Discussing Korean human rights... in the USA

So it seems that someone is finally getting around to having a serious conference on the rights of humans within the Korean peninsula. I'm guessing that it excludes all other mammals and the like so I'm not sure what surprises me more; the fact that it is being held in the US and not Korea or the fact that someone actually acknowledges North Koreans as human.

Well, I guess I'll continue in my amazed stupor and make note of some interesting quotes.


Washington Sees N.Korea Human Rights Conference

The largest conference on North Korean human rights in the United States opened on Tuesday at the Renaissance Mayflower Hotel in Washington D.C. Some 1,000 advocates of human rights in North Korea, including about 300 from Korea, were present amid much interest from the press. The Voice of America Korean-language service broadcast five and a half hours live from the conference to North Korea...

The discussion between Sharansky, a former Israeli politician, and Kang Chol-hwan was one of the highlights of the event. Sharansky said after reading Kang’s “The Aquariums of Pyongyang: 10 Years in the North Korean Gulag”, he was surprised that despite the differences in culture, history and background, the fundamentals of fear and the mechanisms of resistance were the same. He said his happiest day in the Soviet gulag was when U.S. president Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union an “evil empire.” He said Reagan had made it clear that as long as the Soviet Union locked up its own citizens, the U.S. could not befriend it, a strategy Sharansky claimed could also pay off with North Korea...

Kang said the human rights situation in North Korea deteriorated over the last eight years of South Korea’s “Sunshine Policy” toward Pyongyang. Rashly offering help to North Korea without appropriate criticism of the human rights issue could be seen as ethical backsliding, he added.

The conference was organized by Freedom House, a group promoting U.S. leadership in bringing about global democracy using some of the US$1.87 million the State Department has set aside for such events. The group said it planned similar conferences in Seoul this year. (??)

You know, I think I'd really like to meet Kang. He sounds like someone who would help me in my new endeavor (I've been itching to write a book called "Life in the shadow of the sunshine policy").

Anyways, if anyone sees the date for this "proposed" conference in seoul, let me know!

But as always, the man with the hair has something to say:

N.Korea Warns Human Rights Could Rupture Talks

Reacting to a conference on North Korean human rights that started in Washington on Tuesday, the KCNA said “provocative acts like slandering and showing envy of your dialogue partner” were unlikely to produce results and “can bring only conflict and rupture.” It said the U.S., by bringing up “non-existent human rights issues” and issuing “political provocations,” was robbing other neighboring states of their hopes for substantive progress in the six-party talks.

Well, I think I need to brush up on my English and learn more about that word ENVY

Edit: The Marmot also weighs in with some links.