Catalysts to NK meltdown
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By Chang Se-moon
Catalyst is someone who makes something happen, or something to change, usually for the better. For instance, President Park Geun-hye is a catalyst in Korea having an access to many new global markets. For another example, Samsung and Hyundai are catalysts for placing Korea among the most advanced countries in global technology.
Catalyst in North Korean issues has a special meaning as defined by Henry Song, North America director of the No Chainfor North Korea, known also as the Association of North Korean Political Victims and Their Families.
According to Song, catalysts in North Korean issues refer to activists and defectors “who send in information to the outside world”; “unknown individual North Korean citizen who passes the USB stick with outside content to his or her close friends or family members”; those in North Korea who sell and distribute outside materials at jangmadang, i.e., marketplace in North Korea; and “North Korean citizen, be it a man, woman, child, or member of the elite or a regular citizen, whose mind is opened to the reality and truth of the outside world and wanting freedom and liberty.”
I want to add many more catalysts so far as North Korean issues are concerned. These include theUnited Nations Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea; Amnesty International which is a global movement of more than 7 million people in over 150 countries and territories who “campaign to end abuses of human rights”; Human Rights Watch which is a nonprofit, nongovernmental human rights organization that “investigate abuses, expose the facts widely, and pressure those with power to respect rights and secure justice,” and the Peterson Institute for International Economics that continues to release latest news on North Korea through blogs prepared by Marcus Noland and Stephan Haggard.
There are more. Daily NK tries to “defend the human rights of the North Korean People” by seeing “the people of North Korea as separate from their regime.”Daily NK releases a large amount of on-site information in North Korea not available through other channels. NK News is a valuable source of information about North Korea with their website containing many informative articles.
The Oslo (Norway) Freedom Forum is organized by the Human Rights Foundation, and annually brings together the world's leading human rights activists to “discuss how best to promote human rights and open societies worldwide.” The theme of this year’s forum, held in May, happened to be Catalysts, focusing partly on North Korea. The Human Rights Foundationis a nonprofit organization that promotes and protects human rights globally, with a focus on closed societies such as North Korea.
There are many more. A 2011 U.S. Congressional Research Service publication titled “Non-Governmental Organizations’ Activities in North Korea” by Mi Ae Taylor and Mark E. Manyin mentions a number of NGOs that had worked in North Korea. These include: the Mennonite Central Committee (Canada), First Steps (Canada), the Eugene Bell Foundation (United States/South Korea), Christian Friends of Korea (United States), the Canadian Food Grains Bank, and the Hanns Seidel and the Friedrich Naumann Foundations (Germany).
I once made a presentation during a conference on North Korea at Seoul National University that was sponsored by the Hanns Seidel Foundation.
According to Taylor and Manyin, “in 1996, InterAction, a U.S. NGO consortium comprising more than 150 U.S. NGOs, initiated a process of facilitating and coordinating humanitarian relief with its members in North Korea.” Responding to the U.N. World Food Program and the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization’s call for aid to North Korea in 2008, the U.S. State Department selected World Vision, Mercy Corps, Samaritan’s Purse, Global Resource Services, and Christian Friends of Korea to distribute this aid.
Dianne E. Rennack of the Congressional Research Service has also prepared several excellent reports especially on economic sanctions imposed on North Korea.
I can still think of more. Radio Free Asia broadcasts toNorth Korea. New Focus “publishes North Korea insights, reports and analyses that are editorially shaped by firsthand experiences and perspectives; and maintains access with correspondents inside North Korea.” Their website, newfocusintl.com, is “produced by”those who lived and worked in North Korea. The New Korea Women’s Union promotes human rights of women who live in North Korea as well as who escaped from North Korea.
What changes will these individuals and organizations bring to North Korea? Consider that their direct and indirect contacts with North Korean people, as well as tens of thousands of North Korean workers who are sent to other countries to earn precious foreign currencies for their leadership, have become an important source of information on outside world to many North Koreans. This information will reach the point that is beyond the control of North Korean leaders, and likely lead to the melt-down of North Korea. With so many North Koreans fleeing to South Korea in recent days, the melt-down may already have begun.
Chang Se-moon is the director of the Gulf Coast Center for Impact Studies. Write to him at: changsemoon@yahoo.com.