Seoul Should Take Care to Minimize Adverse Effects
North Korea today seems to be worse than the Soviet Union of the 1970s ― a Gulag Archipelago without the Solzhenitsyns and Sakharovs. That is, if recent testimonies from defectors were only half right about the lives of about 200,000 political prisoners in six concentration camps.
So it was only natural ― if somewhat belatedly ― for the National Assembly's unification and foreign affairs committee to approve a bill on improving human rights conditions in North Korea Thursday.
``The passage of this bill is hoped to serve as an occasion to share concerns and worries about the plight of our North Korean brethren suffering from severe human rights abuses," said lawmaker Yoon Sang-hyun, a spokesman for the governing Grand National Party. It remains to be seen, however, whether Rep. Yoon's expectations will turn into reality.
Pro-North Korean groups here may be right to say that any bills or resolutions criticizing the miserable human rights situations in the communist country under a one-man rule would only end up provoking its leadership and aggravating oppressions there. But that should be no reason for South Koreans to remain quiet about the sufferings of their North Korean counterparts especially while the rest of the free world is denouncing it.
Pyongyang for its part is least qualified to demand Seoul's silence, citing the agreements in two inter-Korean summits not to intervene in each other's internal affairs, because human rights cannot remain the domestic issue of a country but the universal value of all humankind. The time has long past for the North Korean leadership to listen to the criticism of the international community instead of striking back.
At stake is not whether but how to improve the dismal reality, and the GNP-sponsored bill has more than a few problems in this regard.
First of all, the bill's passage at the Assembly panel was only made by legislators of the ruling party and a conservative splinter group while the main opposition Democratic Party boycotted the vote demanding further discussion.
Even more controversial is some of its content. The tentatively-called ``North Korean Human Rights Act" calls for, among other things, strictly regulating humanitarian aid with respect to delivery and distribution, making even the provision by private groups far more difficult than now. It also stipulates the establishment of a human rights foundation under the unification minister, which will likely hinder the ministry's conduct of its foremost duty of improving inter-Korean relationships with a broader perspective.
Although the bill stresses the need for actively supporting private organizations engaged in promoting human rights in the North, critics point out these are the groups mainly involved in instigation and subversion activities by dropping anti-Pyongyang leaflets from balloons or planning organized defection.
Supporters of the bill may refute that mere criticisms and expressions of anger will be of little help to bringing about real changes. True, there will be clear limitations to sharply improving human rights situations without a fundamental change in their one-person rule and collective leadership.
But this is why it is more important to induce the reclusive regime to gradually change its system and join the rest of the world through ceaseless dialogue and the improvement of ties.
The Lee Myung-bak administration should change its hard-line policy on North Korea in this regard, which can be reaffirmed by a closer look at this bill, because it would only enhance the positions of equally hard-line groups in the North, slowing down any system change there ― if not making it impossible at all.
To borrow from Hillary Clinton's manner of speaking, too much love without rebukes, as were the cases of previous liberal administrations here, spoils a child. But rebukes with no love at all make one only rebellious.
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