The White Paper on North Korean Human Rights

Transcription

1 The White Paper on North Korean Human Rights Featuring: Dr. Yoon Yeo-sang President, Database Center for North Korean Human Rights Visiting Scholar, U.S.-Korea Institute at SAIS Kim Sang-hun Chairman, Board of Directors, Database Center for North Korean Human Rights October 8, 2009 TRANSCRIPT John Knaus (Moderator): I will be your moderator for today s event. I d like to welcome everybody to what I think will be a very interesting discussion and demonstration of the North Korean human rights archive developed by the Database Center for North Korean Human Rights. The Database Center has been a NED grantee since 2003 and we are very proud to be able to help the center introduce its work to the Washington policy community. Before I introduce our speakers, I d like to thank a few people who have made this event possible. First I d like to thank Jae Ku and Jenny Town from the U.S.-Korea Institute at SAIS. Jae has actually joined us very courageously today. He s got the flu and he s been out, so we re really glad to have him here today. But luckily Jenny has been working tirelessly to help put this event on, and we d really like to thank her for her efforts. I personally also would like to thank Lin Lee and Amanda Wood from NED for their help and helping to coordinate this event. As you can see from the invitation, we U.S.-Korea Institute at SAIS Transcript 1

2 have a number of interesting speakers on today s panel. In an effort to save time for the discussion, I will not review their bios but rather just give a brief overview of the discussion that will take place today. To begin today s discussion, Mr. Kim Sang-hun will introduce the database center and why the founders felt it was necessary to have an organization working on these types of issues. Then, Dr. Yoon Yeo-sang will then present the structure and contents of the database and give a brief demonstration of how it actually works. Our two discussants Sophie Richardson of Human Rights Watch and Liz Sevcenko of the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience will then give brief overviews of the role North Korean human rights has played in international policy debates and how the type of information contained in the database center has been used in other situations around the world. I d also like to put in a small pitch for the Database Center s White Paper, which is now appearing on the US-Korea Institute s webpage, as well as their own webpage. I think it s a great overview of what s actually in the database and they do it every year so you can have sort of a baseline and build off of that. Finally, I d like to make one request and that s to please turn off your cell phones or at least put them on vibrate so we don t disturb our speakers. Thank you very much and I m going to turn it to Mr. Kim. Mr. Kim Sang-hun: Thank you. It s a great honor and privilege, indeed, for me to be here and to give you a brief introduction to the Database Center for North Korean Human Rights. At the same time, I d like to take this opportunity to thank all of you for your concern with the situation in North Korea of grave and gross human rights violations. As we all know, North Korea is still the most isolated country in the world today. Accordingly, reliable information on the human rights situation in North Korea has been greatly limited both inside and outside North Korea. However, contact between North Koreans and the outside world under South Korea s Sunshine Policy has inevitably increased at all levels over the years since the mid-1990's in the wake of fading Cold War legacy. As a result, the truth about the North Korean human rights situation has begun to slip through the cracks of the North Koreans' tightly clenched fist. The information has been in the form of testimonies, news media reports, academic studies, conference papers, and reports by government and human rights institutes worldwide. However, such information is widely scattered and has often failed to receive due attention, making it extremely difficult or almost impossible to gain comprehensive knowledge about the crimes taking place in North Korea today. NKDB, Database Center for North Korean Human Rights, was created in May 2003 for the purpose of collecting such information and storing the information in a database system and archive so that comprehensive information could be produced and made available promptly when necessary. This is exactly what NKDB is doing. We adhere to the principles of independence, accuracy, and credibility. At the same time, we are committed to upholding the human rights of the victims in North Korea by raising international awareness and spurring action to address crimes against humanity taking place in North Korea for decades, massively and systematically, even right at this moment. We will welcome any initiative for support of our U.S.-Korea Institute at SAIS Transcript 2

3 work or for partnership with us for doing what we are doing now. I wish to take this opportunity to deeply thank NED for the support which has made NKDB what it is today. Thank you. Dr. Yoon Yeo-sang (translated Korean remarks): I am Korean, and in fact I have prepared my text in English, but since English is not my native language please allow me to deliver my text to you in my Korean language. Why NKDB was created, and its objectives and functions have already been explained by the short remarks delivered to you by Mr. Kim Sang-hun, so I will omit that portion from my text. We proudly state that unlike many other white papers, the white paper we are publishing is totally dependent on objective figures. In this white paper, we reduced the portion of subjective observation to an absolute minimum, and totally based it on objective figures obtained from the statistics that we organized. We have one main comprehensive database, and also individual databases for six smaller subjects such as political prisoners of South Korea, etc. As of May 2009, the interviews and testimonies we collected came from a total of 5,092 witnesses, out of which we were able to enter only 1,710 testimonies into the database. This year's white paper, which will be published in December, contains figures up to May 31, NKDB interviewed a total of 5,092 North Korean defectors on human rights violations, storing information regarding 11,260 cases and 7,137 related individuals in the NKDB central database. Regrettably, we were not able to include testimonies from an additional of 3,385 individuals because these must be analyzed before we enter that information into the database system. Unfortunately, the limited size of our staff prevented us from including all of these testimonies, though we hope to include them in next year's report. The present database structure consists of 16 main categories arranged by type of human right. Under these categories, we have 84 subcategories showing the types of violations. Altogether, we have 104 components and a total of 191 violation indicators in the database. This gives us a rather complex way of categorizing the types of crimes and violations of human rights. In fact, we have such a specific breakdown of all kinds of items that we can handle all types of human rights violations committed by North Korea, whenever such information becomes available to us in the future, and at the same time this is in accordance with the International Human Rights Instruments. Categories are drawn from a list of human rights violations which occur frequently and reflect the actual conditions in North Korea. We collect data first, then classify and analyze the information before putting it into our database system. After we put the information into the database system, we manage the information in such a way that we can produce results any time a request for data is made. The types of data we collect are 5 fold. The first type of information is obtained through comprehensive interviews of defectors and witnesses. The second way of collecting information is written material and publications appearing in monthlies or other periodicals. We also keep our eye on the internet, and collect information we find through some websites. Additionally, we U.S.-Korea Institute at SAIS Transcript 3

4 collect pictures and video clips obtained from North Korea. Finally, North Korea uses all kinds of instruments to torture people. We like to be able to collect those tools and we also like to get written information from interrogators inside North Korea. As I said, we have various ways of collecting information. So, how do we organize information collected through different sources? We divide the information first in accordance with the type of incident. Second, we arrange it according to the individual characters involved. Under these categories, we have 500 different parameters for defining the nature of tortures or the crimes committed. With the information thus collected and processed, we codified the information in accordance with the classifications we made. We often find long testimonial documents for an incident, and in such a case, we retain the full text. We have developed such complicated procedures and processes for handling the information at our disposal because objective as possible. We have handled information for 11,206 incidents or cases. This total is divided by the type of the incident and the source of the information. Actual testimonies from witness or the abused themselves represent 85.4% of that total. Second hand reports, repeating someone else's testimony, represent only 14.6%. As you can see by the figures, the information we are handling is highly objective. Additionally, the information we have collected is subdivided by a total of 16 categories. Of these 16 categories, as you can see, #2, incidents of the violation of personal integrity and the right to liberty makes up the highest percentage. 60% of the total cases we handled are related to the infringement of personal integrity and the right to liberty. The information we have just shown you was from a total of 7,137 individuals. Of the total information and testimonies we obtained from these people, 85% are from the victims of the violations and only 3.5% from the perpetrators. When you collect information regarding the violation of human rights or crimes against humanity, you do have an abundance of reports from the victims, and actually getting testimonies or information from the perpetrators is extremely rare. When we break down the type of information provided, again, we find the largest amount of information comes from the victims, with much less information given by the perpetrators. Now, this shows the period in which those incidents took place. This shows that the largest number of the cases of human rights violations took place during the period from 1960 to the 1990's. The highest number of human rights violations took place during these two periods from the 1990's until year the We broke down the total number of human rights violations cases by region, by area, and we found that the largest number of the violations took place in North Hamgyong province. The reason that the highest number of the human rights violations are reported in this region is that this province borders China, and most of the people that we are able to interview come from this province. Therefore, naturally, the number of incidents reported is highest in this region; of the total number of North Korean defectors who arrived in North Korea, 75.5% of them have come from this region. U.S.-Korea Institute at SAIS Transcript 4

5 Then, when we broke down our information by the location where human rights violations took place, as this item shows, the largest number of rights violations took place at detention facilities. Looking at the reason those victims were handled or treated harshly and the the type of charges against them by the North Korean authorities shows that border crossing offenses represented the largest number of charges against them, then next were political offenses and felony offenses. On the basis of this information, we can conclude that human rights violations in North Korea are very serious in the sense that all types of human rights violations have occurred in North Korea. Further detail can be found in the report we recently published. Before closing my report, I want to say that North Korea is like a department store in terms of its violations of human rights. My hope is to make that department store a museum. If it is a museum, it means that the cases are over, and human rights violations in North Korea have become a thing of the past. Thank you. John Knaus: Ms. Im is now going to give a brief demonstration of the actual database to show you how it works. Mr. Kim Sang-hun: Before she starts the demonstration, I have to tell you that the whole database system is in Korean, which was not our plan. Our plan was to have the system in English. But limited resources to date have prevented us from achieving this goal. We do hope that in the days to come, we can make this entire system in English. But the system we are showing you today, I m afraid, is in Korean. This is Ms. Im Soon-hee, one of our computer specialists at the database center in Seoul. Ms. Im Soon-hee (translated Korean remarks): Thank you. I m Im Soon-hee from the Database Center for North Korean Human Rights. This is the list of information stored in our main database. Now, the display above is for individuals and the one below is based on each case, which means that when you are interested in some individuals who are involved in the situation, then we click this individual, then we can see all of the information involving that individual. If you are interested in certain types of incidents, then we come to this second category. In that case, we can produce all kinds of information related to that particular incident. Now, I d like to show you a sample of an incident or a case. I m sure most of you are most interested in the situation of political prisoner camps in North Korea. This is a type of violation that we categorized, so from the list we pick political camps. The total number of cases for which we have information is represented by the figures shown here, but it is obstructed by these tables and chairs. But we have eleven thousand somewhere. Again, we have the figure of a total of 1,200 pieces of information regarding political prisoner concentration camps. Of the total of the political prisoner concentration camps for whatever reason, Yodok prisoner camp is the most well-known. Let me take the case of the Yodok political prisoner camp. So, our database shows a total of 606 cases related to the Yodok political prisoner U.S.-Korea Institute at SAIS Transcript 5

6 camp. In case anybody is interested in finding out how many witnesses we had during the year 2004, let s have a look. We have 16 witnesses who can tell us, give us all kinds of testimony and information related to this Yodok camp during that particular period. Now, let s go into once specific case: The witness wants to remain anonymous. Kim something, year 2002, he was detained there and the type of violation is arbitrary detention. And we have an identification number for each case we stored, and the date of input and analysis is not given. The type of right that was violated is political prisoner camps. This shows the actual details of the violations that took place, and the charge against this particular witness was spy activity. This is a woman and she was in her twenties and she is anonymous. We do have her full name and full identity in our original database in Seoul, but for the purpose of disclosure here and in the interest of the safety of the witnesses concerned, we kept their names anonymous. For example, this is a list telling all situations related to this particular lady. And this is the summary of the incidents. This now tells how badly she was interrogated, the kinds of questions asked, and all other related information from this particular witness. In case we want to have further information about this individual, then we can jump to the next set of information which will tell us much more about her. This is the identification number of that particular witness in our database, so we are going to look up this identification number. There are over 7,000 witnesses in this category, but we can immediately go to this particular person. We are coming to the same information which we showed you before, but now I am showing you how promptly and how efficiently we can identify one particular witness among the total of 7,000 witnesses. And there are over 200 items, so for the purpose of database system, you have to break down the information into as many different categories as possible so that when you are interested in a particular thing you can find that information. This is the outline of the system we have for this database. John Knaus: Okay, we are now done with our game of musical chairs. We will start up again and Sophie Richardson from Human Rights Watch is now going to give us an overview of how human rights in North Korea has become a big element in the policy community and how it s integrated into the discussion about North Korea these days. Sophie Richardson: First of all, thanks very much to the NED for hosting this event. The NED is one of the most common friends of human rights groups in Asia, and I also wanted to thank the U.S.-Korea Institute at SAIS and congratulate the North Korean human rights archive on the production of the database, which I think is an extraordinary contribution to our collective efforts to make human rights issues more a part of the policy discussion. And I don t mean to dampen John s spirits at all, but on the subject of where human rights issues in North Korea sit relative to the larger debate about North Korea, I think that for some countries such as China for example, human rights issues in North Korea are a distant, distant concern, if a concern at all. But even for countries like the United States, which has arguably done a lot more than most members, for example of the kind of countries that participate in the Six Party Talks, I do think that human U.S.-Korea Institute at SAIS Transcript 6

7 rights issues remain a complicated irritant more than anything else, than a vigorous or desirable topic of conversation and particularly to the extent that it describes the tensions that weigh from a very singular focus on the nuclear issue. American interest, in particular in North Korean human rights, has lagged quite far and noticeably far behind American interest in human rights issues in other parts of Asia, which I think is quite telling. And I think that s not just because it s hard to know about. With that said, it s really only been since about the late 1990s or the early 2000s that we ve seen actual policy steps in the United States on human rights issues, and that was largely the result of efforts made by some individual members of Congress who really took up particular issues and turned them into legislation and most notably, things like the 2004 North Korean Human Rights Act, the stipulations to have a special human rights envoy, and the idea at least on paper that the United States would accept far greater numbers of North Korean refugees. The US has been appalling about fulfilling that commitment. Even in a country like Japan, trying to discuss I ve gone to Tokyo twice now to try to talk about human rights in North Korea and it is arguably one of the most peculiar conversations I ve had with anyone anywhere because nobody will even talk about the human rights of, for example, North Koreans who have been abducted. And you know, some of this data clearly shows from their homes or from their relatives' homes to prison camps. All they want to talk about is Japanese abductees in North Korea, and I think that s an enormous problem and data like this can help force that conversation to be a bit broader. I don t think it s that the world necessarily cares less about North Korean human rights. I don t think any serious policy maker anywhere in the world would say to you, well except maybe in Beijing, that there aren t human rights abuses worthy of serious concern in North Korea. I think there are a couple of mutuallyreinforcing dynamics. One is that the relationship that other countries have with North Korea, particularly countries like the U.S. and Japan, is those relationships are so narrow and so circumscribed both in terms of the people who participate in those discussions and the issues that can be discussed and the kind or the volume of information that s available about what s going on in North Korea. I think there s bit of a vicious cycle that, because so few people know or participate, there are very few opportunities to spot openings, to broaden discussions, to get more information, or even to identify possible reformers to whom these issues could be discussed. For me, one of the main points of comparison is in the U.S. s dealings with China. We look at the set of policymakers that US government officials can interact with in China, relative to what they can do with the DPRK, it s just really quite extraordinary. And that s why I think that having this kind of detailed data is quite important because we re not necessarily relying purely on those kinds of diplomatic interactions to give us the kind of information that might tell us more about what s happening in North Korea and what we can do about it. To the extent that my opinion about this was solicited, I would suggest that there are four particular purposes for which this kind of information can be deployed. Obviously, the first is arming policymakers. Every single person who s participating in the Six Party Talks should have U.S.-Korea Institute at SAIS Transcript 7

8 a copy of this information in all of the relevant languages and, if for no other reason, to make them answerable for it, to ask them to comment on it and ask them to reply to it somehow so that they show that they have processed it. The second would be to feed into some of the UN human rights mechanisms which we all know are limited in their utility they are not quite like what I would like them to be on any country but they tend to be more responsive when they are sort of conked over the head with a lot of data. It s harder for them to not act on it when you hand it to them, and especially given that the DPRK is coming up for universal periodic review in the Human Rights Council later this year. That s a terrific opportunity to share around some of this information. Third, I don t want to encroach too much on what Liz is probably going to talk about, but with a view towards accountability, further on down the line, it might be inconceivable now to think about the idea of holding North Korean officials accountable for perpetrating these kinds of abuses. But this is exactly the kind of data that you need in the long haul to start quite literally making the legal case that people may have committed crimes against humanity or other gross human rights abuses. Last but not least, and I say this partly because the extraordinary John Cam is here this afternoon; for those of you who don t know, his work from the Dwight foundation has followed the fate of political prisoners in China. I believe at the very core of my being that if some of the people in prison or some of the people who are being abused have some sense that other people in the outside world are paying attention to what happens to them, that they know that people are following their fate and documenting their whereabouts, or when they disappeared, or what s happening with their family members, that not only provides a little bit of hope and inspiration for the people who themselves are suffering human rights abuses or their family members or survivors who are dealing with this, but I think it can also be a very potent reminder to governments that even if people who are inside those countries or inside those prisons can t hold them accountable, other people can. I will stop there. John Knaus: I think you gave a very realistic point of view. I would just say that the one thing that keeps me optimistic is the fact that we have this many people in this room today. If you had this meeting ten years ago, you would not have had this kind of turnout. That is what keeps me going working on North Korea, because you can get discouraged rather easily. We re going to turn it over to Liz. I think we have to move again. Liz Sevcenko: I m not expecting a phone call. I m just keeping an eye on time so that I don t talk too long. I really appreciate and want to thank both NED and SAIS for giving me the opportunity to learn from the work of Dr. Yoon and NKDB, and I look forward to sharing your work with all of the members of the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience. These are over 200 places in 41 different countries that are using histories of human rights, often recent and sometimes further in the past, to inspire action and involvement in stopping human U.S.-Korea Institute at SAIS Transcript 8

9 rights abuses today. So this is a group that has in some ways a little bit of a different idea of what a museum can be than the very eloquent vision that you gave at the end of your talk that I appreciated, which is to say that these are places like the Terezín Memorial in Czech Republic or the Slave House in Senegal that of course are determined to put what happened there in the past, but are also asking how can we ensure that they never occur again in the future. And the mantra of never again is one that I know we all share and this group has come together to really wrestle with a very difficult question of how do you achieve that, how do you actually make sure that abuses don t recur when of course they seem to be everywhere in the world. And all of these sites, like NKDB, began with objective evidence that was collected against incredible odds, and sometimes this was in the form of statistical data on human rights violations, sometimes in the form of a place itself that provides forensic proof of abuses like getting access to some of the camps that you mentioned. But while collecting this evidence they asked themselves: how can we imagine this evidence on two different levels? One, as future legal evidence as an actual sort of forensic data on abuse, but also as the foundation of a human conscience of individual human stories. Every number in the white paper represents a life and a complex story, so how can we sort of use this data on these two different levels? So I ll give a couple of examples, all of which are initiatives that used this data on two levels through all stages of a kind of long human rights struggle, from movement building against repressive regimes to prosecutions and holding limited accountability, and then to future prevention. So, one that I will tell you about is Memoria Abierta, meaning open memory in Argentina. This grew out of and built a popular movement. It is itself a coalition of a number of different organizations, including the mothers de Plaza de Mayo that most people know about, who were researching, mapping, and marking the places where their loved ones were last seen. Any information that they could have about the family members that were disappeared. This sort of popular practice of marking in a guerrilla fashion some of the places in the city of Buenos Aires and around the country that were serving as clandestine detention centers, and taking this evidence to the streets, was a major part of what built a popular support for reopening prosecutions against the perpetrators. The evidence that was collected in this process through these popular movements was then used in the prosecutions themselves, and continues to be used in the prosecutions themselves; it sort of built this specific accountability. From there, they began to look to the next generation and outside of the legal community and the prosecutions, to who else could educate a broader public about this, and created, among many other instruments, a map of the detention centers. This is another way to use the evidence in the database to create a visual path through the city that the people looking at this website live in, where they can learn where the places are in their own communities that were used as clandestine detention centers, and all of the cases that were launched against the specific cases that are now in process of being tried. Not only on the web did they do this, but they felt that it was very important to engage a new generation of young people in small towns as well as in the city of Buenos Aires, where they U.S.-Korea Institute at SAIS Transcript 9

10 created the first documentary exhibit about the history of the dictatorship years ever to be produced in the country, and trained young people to actually give tours of the exhibit and to share the results of it with their peers, and to talk with their peers about where they re continuing to see human rights violations and the legacies of what happened in their own lives as young people. Another very, very different context is in South Africa, the District Six Museum in Cape Town. This was a neighborhood many of you may know that was razed to the ground you can see in the middle of the city to make way for a whites-only district. The members of the community during the apartheid era covered the floor of a building that had been preserved with a map of the neighborhood they had lost, and invited people to come back to this map and write their memories of what they had lost directly on the maps and write their stories of what had happened. This became a popular form of data collection, but also worked on two different levels because the process and the experience of coming back to this map and reengaging with the members of the community they had lost became the catalyst for land reparations movement for people to regain rights to the land they had lost. And the court that granted their land back was actually held on the map. So this was another way of activating data and creating a popular form of data collection that can lead to major citizen action. Another example of popular data collection and bringing this information out to the people is the Liberation War Museum in Bangladesh, which created a bus that travels across the country in Bangladesh to rural school yards, and invite school children to come out of their classrooms and learn about the history of genocide against Bangladeshi people in 1971 in the mobile museum. They then ask each of the students to conduct their own interviews with people in their towns, to find out where any other mass graves might be and what these people in their towns experience was during the war. As a result of this, it had about 25,000 different school children conduct these kinds of interviews, and it has helped them to identify more killing fields and more mass graves like the one they finally memorialized here. The experience that they bring to the school yard also asks these students not only to collect the data, but also to ask themselves what the implications are of the story that they are learning about, what are the questions that we really need to ask ourselves, because of what they ve learned. And this is a fundamental part of what everybody does all of these sites have tried to think about access in really creative ways. It s not just a matter of letting people see what you have, but trying to humanize the information that we ve collected and make people understand the implications and the urgency. So there are all kinds of ways you can imagine of aggregating the data. Sometimes the power is in the aggregation of it like here at a memorial museum in Russia related to the gulag that s mapping the entire gulag system. But it s sometimes the disaggregation of the data, the U.S.-Korea Institute at SAIS Transcript 10

11 individualizing of it that s also the most powerful. So below, they have video testimonies of individual people in that particular town and their experience with Soviet repression. But the principles that all of these sites, and they re very, very different contexts, very different political realities that kind of came together around. And I know that we can t read the text but, the fundamental idea is to raise awareness about the ongoing human rights violations. Connect anything that happened in the past with what might be happening in the present, but to create a space for people to engage with those questions, to stimulate dialogue on the issues and get opportunities for public involvement. That includes trying to involve all different kinds of stakeholders and actually collecting the data and the stories which is something we heard about and then creating a physical or virtual space for people to grapple with the questions that this kind of information in these stories raises: why did it happen and what can you do to prevent it from happening today? The reason that this group is so committed to this kind of practice and these principles is that they re seeking to build a stronger foundation of never again. Not only prosecutions which provide legal accountability for perpetrators, but also to create a larger sense of social collective accountability that will last over the long term among multiple generations to create a place that will last beyond any kind of trial. The coalition, again, has more than 200 different sites all over the world that support each other often through these kinds of regional networks of sites that are dealing with similar situations in similar political contexts and through the central support of the center of the network which helps members learn from each other and supports individual programs. I know that every context is different and I really look forward to learning how everybody at NKDB activates this incredible work to teach all of us a little bit more about the violations that are happening there. Thank you. John Knaus: I know we have to be out of this room at quarter to two so we have about 15 minutes for questions. So please, if you can identify yourself when you speak. Q & A Question 1: Peter Beck with Stanford University s Asia Pacific Research Center. I had a question for Mr. Yoon. What percentage of the material contained in your database is represented in the White Paper? Dr. Yoon Yeo-sang (translated Korean remarks): Today there are some 16,000 North Korean defectors in South Korea and NKDB was able to interview 5,000 of them. We have collected the testimony of the 5,000 witnesses, but we were able to process and analyze testimony from only 1,700 defectors. Roughly, an average of 2,000 North Korean defectors is arriving in South Korea each year, and at the moment we are going to interview them all. The White Paper we just published left out some information and testimonies from 5,000 witnesses due to a lack of staff. U.S.-Korea Institute at SAIS Transcript 11

12 Question 2: I was wondering if you could share with us how you determined the accuracy of whether it is testimony or North Korean government documents or videos that you get that are being smuggled out. As you know, it s very difficult to confirm information, so I was wondering if you could share with us your process for determining whether the bit of information you believe is true or false and how you make that call. Dr. Yoon Yeo-sang (translated Korean remarks): Nobody trusts what everybody says. But if some 16,000 people are telling you the same story, you have got to trust them. Now, we are interviewing all the North Korean defectors arriving in South Korea, and we have rich information, therefore through cross-checking and the general tendency of the information, we are somewhat convinced that the information we are handling is quite credible. John Knaus: I think if I understand correctly, they rank the data inside the database center on its reliability, whether it is eyewitness testimony or second hand and that kind of thing. That is also indicated within each record. Question 3: Hello, my name is Sang-hee Jung from Good Friends USA. I have a comment and question to Human Rights Watch and Coalition of Sites of Conscience. Two days ago I participated in an event. The title was Northeast Asian Women s Conference. At the Six Party Talks, there s not much voice from a women s perspective. In fact, 80% of North Korean refugees are actually women and women are always the most vulnerable to the conflicts, so we felt that there should be more women s voices integrated in the talks. That s why the conference was held, and I was just a participant. And at the end of the conference, there was a question from a Daily NK reporter. She asked, What s the reason that human rights issues are not well discussed in the Six Party Talks? and Professor Hazel Smith from Oxford University, who lived in North Korea for two years and worked for various organizations; the UN and NGOs, answered that if you start to talk about human rights issues, there are not only human rights violations done by North Korea. You know, there are so many people affected by the Hiroshima Nagasaki bombing in Japan that if you talk about that, US will not like it. And there are a lot of comfort women, Korean, Chinese, and Taiwanese, whose human rights violations are not fully recognized and they were taken to the war as sex slaves and at the end of the war they were all killed; massive killing. And we are not discussing this issue either and if we talk about this, Japan will not like it. And there are a lot of Koreans who were sent by Stalin to the remote areas in Siberia. If we talk about this, Russia will not like it. South Koreans also abducted North Koreans, so if we talk about this, South Koreans will not like it. So all the countries all have issues about human rights issues. That s why we cannot talk about this openly in the Six Party Talks. And that s why human rights are not on the table, because the Six Party Talks is focused on denuclearization, I think that s why we are not talking about human rights issues and that doesn t help the progress of Six Party Talks. So, my question to Human Rights Watch is if you want to promote the human rights issues to be discussed at the Six Party Talks and if you would be willing to talk about other countries U.S.-Korea Institute at SAIS Transcript 12

13 violations as well. My question to Coalition of Sites of Conscience is that there s a small house in South Korea, the House of Love, where the survivors of comfort women are. There are small numbers of very old women still alive and they want to talk about this and they were brave enough to come out and explain their horrible, horrible experiences. So I would like to know if you are willing to connect with them and if you are willing, then I can connect you with them. Thank you. Sophie Richardson: Yes (laughter). You know what, I think they may already be members, but I d like to talk to you afterwards. Liz Sevcenko: I m going to say yes too. Human Rights Watch works on human rights abuses all over the world. I m not exactly sure whether your question is if within the setting of the Six Party Talks we would endorse for example, talking about abuses committed by other participants to the Six Party Talks in the region, whether it has a direct bearing on North Korea. I don t know if that would necessarily fit the diplomatic framework of the talks. But certainly, I think there is no reason, for example, that China s incredible, unforgivable intransigence on the subject of allowing the UN s High Commissioner for Refugees to have access to the border population to determine whether there are 3,000, 30,000 or 300,000 North Koreans who have legitimate claims to refugee status. I think that s an absolutely valid point to be discussing within the setting of those talks. As a political and diplomatic reality, people are only going to be willing to go back so far in history. The panel likes to present itself as being this great adherent or proponent of peace in East Asia. The fact that there has never been any accountability for that is quite problematic. But in sort of the here and now, with a very compelling discussion on the table about weapons of mass destruction I think there s not going to be a lot of traction for going that far back. Question 3: Hi, thank you for doing this. I m Laura from the Asahi Shimbun, from the Washington, DC bureau. My question is: is the NED or the International Coalition looking into maybe virtually documenting some of the sites in North Korea since we might not be able to have any kind of geographic access to them, if we can maybe use the testimonies from people from maybe the NKDB to include them in the coalition? Liz Sevcenko: I would just say that the coalition supports initiatives that come from the local places directly in whatever kind of way we can, so we don t sort of build things for people. But I would just say that a number of our members including Memoria Abierta, who I showed you, the gulag museum in Russia, and others have labored for a long time without any direct access to places either because they were military facilities that they didn t have access to or because they were physically incredibly remote, and have developed a lot of innovative ways of virtual visits to those places. The website that I showed, there s a part of it where you can actually do a virtual tour. U.S.-Korea Institute at SAIS Transcript 13