By Yoon Won-sup
Staff Reporter
A U.N. human rights envoy said Thursday that South Korea needs to provide humanitarian aid to North Korea without conditions based on effective monitoring of its use.
Vitit Muntarbhorn, the special rapporteur on human rights in North Korea of the United Nations, said in a press conference in Seoul that it is a general principle to give emergency aid without reciprocity.
His remarks came in response to Seoul's move to link humanitarian aid to Pyongyang with progress in other issues such as South Koreans kidnapped by the North. President-elect Lee Myung-bak has pledged to bring reciprocity to inter-Korean relations.
Muntarbhorn said that he got impression that various aspects of human rights will emerge as important issues for the incoming government.
Regarding the application of the so-called Helsinki process that associates economic aid with security and human rights, he thought the process would work on the Korean Peninsula if the six-party talks make progress in the denuclearization of North Korea.
He also called on the Korean government to extend time for North Korean defectors to stay in facilities for settlement, educate them for employment and promote positive attitudes.
He noted prisoners of war, humanitarian aid to Pyongyang, and protection and support for North Korean defectors are the main issues related to human rights in North Korea in inter-Korean relations.
Muntarbhorn expressed serious concerns over people forced to abandon their children during their escape from the Stalinist country.
``This heartbreaking situation invites bilateral and other links to enable them (children) to exit from other countries and reunite,'' he said.
He said North Korean defectors have children with a nationality of another country, probably China, as most of them stop in China before arriving in their final destinations ― mainly South Korea.
Though Muntarbhorn didn't mention China specifically, he said Beijing needs to pay more attention to defectors' human rights since they spend months or years in China.
China repatriates most North Koreans on its territory once its police catch them because it considers them economic migrants not refugees.
He also highlighted the difficulties in reuniting defectors with family members left behind in North Korea, saying they may face intimidation by authorities if the identity of defectors is disclosed.
The U.N. envoy conducted a six-day fact-finding tour in South Korea but was not allowed to visit the North. It was his third visit to the South.
Muntarbhorn, who arrived in Seoul last Saturday, visited settlement facilities for North Korean defectors and met officials of the foreign affairs and unification ministries.