NK rights activist says change desperately needed in both Koreas

By Kim Young-jin

Given his career of tireless work for North Korean human rights, some may find it strange that activist Ha Tae-keung is increasingly focusing his energy on South Korean citizens.

Ha, president of Open Radio for North Korea, has earned a reputation as one of the hardest-working advocates for the North Korean people by broadcasting daily shortwave programs into the information-starved country among a wide portfolio of activities.

But with conditions there slowly evolving, he believes it is increasingly South Koreans, vastly unprepared for eventual reunification, who need to change.

“Nowadays, what’s happening in North Korea is very strange to South Koreans. People are only thinking about themselves as their lives become harder and government policy is not truly promoting awareness of what’s happening in the North,” the 43-year old said in an interview. “We need to prepare as the next five to 10 years will be very important in Korean history.”

Observers expect the burden associated with any unification scenario to be enormous as the countries try to reconcile huge economic and social divides. Adding to this a general ambivalence to North Korean human rights is a recipe for disaster, Ha says.

Last week, he was awarded the Human Rights Award by the National Human Rights Commission for his efforts to improve the lives of North Koreans. In the coming year the activist says he will involve himself in capacity-building and good governance campaigns locally to help the nation advance and prepare for unification.

Finger on the pulse

His message comes at a crucial juncture as society remains divided on how to deal with the volatile northern neighbor as the Kim Jong-il regime juggles a runaway nuclear program, tricky hereditary power transfer and an impoverished ― and Ha says quietly discontented ― population.

“These days, a lot of North Koreans including officials and businessmen, privately say they don’t respect the ‘Dear Leader’ anymore,” he said. “Now, they can only stand up silently. But later, when Kim Jong-il dies and there is an opening, absolutely, there could be change.”

Like many of his peers from the democracy movement in the 1980s, Ha had a keen interest in the North. Unlike them, however, he did not lean toward pro-North tendencies but transferred his passion for free society to the population across the border.

The interest led him to live in China, close enough to the North so he could assist defectors by teaching them computer skills and occasionally lending them money. Observing how many still harbored allegiances to the ruling Kim family despite defecting into harsh conditions in the giant neighbor, Ha realized what North Koreans really needed was “not food for their bodies, but for their brains.”

These days he shuttles between managing the radio station’s 20-person staff and being a spokesman for Oh Kil-nam, a retired South Korean economist who was lured to the North decades ago. Oh escaped, but left behind his wife and two daughters, who he fights for to this day.

Murkiness in the South

Ha said successive governments, whether under liberal or conservative rule, have dropped the ball on raising awareness on the rights situation.

He pointed to his struggles to maintain the radio station as a sign of the government’s reticence on the thorny issue. When he started the station during the previous liberal administration that maintained an engagement policy toward Pyongyang, he met resistance based on fears that the activity could conflagrate ties.

Things under the conservative Lee Myung-bak administration have only been slightly better. He said he has repeatedly asked the government for better A.M. frequencies to reach more people. “They said yes several times, even officially. But finally they rejected it three weeks ago,” he said.

The administration this year increased its budget to help defectors adjust to society and says it places high importance on helping the North Korean people. But the activist said its efforts have been too constrained by fear of reprisals by the North, which has threatened to retaliate against information pamphlets being flown across the border as well as Internet broadcasts about unification.

“The first policy of the current government towards North Korea is not to try to influence the North Korean people, but to protect South Koreans from military provocations. But without internal change, the regime will keep threatening us.”

Further muddling prospects for unification preparedness is the upheaval in recent domestic politics reflected most recently in the contentious parliamentary passage of the long-stalled Korea-U.S. free trade agreement (FTA), which an opposition lawmaker tried to stop by unleashing a teargas canister. Ha set up a task force to identify false rumors floating around over the FTA, saying it was the type of capacity building necessary to handle the much more difficult issue of the North.

The activist said his life and work has always aligned with the turbulence on the peninsula.

“I spent my 20s democratizing the South. Then I spent my energy to change the North. Now I want to help South Koreans get ready for change in North Korea, because it could happen in five years, 10 years or tomorrow,” he said.