Symposium:
"North Korea: Placing Human Rights on the Security Agenda"

Statement by Ambassador Fumiko Saiga

Asia Society, New York
May 24, 2006

Cosponsored with Refugees International
and the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom

(Opening)

Ms. Bansal, thank you for your kind introduction. It is my pleasure to be given an opportunity to address the distinguished audience of this symposium. As the panelists of the previous session illustrated, North Korea continues to commit various types of human rights violations. At the same time, on the diplomatic front, the Government of North Korea maintains its brinkmanship stance with threats to develop nuclear weapons. For Japan, human rights violations, in particular, abduction of Japanese nationals by North Korean agents, and the development of nuclear weapons and missiles are both essential issues that need to be resolved. Let me now elaborate, from Japanese government’s point of view, the serious challenges we face and how my government has sought to tackle them.

(Human Rights Violations and Abduction)

Last December, here in New York, the United Nations General Assembly adopted an important resolution. The resolution on the situation of human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea was adopted for the first time in the General Assembly. This resolution was a result of the collective will of the international community to request North Korean authorities to improve its human rights situation and has sent a significant message.

The resolution expressed serious concern at the “continuing reports of systematic, widespread and grave violations of human rights in the DPRK.” In listing specific types of human rights violations, it also expressed serious concern at “unresolved questions relating to the abduction of foreigners in the form of an enforced disappearance.” The abduction of foreign nationals is one of the issues that Japan has been addressing with a high priority as it constitutes a grave and obvious violation of human dignity, human rights and fundamental freedom. It is a peculiar issue in the sense that the impact of the human rights situation in North Korea is not limited to its population but spread to foreign nationals. Credible reports including testimony of former abductees suggest that the victims include, in addition to Japanese citizens, South Korean, Thai, Lebanese, and Jordanian nationals as well as some Europeans.

In the case of Japan, a considerable number of Japanese were reported missing in the 1970’s and 1980’s in odd circumstances. The investigation by the Japanese authorities and the testimonies by former North Korean agents who have defected revealed a strong suspicion that most of them had been abducted by North Korea. Among these many suspicious cases, the Japanese government has come to the conclusion that eleven cases involving sixteen victims were instances definitely involving abduction.

The victims of abduction include a junior high school girl, Megumi Yokota, who was 13 years old when disappeared in November 1977 on her way back home from school. After almost 20 years, when a North Korean agent who had defected testified that he had seen her in North Korea, the suspicion of abduction first became clear. According to the testimony, she was imprisoned alone in a dark ship hold for 40 hours while being taken to North Korea. The heartrending story of a 13 year-old girl being abducted has drawn the attention of many people in my country and is now regarded as a symbolic case of how inhumane and intolerable acts of abduction are.

You may well be aware of Megumi’s case since the meeting a few weeks ago of President Bush with her mother and brother was widely reported in the United States. The family members were greatly encouraged by President Bush’s remarks that he is never too busy to discuss human dignity and freedom and that it is important to respect individual lives.

My government, for its part, has consistently strived to resolve the abduction issues. Prime Minister Koizumi, the first Japanese Prime Minister to visit North Korea, went there in September 2002 with a determination to advance the resolution of abduction issues. Chairman Kim Jon-Il acknowledged and apologized for the acts of abduction, finally acknowledging what the North Korean authorities had long denied, and promised that it would never happen again. In October of that year, five victims of abduction returned to Japan. Thus, certain progress was made to resolve the abduction issues with that first Japan-DPRK summit meeting and the signing of the Pyongyang Declaration which also included a path towards the normalization of bilateral relations.

Regrettably, however, further advance has been hampered by insincere responses from North Korea. It took another visit by Prime Minister Koizumi to bring back eight family members of the five abductees who allowed to return home to Japan. As for the case involving Megumi Yokota, while North Korean authorities admitted that they had abducted her, they have claimed that she died in North Korea in 1994 and returned to Japan what was purported to be her remains. Japanese scientists conducted DNA testing of the remains and found the DNA of an entirely different individual. North Korean authorities have not provided any additional evidence or information that substantiates their claim that Megumi died in 1994.

The solidarity among family members of abductees has now gone deep beyond borders. Megumi got married in North Korea with a South Korean national. Although there is no definite account as to who this individual is, DNA testing of their daughter showed that he is probably also a victim of abduction. Megumi’s father visited South Korea to meet his family members last week. Their meeting was widely reported in South Korea, which led to an ever increased awareness and attention to abduction issues in that country.

(Other human rights issues - defectors from the North)

There exist other human rights issues involving North Korea that are deeply related to Japan. From 1959 to 1984, approximately 93,000 persons resident in Japan moved to North Korea. These were primarily people with a background from northern Korea who had received propaganda that North Korea was a paradise on earth. Among them were 6,800 Japanese, many of whom were spouses of these northern Koreans.

However, the people who moved to North Korea were met with unimaginable discrimination and oppression there, and were not granted the freedom to emigrate and the door back to Japan was closed for them. People who came from Japan were relegated to the “enemy class”, which was the lowest class in the North Korean society. They were put under discrimination and surveillance and could only live in the most inferior of conditions in fear of starvation. For nearly ten years, a gradually increasing number of persons who had moved to North Korea have escaped and passed through countries such as China to return to Japan.

Grave and systematic human rights violations in North Korea need to be put to an end as soon as possible. The international community should strongly request that North Korean authorities take concrete actions. Such a request would include a message that putting an end to human rights violations and resolving the abduction issues of foreign nationals will benefit North Korea in establishing new relations with the international community.

(Japan-North Korea Relations – Nuclear and Missile issues)

Now, let me turn to the issue of human rights in a broader security agenda.

The development of nuclear weapons and missiles by North Korea poses a direct and the gravest threat to the peace and security in the Northeast Asian region including Japan. The future of this region, which now produces twenty percent of world GDP, depends on how we can solve this issue peacefully.

(Six-Party Talks)

Last September, in the fourth round of the Six-Party Talks, the participating countries agreed to a Joint Statement that has set the objectives they should achieve. In the Statement, “DPRK committed to abandoning all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs and returning, at an early date, to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and to IAEA safeguards.” This is an important commitment to form a cornerstone in realizing the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, and without doubt, is the most important agreement in the Joint Statement.

The Joint Statement covers more objectives that the participating countries should achieve ultimately. For example, it has set the normalization of Japan-DPRK and the US-DPRK relations as one of the ultimate goals for the Six-Party Talks.

The Joint Statement has also set, as one of the ultimate objectives, the promotion of economic cooperation in the field of energy, trade and investment. Furthermore, the six participating countries agreed to explore ways and means for promoting security cooperation in Northeast Asia. They also agreed that “the directly related parties will negociate a permanent peace regime on the Korean Peninsula”.

This wide range of agreements in the Joint Statement demonstrates that the Six-Party Talks is a forum that admittedly anchors on the realization of denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula but at the same time covers broad agenda concerning the future of Northeast Asia.

Having said that, it is also true that this Joint Statement of the Six-Party Talks falls far behind the Helsinki Final Act, which is comprehensive and detail in its content and thoroughly worked-out in its procedure. Regrettably, more time seems necessary to attain an environment for drawing up an Asian Helsinki Final Act.

To begin with, diplomatic relations are yet to be established between Japan and North Korea as well as the US and North Korea, which marks a sharp contrast compared with Europe in 1975 when Helsinki Final Act was agreed. In addition, North Korea is far poorer, more closed and isolated than Eastern Europe of 1970’s. Furthermore, while Europe at that time was represented by the rivalry of East and West blocks, there is no clear line of confrontation in the present Northeast Asia. The Six-Party Talks is not marked by a simple picture of the confrontation between the DPRK and the rest but is more complicated. The five countries has a common interest in achieving the abolition of North Korean nuclear weapons but maintains various distance in their respective relations with the DPRK. China is the most friendly country and the biggest donor for North Korea. South Koreans have special emotion to North Koreans as they are ethnically identical but live in divided countries. Russia used to be an ally of North Korea, together with China, during the Cold War.

While there is a lot of lessons to be learnt from the experience of the Helsinki Process, the comparison of the environments between Europe in 1970’s and the present Northeast Asia leads to an observation that, at this juncture, we should focus our efforts on implementing expeditiously the Joint Statement of the Six-Party Talks. Without doubt, North Korean delegates obtained the approval of Chairman Kim Jong-Il when they agreed to the Joint Statement and his approval is a clear evidence that the Statement contains elements which are attractive to North Korea. In the process of implementing the Joint Statement, the normalization of relations between Japan and the DPRK as well as the US and the DPRK will be taken up for discussion, and in such talks, the human rights will be surely addressed.

I believe that the key to improve the human rights situation is to make North Korean authorities understand the benefits they enjoy once the DPRK become a responsible member of the international community and establishes a new and improved relationship with the rest of the world.

(Conclusion)

Japan for its part will strive to advance bilateral dialogue with North Korea and the Six-Party Talks in tandem. We believe that the close connection of these two types of talks can bring North Korea out of international isolation and change it into an open and transparent society.

Thus, I have outlined Japan’s basic policy toward North Korea. I hope this will provide some food for thought for today’s discussion on how the international community can engage with North Korea with a view to bringing a constructive response from North Korea toward the resolution of various outstanding issues, and how we can make North Korea understand that its positive actions will serve to promote its own benefit.