Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and honourable members of the subcommittee.
As you all know, in February of last year, the UN commission of inquiry report that was released effectively branded North Korea as a totally tyrannical state, worse than a Nazi state, as Mr. Jang stated a minute ago. At the same time they branded the so-called supreme leader, or supreme ruler I would say, as a criminal to be tried before the International Criminal Court. So it is no longer arguable that North Korea or the so-called DPRK, has lost its statehood or sovereignty as a state from a R2P perspective. The COI report says, “The international community must accept its responsibility to protect the people of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea from crimes against humanity, because the Government of the DPRK has manifestly failed to do so”.
Personally I would like to liken the human rights situation in North Korea to hostage-taking situations in which the people are being taken hostage by a criminal and therefore need to be protected and rescued.
I understand there are five R2P principles as they apply to the international community's obligation towards the offending states, which have been set out by Professor Irwin Cotler, the international authority on the R2P doctrine, who happens to be a member of this respectable subcommittee.
Thank you, Professor Cotler.
These five R2P principles are the responsibility to remember, the responsibility to prevent, the responsibility to protect, the responsibility to prosecute, and the responsibility to rebuild.
I would add one more if I might, which is the responsibility to rescue, in the case of the North Korean situation, because the situation there is an ongoing situation in which there is an urgent need for rescue more than anything else.
Now let me list some specific measures to be applied in the North Korean situation. Firstly, there are measures for the people being held hostage. As I said, we have to rescue the escapees from the yoke of the hostage-taker, those refugees in danger of repatriation back to North Korea from China and elsewhere.
We have to extend humanitarian assistance, in terms of the people's right to know, for those who are sealed off from the outside world. The tragedy is that many if not most North Koreans in North Korea do not realize that they are being held hostage. They believe they are being protected and cared for by their supreme ruler, the deified personality cult, because they are brainwashed, dehumanized, and enslaved from their birth.
The provision of outside information into North Korea will certainly serve as a strong and effective tool to deprogram the brainwashed people and de-deify the personality cult.
Secondly, for measures towards the region, the ruler, such as prosecuting him as a criminal at the International Criminal Court through the UN mechanism, you know what it is and what it takes.
Additionally, I would suggest to Parliament that it ban him, the supreme ruler, from entering Canada. Of course I don't expect him to apply for a visa to enter Canada, but the implication here, the significance, is that a travel ban by the Government of Canada, if it is known to the people of North Korea, will serve as a strong and effective tool in the de-deification of the personality cult, which says that he is actually a hero.
We want these measures to be included in a human rights in North Korea act of Canada that we are petitioning Parliament and the government to legislate. I'm sure that this is what Canada can do, and therefore should do, under the circumstances. Regime collapse is inevitable and is forthcoming, as Mr. Jang predicts. I believe that the human rights in North Korea act of Canada will give hope to the people of North Korea and will serve as the last straw to break the camel's back.
Thank you.