Activist for North Korean human rights Suzanne Scholte had a special plea for Wellesley students last Monday. “You’ve got to get to Hillary,” she told the on-campus organization Advocates for North Korean Human Rights (ANKHR), suggesting a petition to the Secretary of State that would pressure her to bring up the issue of North Korean defectors in China with the Chinese government.
Scholte, who is the Chairwoman of the North Korea Freedom Coalition (NKFC) that began
the annual North Korea Freedom Week in 2004, began her talk by asserting the gravity of the situation. “I believe personally [that] North Korea is the worst human rights tragedy that’s occurring in the world today,” she said. Although tragedies in other countries may be taking center stage in the media—and for good reason—the number of deaths in North Korea is staggering because “the atrocities there having been occurring for decades.”
“In my opinion, ‘Never Again’ rings hollow because what is happening in North Korea is genocide... because the people that are being targeted for extermination by the [North Korean] regime are those that the regime deems disloyal,” Scholte said.
However, according to Sholte, now is a good time to take action and not just because help
can’t wait. “Things are changing dramatically in North Korea,” Sholte said. “The two major ways that Kim Jong-Il maintains power have completely changed.”
She explained that up until the fall of the Soviet Union, the country had functioned on a system of public distribution. All decisions, from where someone attended college to one’s career, were determined by the regime. However, a financial collapse in the 1990s opened the doors for citizens to enter into the black market, through which they could buy and sell whatever they liked.
“One woman I met, for example, would go to one town and buy up sea food specialties and go to another town and sell them,” Sholte said. As much as the government would like to shut down these markets, it has little control over them.
The second change in the power of the regime concerns the flow of information. North Koreans were deliberately misinformed about China’s current situation, thinking that its citizens were much worse off than they themselves were. However, once those who had crossed the border and returned home began to speak of the electricity, work, and food that were available in China, North Koreans increasingly became aware of the gravity of their circumstances.
North Korean activists have found it difficult to inform the public about the dire human rights situation in North Korea because, unlike other parts of the world, foreign reporters are barred from entering the country.
“Even to report on what’s going on in China where North Korean women are being sold is very dangerous,” Sholte said, referring to the detainment of American reporters Euna Lee and Laura Ling in North Korea, where they were sentenced to 12 years of hard labor but later pardoned.
However, organizations such as the North Korea Freedom Coalition, the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, and the Citizens’ Alliance for North Korean Human Rights work to provide information and encouragement for current and prospective activists.
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Organizations for North Korean Human Rights North Korea Freedom Coalition (NKFC) A nonpartisan organization founded in 2003, NKFC spearheaded the passage of the North Korean Human Rights Act of 2004 and the annual North Korea Freedom Week to raise American public awareness about the country’s human rights violations. HRNK produces research on the human rights abuses committed by the North Korean government and is committed to alleviating torture, starvation, economic underdevelopment, and censorship in the country. Based in Seoul, the NKHR assists North Korea defectors resettle in South Korea, provides funds for defectors abroad, and works to influence decision-making in the international political arena. |
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