winter of hunger and disease, prisons and labour camps. Their interests must surely be one of our main priorities today.
2.12 pm
Baroness D'Souza: My Lords, I have not visited the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, although not for want of trying. I therefore speak as an outsider. Despite that, there have been several opportunities in the recent past to learn more about what is going on in the DPRK from a variety of informed sources, including academics, US and UK officials and the UN special rapporteur Mr Muntarbhorn.
What are the main messages that come across from those briefings? They are that North Korea is isolated, fearful, economically and militarily impoverished and pretty convinced that the US is ready to attack it at any moment, which suggests that bilateral talks between Pyongyang and Washington are an urgent necessity. It suffers an absolute shortage of food—as evidenced by reliable production figures, which demonstrate an annual shortfall of food—and shocking infant and maternal mortality and morbidity due in large part to an insufficient food intake.
North Korea’s expenditure decisions underline its major concerns: whereas the US spends approximate $0.58 per person on defence, the equivalent figure for North Korea is $11.50 per person. The noble Lord, Lord Garden, gave a list of threats that North Korea poses, and I shall add another threat that is equally important as the threat of nuclear missiles, and
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The DPRK has a brutal disregard for human rights, and democratic freedoms are almost non-existent, as we have heard from several noble Lords. It is a rogue state, and is, according to the US Administration, a member of the “axis of evil”. As the leader, Kim Jong-il, is apparently willing to sacrifice citizens in order to maintain a prideful stance, many thousands of people may well die in the coming months due to starvation.
Famine is not a wholly natural disaster; it is more a man-made one. It is therefore also preventable. Having studied the phenomenon of famine for many years in many parts of the world, we know that early warning indicators of that long-onset disaster are obvious and readable. Famine is, to a large extent, a product of totalitarian regimes in which early crop failure is ignored and there is no public discourse to discuss causes or preventive action. One of the best examples of that is the great leap forward famine in China between 1959 and 1961, during which something like 20 million people died because no one dared tell the great leader that his people were starving. Famine is also hugely more likely in conditions of war and conflict where normal lines of exchange are disrupted. Famine is almost never caused by an absolute shortage of food; it is caused by food becoming too expensive for people to buy as a result of market hoarding and other actions. When people begin to move, even across borders, in large numbers in search of food or feeding camps, it is usually taken as the first sign of famine, but it is, in fact, the terminal stage—at that stage, it is almost impossible to prevent a massive number of deaths from starvation.
All the indicators are that massive starvation is imminent in North Korea. One wonders what the international community can do to prevent the ongoing tragedy of starvation in North Korea and, in particular, what the UK Government, who have a somewhat remote connection with North Korea, can do. The DPRK accepted food aid during the floods of the 1990s and in the earlier years of this century. The main donors were South Korea, China and the UN World Food Programme. However, earlier this year, the DPRK suspended World Food Programme distribution and banned the private sale of grain. The much hated public distribution system was reintroduced. Under it, food is given according to whether a family, not an individual, is deemed to be loyal, wavering or hostile to the regime. Needless to say, families that were deemed to be hostile received almost no aid.
The DPRK has been a UN member since 1991 and is a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. It can therefore be considered to be a fully fledged member of the UN. That may afford the international community some opportunity
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It is clearly in the interests of the DPRK’s immediate neighbours—South Korea and China—to avert a humanitarian disaster, which would have a massively destabilising effect on the region. Once people begin to move in large numbers, that has a destabilising effect, as we have seen in many parts of the world, particularly in the Horn of Africa.
Can the Minister and the Government use their good offices and their influence, not only with China and South Korea—and possibly also with Japan, which might have some leverage with North Korea—but within the forums of the UN, and to some extent the EU, to pursue some pragmatic actions to try to gain a relationship with North Korea that would prevent some of the awful tragedies that are about to happen? One of the major issues would be to continue to offer food aid to North Korea. The leader, Kim Jong-il, has decided that NGOs and the WFP should no longer be active in North Korea. We should ask that food continues to be offered and that the North Korean Government accept that it is necessary to resume the distribution of food aid. At the same time, we could perhaps request that the distribution is fair and equitable, which is possibly a long-lost hope but is nevertheless important to mention. Incidentally, China and South Korea are prepared to give food unconditionally, whereas that is not true of the WFP. That should be thought about and perhaps negotiated. There is huge scope for working with the UN to start up food-for-work programmes. North Korea is inevitably a very vulnerable country because it does not produce sufficient food for its own population even in so-called good times. Of course, North Korea should be encouraged to accept the WFP’s offer of food. Perhaps the right to food could be reinforced also within various UN forums.
The international community also has a role to play, not only in continuing to offer food aid, but also in pressing North Korea to accept food assistance from the WFP. Perhaps the UK is well positioned to try to persuade the Chinese to allow the setting up of NGOs on the border between China and North Korea so that the inevitable mass movement of people—I do not think that it will be possible to prevent famine entirely—can be helped at the border, and to persuade the Chinese to stop arresting and deporting those who come across the border. To send back those people who have fled from North Korea in order to get sanctuary in China to, as the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, has said, certainly torture and possibly death is reprehensible, to say the very least. Finally, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for introducing this extremely important debate. Let us hope that we can pursue it in the months to come.
2.22 pm
Lord Anderson of Swansea: My Lords, in coming to your Lordships’ House just over a year ago from the other place, I have been amazed by the reservoir of wisdom and expertise apparent in every debate. Today’s debate is very much in that same frame. Some
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North Korea is clearly a dinosaur state. Perhaps, like Romania, it is an example of socialism in one family, but, unlike Romania, we know very little about the inner workings of the regime or what motivates it. In a discussion, the current UN Secretary-General, then the South Korean Foreign Minister, conceded to me that even the best North Korea watchers in South Korea knew very little about the inner core of the nomenclatura in North Korea. Another difference is the one that we are discussing today; namely, that North Korea has exploded a nuclear device and is a clear threat to international peace and security. Kim Jong-il, like Napoleon in Animal Farm, needs the constant external threat to maintain his grip on power. He blithely ignored a unanimous UN Security Council declaration two days before the 9 October test and the pleas of his closest ally, China. He seems therefore impervious to external pressure, although it is fair to say that he was probably deterred from a second test as a result of pressure from China.
Perhaps we should not have been surprised by the test. We know that in 1998 a missile was fired over Japan. North Korea renounced the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Last September, the purported agreement to give up nuclear activities was retracted the following day. In July 2006, seven missiles were fired from North Korea. That was followed by the UN sanctions. Why did they do it? The noble Lord, Lord Alton, talked of desperation. Other noble Lords have talked about the need for respect, building on the precedent of Pakistan in 1998.
Interestingly, Iran—the only country to congratulate North Korea on its test—through its official television said that the reasons for the test were, first, the US failure to give security guarantees to North Korea, and, secondly, the US failure to deliver on its promise of a light-water reactor—a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Selsdon—and nuclear fuel. Ominously, Iran warned that other countries might follow North Korea’s example.
North Korea may have miscalculated the extent of the international response to its test on 9 October. China, which had nurtured North Korea over 10 years or so, responded very vigorously. Just before the test, it warned of serious consequences. After the test, it said that North Korea had,
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It is clear also that this was one of the factors leading to a rapprochement between Japan, the traditional enemy of North Korea, and China. The communiqué in the Chinese/Japanese summit which followed talked of the “deep concern” of those two countries. Perhaps we will note a turning point, partly as a result of this, in the relationship between Japan and China. Finally, the South Korean President said that it would be “difficult to maintain” his country’s policy of engagement with North Korea. I have mentioned the significant decision by South Korea to support that vote of censure in the UN General Assembly on 17 November.
What are the dangers? These have already been highlighted by other noble Lords. Obviously, it could encourage others on to the nuclear path in response, although it is fair to say that Japan’s response has been very positive. Equally, North Korea traditionally has been recognised as the arch proliferator in the world. It benefited from the A Q Khan network, helped Iran to assemble missiles and transferred technology to Syria. In June 1999, Indian customs agents impounded a North Korean freighter, which revealed the covert transfer to Libya of a virtually complete ballistic missile. Possibly the seizure under the Proliferation Security Initiative of that freighter en route to Libya in 2003 was part of a similar operation. As the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, said, there appears to be evidence of a willingness on the part of North Korea to sell anything to anyone. When we know of the multiplicity of terrorist organisations desperate to obtain fissile material from whatever source, there is a clear danger of North Korea selling such material which could be turned into a dirty bomb.
What should be our response? It is said that it may be four to five years before North Korea is capable of turning the fissile material into warheads to be mounted on missiles, although of course they could drop bombs from aeroplanes. Japan says that North Korea lacks the relevant miniaturisation technology. Do the Government agree with that analysis and with the timetable? If it is four to five years, the question is how we use the intervening period most positively.
What, if any, are the points of leverage on North Korea? Immediately after the test, my noble friend Lord Triesman talked in this House about targeted sanctions. The record on sanctions—one thinks of South Africa—is not good. My noble friend talked of targeted sanctions on the overseas bank accounts of the elites in North Korea and on luxury goods. Clearly, there are limits to diplomacy. China is angry, although it had influence in postponing the second test. It supplies food and oil and is best placed to exert pressure, but it fears instability in the region. If North Korea were to collapse, there would be further refugee flows north and south and possibly even a unifying of the peninsula.
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There is, however, one possible positive result with a new impetus to regional dialogue. It is said that at the economic meeting of Asian nations in Hanoi on 19 November there were significant discussions in the corridors about a new US diplomatic initiative, in particular, and that may also be fortified by the change in the Congress.
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