By Abdiel Lawrence
It has come to my attention that with your incoming administration, there is going to be new policy toward North Korea. While I am fully aware that your policy will not be one of confrontation, which is something no reasonable person wants, I feel the time has come for the issue of human rights to come to the forefront.
Presidents Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moh-hyun, men who claim to care about civil rights, have been complicit in their mishandling of human rights in North Korea. The days of "peace and reconciliation at any cost" are going to have to come to an end.
Mr. President-elect, I know your story well. Your humble and poor background, when you went for days surviving on just one meal, almost brought tears to my eyes. As a young man you felt hunger (but not because the government willfully starved you in pursuit of nuclear weapons).
Experiencing such hunger, you of all people can relate to the average North Korean, who has to starve due to Kim Jong il's excesses. Foreign or Korean, the challenges you faced and how you overcame them are inspiration.
While dissolving the Ministry of Unification was a great idea, I would establish a separate branch within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs called Organization of North Korean Human Rights.
This organization would be responsible for helping North Koreans adjust to life in South Korea while also putting out quarterly reports on the living conditions and political repression in North. Your policy towards North Korea should be partially based on what ONKHR says in its reports. If North Korea continues to keep its citizens in Nazi-style concentration camps and throwing North Koreans in jail upon being caught in China, aid should be slowly stopped.
The writer can be reached at tociand973@aol.com.