'Abysmal' Rights

The U.S top envoy to the six-party talks, Christopher Hill, made his strongest statement so far on the issue of North Korea human rights when he spoke during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing in Washington.

Calling North Korea’s human rights record “abysmal,” Hill said that the issue of human rights will be a key element of the normalization of ties between the United States and the communist state. Hill is reported to have also said that the matter would be “riveted” into a future North Korea-U.S. working group.

While the Bush administration has always said human rights is an important issue, it had trodden carefully when it came to North Korea’s human rights record. Pyongyang has always strongly protested any criticism of its human rights record, firing off fierce rhetoric about how the United States is trying to overthrow the North Korean government.

During the complex and often turbulent denuclearization talks, the United States and South Korea had opted to refrain from harsh criticism of North Korea’s human rights so as not to derail the talks.

However, as the six-party process enters the last part of the second-phase, and the third-phase is expected to begin soon, there has been growing concern that the international community may be losing a valuable opportunity to improve human rights conditions for North Koreans. The conservatives in the United States, in particular, have been pressing the Bush administration to take stronger measures against North Korean human rights abuses.

Observing that North Koreans do not like to hear the term “human rights,” Hill said, “That does not mean that we shouldn’t say it.” Indicating that he means business, Hill said he would invite Jay Lefkowitz, the U.S. special envoy for North Korean human rights, to future talks with North Korea. The North Korean leaders who have so far escaped having to address their country’s human rights abuses must sit up and take notice of the shift in the United States’ position.

It is time that the South Korean government, which has said that North Korean human rights will be an important issue in inter-Korean relations, took action to improve the plight of our brethren across the border. The Lee Myung-bak administration has a strong ally in the United States when it comes to pressing Pyongyang to improve its human rights conditions. Seoul and Washington should work together to correct the gross human rights abuses in North Korea.