Thank you very much. I appreciate the opportunity to be here.
I spent many years with the United States Congress, and I appreciate the legislative branch.
Let me make a few comments about North Korea and the North Korean human rights situation. I'll try to save most of the time for questions, because I'm sure you have a number of issues you would like to raise.
The human rights situation in North Korea is deplorable. The State Department produces a report annually examining the human rights situation of countries around the world. The report for 2011, the most recent report, talks about extrajudicial killings, disappearances, arbitrary detention, arrests of political prisoners, and torture.
The judiciary is not independent. It does not provide fair trials or due process. The North Korean government continues to control almost all aspects of citizens' lives. It denies freedom of speech, press, religion, assembly, and association. Reports continue that the government severely restricts freedom of movement and subjects its citizens to forced labour. We've also had reports that the government is responsible for disappearances, and there's been very little progress on the investigation into cases of suspected abductions of Japanese nationals by the North Korean government.
I want to mention two specific issues regarding North Korea and human rights that are noteworthy. The first is with regard to political prisons in North Korea. There are a number of books and reports and recent conferences dealing with the issue of North Korean political prisons. These reports describe very harsh, life-threatening conditions in prison camps and the detention system in North Korea. This year prominent American journalist Blaine Harden published Escape from Camp 14: One Man's Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West. This is based on interviews with Shin Dong-hyuk. He is the only prison camp inmate who is known to have escaped from this most secure of North Korean prison camps.
Shin Dong-hyuk was born in a prison camp. His father was in a prison camp because his father's brother had gone to South Korea. His mother was in the prison camp not because of anything she had done but because, again, one of her family members had been guilty of committing some crime. The parents of Shin Dong-hyuk were allowed to marry in the camp, and Shin Dong-hyuk was the result of that marriage.
The book describes in great detail the brutal conditions in those prison camps. Shin Dong-hyuk was a 14-year old boy. He was in a prison camp not because of anything he had done but because his parents were there. He was told that there was no hope that he would ever be released from the prison camp. As a young teenager, he was asked to carry a very heavy piece of equipment up a flight of stairs. It was too heavy for him, and he dropped it. He damaged the equipment. His immediate punishment was that his middle finger was severed at the second knuckle.
This young man also was taught that the worst thing a prison camp inmate can do is leave the camp, try to escape, and that every person in the camp has a responsibility to report it to the guards if they find somebody who is going to escape.
Shin Dong-hyuk went to see his mother. They didn't live together. He was still a teenager. He went to visit his mother and found out that his mother and brother were intending to escape from the camp. He went back and concluded that he had to report it, because this is what he was told he had to do. He reported it. He was not trusted. They took him and tortured him. Hooks were put through him. He was held over hot charcoal. After a week or so of punishment, they came to the conclusion that he was probably telling the truth. Then he was taken out to a large field where all the inmates in the camp were gathered together, and there, in front of the entire camp population, his brother was executed by a firing squad and his mother was hanged.
This is a very dramatic account of what conditions are like in North Korean prison camps.
I think the publication of this book and the publication of other reports have provided a great deal of information about these prison camps. The Committee for Human Rights in North Korea has published a book, The Hidden Gulag, that has satellite photographs of various locations identified as North Korean prison camps, so a great deal of information has become available recently.
The second significant issue I'd like to talk about relates to the flow of information into and out of North Korea. In this area there's been some progress.
North Korea remains one of the most isolated places on earth. North Korea is a place where it is illegal to own a radio that can be tuned. You are not allowed to have a tunable radio. You cannot buy a tunable radio in North Korea; it is preset to the government channel. The same thing is true with television sets. The government does not want information from the outside to come in. This is a country where the Internet is virtually non-existent. A few government agencies are allowed to have access to the Internet, but, internally in the country, no one has access to the Internet. Despite this, from interviews with people who have left North Korea, somewhere between 20% and 30% of the North Korean population indicate that they have listened to foreign radio broadcasts, so there's a certain amount of information going into North Korea, and it appears to be increasing.
The other interesting thing is that the most valued DVDs, which provide entertainment more than they provide information, are South Korean soap operas. South Korea is the wave of culture in Asia right now, and South Korean DVDs are very highly prized in North Korea. Estimates from refugees who have left North Korea indicate that some half the population has seen these DVDs of South Korean soap operas. These DVDs provide information about what is going on outside, beyond the boundaries of North Korea.
North Korea is also a place where, until recently, it has not been possible to have a cellphone. Cellphones have come in over the last few years, and it is now possible for people in North Korea to have cellphones. There are about a million cellphones for 24 million people.
It is not an unrestricted cellphone. In North Korea you are allowed to have a cellphone, but you can only call other North Koreans. You cannot make foreign calls, and you cannot call foreigners who live in North Korea. It is possible for foreigners to have a cellphone, but foreigners are given a cellphone that will only work to call other foreigners. The British ambassador has a cellphone and the British ambassador's North Korean driver has a cellphone, but the two of them can't call each other, which gives you some indication of the problem.
The difference between North Korea and South Korea is indicative of the difference between North Korea and the rest of the world. In North Korea, as I say, there are about a million cellphones for 24 million people, or 0.04 cellphones per person. In South Korea, on the other hand, there are 1.3 cellphones per person, which gives you some indication of the difference in terms of access to information. It's significant, however, because information does circulate in North Korea, and with cellphones it's circulating even faster.
There are some markets that are allowed to function and to operate. Prices in the market are more readily available. You know what the price is on products from one market to another. Information is beginning to circulate in North Korea, and that's probably a very encouraging kind of step.
I want to make a couple of comments about some of the things we appreciate that the Canadian government has done. We have tried to work carefully and closely with the Canadian government and with other governments that are involved in dealing with North Korea. We appreciate the cooperation and the opportunity of consulting on what we and other countries are trying to do in dealing with North Korea.
When I was in Seoul, I met with the Korean ambassador in Seoul, who also has been accredited in the past to North Korea. It has been useful to exchange information. I met your ambassador when I was in Seoul just a couple of weeks ago.
The Canadian government and Canadian NGOs have played an important role in terms of engaging with North Korea. We think that has been helpful and productive.
The University of British Columbia has a program right now through which a handful of North Korean professors will spend six months in Vancouver and will be able to improve their understanding of economics and Western market economy. These are useful programs. We've had a few North Koreans come to the United States, but none of them for that length of time, so I commend the Canadians, particularly the NGOs and the University of British Columbia, for playing an important role in terms of engagement with the North Koreans.
We've appreciated being able to talk with your diplomats, being able to discuss and share information that we have on North Korea, and it has been useful and productive.
We've noted that Canada has imposed very tough sanctions on the DPRK, and that's been significant. The United States has worked with Canada and with other countries in the United Nations in imposing sanctions, and we appreciate the cooperation we've had in doing that.
The Canadian government has also made a number of contributions through the World Food Programme to providing humanitarian assistance to North Korea, and we appreciate that. We've recognized the value of working through the UN agencies, particularly through the World Food Programme, and when we've provided aid in the past, we've worked with the World Food Programme.
The Canadian government has also been very supportive in the United Nations of resolutions critical of North Korea's human rights record. Particularly in the third committee of the General Assembly, where resolutions have been passed for the last eight years, the Canadian government has been supportive and positive in these resolutions critical of North Korea.
We've seen a number of statements from the Canadian government as positive and helpful in terms of criticizing the North Koreans for their human rights records. Of recent statements on Dr. Oh Kil-nam, a South Korean whose wife and children were left in North Korean prisons when he defected and who has been trying for some time to get his family back, the statement that the Canadian government issued on his behalf was a very useful one and a very helpful one. We appreciate the opportunity to work with Canada on issues relating to North Korea and to North Korean human rights issues.
I think the most important consideration here is that the United States and Canada share a very strong commitment and tradition of respect for human rights and of the value and importance of pursuing these rights. We look forward to working together with the Canadian government and the Canadian Parliament in terms of working on these issues.
Thank you very much for the opportunity to talk with you today about these issues.
