Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on Feb. 3rd, 2011

[Kyung B. Lee]

In North Korea everything belongs to the regime. In other words, the people are Kim Jong-il's property. Food, land, everything belongs to Kim's family. So there is no civil society there like we have here. Universities, hospitals, and any institutions belong to the state, and the state belongs to Kim Jong-il.

It's totally different from our perspective. One example: she told me that in North Korea you have no right to commit suicide. In the socialist system the people are fed by the government. If the government is unable to provide food, the people should have the right to economic activity, like trading or farming in the backyard. They don't have that right. They do, but officially it is not allowed.

In desperate situations they decide on suicide and some commit suicide. Suicide in North Korea is a crime against the state. Why? Because human beings are labour. You need labour, not human beings. So as an asset of the state you cannot destroy the asset of the state, your life. If one commits suicide, it is a crime and one should be punished. The people who commit suicide are already gone. Who is responsible? The surviving members of the family. The government doesn't feed the people. They don't have a right to basic economic activity. They don't have the right to commit suicide. The only way one can die is to starve to death. That's the only right you have. That's the situation.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Mr. Marston, please.

[Barry Devolin, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Mr. Lee, we've worked together now for a couple of years on this, and I have great respect for the Council for Human Rights in North Korea, and of course for you in putting forward the ideas you have over the last couple of years. We've worked together on media conferences and things like that.

I want to mention a bill that was put in by Peter Julian of the NDP. And Mr. Devolin has put in a bill. This one called on China to authorize the safe passage of refugees from North Korea through to South Korea, through their territory. We've heard the stories repeatedly of the repatriation to North Korea and what happens there.

Doctor, your passion for what you're doing is very heartfelt, and you're not to blame and nobody is to blame in this generation for what happened in previous generations in Germany. And from what I see here today, you have done yeoman service for the people of North Korea by identifying and putting forward the situation there.

You spoke about the starvation. And because you raised the topic of the previous death camps, is there any indication at all of anything outside of benign neglect? There is no such thing as actual death camps like the previous position where people are going to die there, or a system of putting them to death?

The other thing I'll try to get to as quickly as I can is that you have expectations of this committee. You know from yesterday's testimony that the Universal Periodic Review of Canada did put forward particular recommendations and some substantial ones, I must give them credit for that. Beyond that, the next thing you're proposing is a full motion of the Parliament of Canada. Do you have any way of measuring or knowing about the results of the UPR of Canada? Was there any response over there to that at the time? And what is the expectation for the outcome of our motion?

[Dr. Norbert Vollertsen]

First of all, I would thank you all for listening. Such a hearing is maybe the first step in doing something.

I cannot refer to the death camps or anything. As I told you, when you're staying inside North Korea you know nothing. You know only what's on the surface. You have no clue about what Mrs. Kim endured. She is the expert on that. I only learned about that afterwards when I met the refugees. But maybe Mrs. Kim can again make some statement about the death camps.

I would like you to have more hearings. We fully respect this motion and whatever is on the way now. I'm happy that Canada is doing something.

I heard yesterday about a new Holocaust museum here in Winnipeg. I was once at the Holocaust museum in Washington, and there was a special exhibition about what's going on in Sudan. Maybe one day there will be an exhibition on what's going on in the Middle East, in Egypt nowadays. Then I had an idea yesterday. Hey, so many students are going through your Parliament on tours. Why not have a special exhibition about North Korea in this new Holocaust museum?

The North Koreans need information, so we went to the North Korean border from South Korea, near Panmunjom. We inflated simple balloons that carried little radios--cheap Chinese productions. The wind was blowing to the north. The people were happy. As I told you, my translator asked if I could give him a radio from China. They are listening to this information. They are needy for information about the outside world.

My dream has always been that what I told the North Koreans when they kicked me out would become true. I told them, “One day we will meet again at the International Criminal Court in The Hague”. Maybe that's also a way. We need somebody who will maybe do the same as was done with Milosevic in The Hague. We need somebody who will make Kim Jong-il accountable. He's still there. He is a head of state, and he is committing genocide against his own people. Therefore, I beg you to do something stronger.

[Kyung B. Lee]

Mr. Chair, if I may, there is a movement here in Canada to build a monument. The mission of Tribute to Liberty, an organization to which I belong, is to establish a monument, which is to be in Ottawa.

One more thing I want to add is most people in despair say there is no way to solve the problem, not only because of the characteristics of the North Korean regime but also because they have a good brother, China. We cannot deal with China effectively; it's too much for us.

The world is changing in China and North Korea. There is a new generation in China. I heard that people care now. The younger generation in China cares about how they are viewed by the outside world. Up to now they haven't had that access, but now they are beginning to think of how they are viewed by western countries. That means we have a chance. We can ask the Chinese government to do something about it. If we keep asking them, I think they will listen.

In North Korea I heard from one of the refugees. North Korea depends on the military because the military is isolated. They are so faithful to the regime because they don't know, as they don't have any outside information. The soldiers in the North Korean army now are of the generation that in their childhood experienced the period of starvation in the late 1990s. They knew their grandmothers and grandfathers and parents died of starvation. If anything happens, they can act against the regime, even though they are in the army.

These days we are talking about the Egyptian crisis. There are some similarities and differences between North Korea and Egypt. If you keep a dictatorship for so long, something will happen eventually. In other words, if you don't act to prevent it, the resulting crisis and chaos will be very costly, so we should recognize that.

In North Korea there are many cellphones now. The well-to-do people use these communications. Even high officials are defecting to South Korea these days. The South Korean government does not reveal them publicly because it would provoke the North Korean regime. There are many high officials in the army and in the bureaucracy who are defecting to South Korea. We don't know the number, but there are many.

The thing is the sudden change shouldn't be in the form of an explosion. It should be an implosion. It should be brought down nicely. The international community should prepare for the change sooner or later, and Canada is one of the leading countries to do that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

I let that round go considerably over time.

Mr. Devolin, you'll be asking the final questions.

[Barry Devolin, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank the witnesses, Dr. Vollertsen and Mr. Lee, for being here today, and thank Mrs. Kim for coming back.

I also had the opportunity to get to know you two gentlemen over the last few months. I have the two questions. First, we're talking about two things: the things that are actually happening inside North Korea, where these gulags are essentially prisons—the whole country is a prison—within a larger prison.... Many of us have wondered what we can possibly do to influence North Korea, either the government directly or the people, so that they can do something. You have given us some good ideas today.

The second thing we talk about, though, is what happens when a North Korean escapes. The obvious and easy place is China, because it's a land border. We've talked about maybe trying to put some pressure or to get China to deal better with refugee claimants and North Korean citizens who escape into China.

When I listened to Mrs. Kim the other day, the most shocking part of her testimony was that after getting out of North Korea things could be so bad in China that she could be forced and coerced to go back into North Korea. That, to me, is testimony to how frightened and powerless she must have felt while she was in China.

My motion and other motions that have been brought forward are more oriented towards getting China to do something, rather than North Korea, because we sense that we might be successful with China whereas we're not going to be successful with North Korea. Do you agree that maybe this is an avenue we ought to be taking as citizens of the world and political leaders, to maybe spend our time focusing on China to improve the plight of those who get out of North Korea, or do you think there is something we can do directly with North Korea?

I'll ask my second question if I have time.

[Kyung B. Lee]

I think that when we had boat people in Vietnam there was a program called the “first asylum program”, whereby—in Cambodia or in the Philippines—you have temporary shelters to take care of the refugees. From there, the UNHCR can screen whether they are real refugees or not. If granted, then they have a destination, whether it's the United States, Australia, or Canada--a similar thing.

We shouldn't only push the Chinese government to do something about it. We shouldn't condemn them, because China also has some problems with this refugee problem. They are saying that they are illegal migrants. Some are, yes. It's true, so we have to understand their position.

We have to do something to alleviate their burden. The one way is a first asylum policy, so that the international community can organize an alliance or something, and collectively suggest to the Chinese government, How about this? It won't hurt you. It will help you. It will help the people suffering. Also, it will help you, China. Why don't we do the same thing?

[Dr. Norbert Vollertsen]

I fully agree. We should have direct-to-China refugee assistance.

I'm from Germany, and I saw it work. When the West German government assisted Hungary with opening the border, and Hungary was asked to get a train with all the East German refugees, imagine the train going all the way through East Germany and then ending up in West Germany.

West Germany gave assistance to Hungary to open the border. It gave monetary assistance. It gave logistical assistance--how to organize the trains and whatever. Make China become the Hungary of the Far East. They can get assistance from the international community. Maybe Germany will take in some North Korean refugees, and hopefully Canada and the U.S. or whoever as well. They will be there in a face-saving state nowadays, because so many young Chinese, as Mr. Lee explained, are now concerned about the outside world and the view of the outside world.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Okay.

Be very brief, Mr. Devolin.

[Barry Devolin, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Yes.

Yesterday we had the opportunity to meet with Prime Minister Harper, and in that meeting he essentially challenged us and you to make suggestions and to bring things forward. You've had 24 hours to think about it. Is there something you'd like to put on the record that you think not only we as parliamentarians but the actual Government of Canada can do immediately and directly to deal with North Korea?

[Kyung B. Lee]

First of all, we met the Prime Minister yesterday briefly. But I think it is a significant event, really, because it may be interpreted that Canada officially recognizes the status of North Korean refugees. Fleeing North Korea is an anti-state crime. You are executed. You are imprisoned in the gulag. But in Canada, officially, the Prime Minister recognized and supported the status of refugees. This is a significant event. I mean, the effect will be great from now on, because the head of the state recognized our action as quite legitimate.

I think that's the beginning. If we have a parliamentary resolution here in Canada, that's something really significant too. So far the United States has a human rights act. In Japan there was a very brief resolution, and in the European Parliament, yes, there was a very brief one. If Canada joins them....

Canada is different, really, because they say that whatever the United States or Japan do about North Korea, that's a political plot, because they have keen military and economic interests in the Korean Peninsula. But Canada is independent. We are objective. We are only concerned about human rights. So they respect whatever we do, and I think that will work.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

That unfortunately concludes all the time we have for our witnesses today. We are very grateful to all three of you for coming.

Thank you.

The meeting is adjourned.