Through the Seoul Summit, we plan to pressure the North Korean regime by establishing an international coalition to stop the abhorrent human rights abuses in North Korea and will cooperate based on the agreed framework below:
1. The North Korean government must stop retaliating against the escapees. The North Korean regime punishes the escapees using torture, coerced abortion, and imprisonment in political labor camps. It is unacceptable that a state that cannot meet the minimal needs of its own citizens should punish those who flee to find means to survive.
2. North Korea must dismantle the concentration camps where approximately two hundred thousand people are imprisoned. Prisoners are forced to work and are treated like animals; they are starved and beaten. The tragedy of Auschwitz must not be repeated in the twenty first century.
3. During the Korean War, over eighty thousand South Korean citizens and captured soldiers have been either abducted by North Korea or prevented from returning to the South. Since the Korean War, 480 South Koreans and an unknown number of Japanese have been abducted by North Korea. These people must be accounted for, and those who are living must be repatriated. The unspeakable pain inflicted on the abductees and their families must end immediately.
4. North Korea must end the human rights abuses that include the absolute obedience to the great leader, imprisonment without trials, guilt by association and the punishment of up to three generations, use of food as a political weapon, and public executions. Only when North Korea ends these horrifying practices will it take the first step towards guaranteeing basic human rights.
5. North Korean children are suffering from malnutrition. The right to health care and education is seriously breached by the North Korean government. The future of North Korean society is dimmer by the day. International food aid and medicine must be quickly and efficiently distributed to the children so their conditions will not further deteriorate.
6. We ask the South Korean government to have a genuine interest in the human rights condition of North Korea. It should be the South Korean government which must show the most sincerity for the human rights condition of the Northern brethren. Instead, the South Korean government continues to abstain on resolutions calling for the improvement of North Korean human rights at the UN. We hope that the South Korean government’s attitude towards the North Korean human rights issue will earnestly reflect the domestic and international trends. To those who struggled for the democratisation of South Korea, we ask for a change in your silence towards the North Korean human rights issue.
7. The passing of the resolution on North Korean human rights at this year’s UN General Assembly has raised more interest in North Korean human rights. Let us remember that 20 million North Koreans are caught up in a tragic existence totally different from our existence.
8. In order to promote human rights in North Korea, we the concerned citizens will meet around December 10, International Human Rights Day, every year to sustain an international campaign calling for the improvement of human rights in North Korea. To accomplish this objective, we the participants at the Seoul Summit will create and launch an international network to promote North Korean human rights.
Lillian Kwon
Christian Today Correspondent
