'US should not ban travel to North Korea'

A photo taken on Nov. 27, 2016 shows the Yanggakdo International Hotel in Pyongyang, where U.S. student Otto Warmbier was alleged to have removed a political poster from staff quarters. Warmbier who was sentenced in March 2016 to 15 years in prison with hard labor in North Korea, died June 19, days after returning to the United States. / AFP-Yonhap

By Jane Han

DALLAS ― Amid the possibility of a ban prohibiting all Americans from traveling to North Korea, a prominent political scientist and North Korea expert claims such a measure is an ill-advised idea that will penalize the basic human rights of Americans.

“What can we achieve from a travel ban?” Dr. Han Park, director and professor emeritus of public and international affairs at the University of Georgia, said in an interview with The Korea Times. “It is simply taking away the American people's basic human rights to travel and go wherever they want to go.”

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has suggested the possibility of a travel ban to North Korea following the death of Otto Warmbier, a 22-year-old American student who died shortly after being released back to the U.S. in a coma from a North Korean prison camp.

Warmbier was detained in the North Korea for 17 months for trying to steal a propaganda poster at the end of his five-day tour in Pyongyang.

“It’s true Warmbier's case has produced a strong level of anger here, but that doesn’t mean it should penalize Americans and take away their inherent right to travel the world,” said Park, who is well-known for negotiating the release of Laura Ling and Euna Lee, two American journalists who had been detained by North Korea while filming a documentary along the China-North Korea border in 2009.

The exact cause of Warmbier's death is unknown, but US doctors have said he suffered extensive loss of brain tissue.

While some U.S. media and experts have speculated the possibility of torture, Park says he doubts this.

“Torture is to squeeze out information. Why would North Korea torture this innocent student?” he said. “He tried to take home a poster, probably as a souvenir.”

According to Park, Warmbier would have been released sooner if the U.S. had negotiated.

“He was in a coma for over a year, so my complaint is why the U.S. and his parents did not know that he was seriously ill,” he said. “The past U.S. administration should have done something, either send a medical team or negotiate aggressively to bring him home. The bottom line is that nothing worked.”

Park urged the Trump administration to make every effort to free the remaining three American detainees in North Korea.

“They are all legally Americans, but ethnically Koreans. North Korea is very sensitive about people originally from South Korea,” stressed Park. “They will be more closely monitored and interrogated in the Korean language. They will be treated differently from Warmbier and it may take a different kind of negotiation to free them.”

As for imposing sanctions as a response measure, Park says that probably won't work.

“I don't think there are any more sanctions left,” he said, adding that only China will be able to apply crucial economic sanctions significant enough to lead to a collapse of North Korea's economy. “But this, of course, will not happen. Far from Trump's hopes, China will not play an American role in dealing with North Korea.”