Topic:
How the Free World Should Address the North Korea Human Rights Crisis

Suzanne Scholte Remarks for Asan Institute October 28, 2013

It is a great honor for me to finally have this chance to address the Asan Institute. I want to thank your Chairperson Ambassador In-ho Lee for making today possible. I have had the great honor of knowing Ambassador Lee for many years and she has been a great inspiration to me as an American woman as I know she has to so many Korean women. In fact, I remember speaking at Wellesley a few years ago and meeting this young South Korean who told me how much Ambassador Lee had inspired her and that was why she had gone to Wellesley and was studying international relations. I told this young woman: “I know Ambassador Lee!” and she was so impressed.

So, thank you Ambassador Lee and thank you to Asan’s President, Hahm Chaibong, for giving me this wonderful opportunity and thank you to Yuri Kim for her assistance in the preparations for today.

This afternoon, I will speak about the North Korea human rights situation today including the refugee crisis, why I am optimistic about the future, and what work we should be doing to see that freedom comes to the people of North Korea. Then, I look forward to addressing any and all questions to know what is on your hearts and minds regarding North Korea.

First, I want to put Korea in a global perspective as the divide between South and North Korea is part of a global conflict that is happening across the world regarding the fundamental meaning of humanity, the value of human life.

On the one side, you have people who believe that we are born with God-given rights that each life has value and meaning and each person has the right to pursue their dreams simply because they are human beings.

On the other side, you have people who have no regard for human life. They see human life as something meant to serve an ideology or a regime or a person. There is no dignity or worthin mankind, and most assuredly no dignity or worth in womankind, or even childhood.

In ideologies that ascribe to this view you see a fourteen year old girl, Malala Yousfzai, shot for advocating that girls be able to go to school as happened in Pakistan last year. In regimes that ascribe to this view, bombs are strapped to children and grandmothers to use them as suicide bombers as we see in Iraq.

Whether it is radical islam, communism, nazism, or kimjongun-ism – all of these ideologies have a common theme: individual life has little value as human beings are meant to serve an ideology or a regime or a person.

Think of Pastor Bae Hyung Kyu shot and killed several years ago on his birthday by the Taliban. He and the South Koreans who went to Afghanistan were criticized and mocked. But why were they there? To provide care to the people, because they loved the people of Afghanistan.

The Korean peninsula is a vivid illustration of this worldwide conflict: a country divided that is a land of darkness and enormous suffering where its people are enslaved and isolated by a dictator and the other country that is full of light and hope and known for sharing that light and hope with the rest of the world. As you well know, South Korea is very engaged in humanitarian programs all over the world and sends out more missionaries than any other country in the world after the United States.

I have seen this personally because I have also been engaged in work in North Africa and I remember in the Sahara desert the refugees I have worked with since the 1990s seeing their first Asian: a Korean doctor. The refugee children kept calling him “Jackie Chan” because that was the first time they had ever seen an Asian.

Now, in my opinion, North Korea is the worst human rights tragedy occurring in the world today, and every free person should care about this crisis. Too many have remained silent in the face of the atrocities that are being committed against the Korean people right now. We’re shocked at a 14 year old girl being shot in Pakistan like Malala Yousfzai BUT we should also be shocked at the 14 year old North Korean girl, the daughter of Ko Mae Hwa, beaten to death by the North Korea border guards for trying to flee North Korea. I am so glad that Malala has become an inspiring symbol around the world for young girls and their right to education. In fact, UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon hosted her at the UN last summer. But, who is speaking out for Chang Gook Wha and Noh Yea Ji, the 16 and 15 year old North Korean girls who repeatedly risked their lives to get to freedom in South Korea and were tragically forced back to North Korea in May.

The Situation Today

Right now at this very moment innocent men, women, and children are dying in North Korea’s political prison camps and those trying to escape starvation and persecution in North Korea like Chang and Noh are being hunted down and forced back to North Korea from China. Those who are escaping include orphans whose parents died of starvation, mothers and fathers trying to feed their families, and even South Korean POWs trying to reunite with their family.

It has been murderously slow to get the world’s attention of the atrocities being committed against North Koreans by the triple Kim dictatorships and Xi Jinping of China, but because of the bravery of over 26,000 escapees from North Korea who have testified about the atrocities, the world can no longer ignore this tragedy.

When my foundation hosted the first North Korean escapees to speak out in the United States in 1997, the first survivors of the political prisoner camps in 1998, and organized the first U.S. Congressional hearing in 1999, many people were in disbelief of the testimonies.

In fact, after Kang Chul Hwan and Myung Chul Ahn testified in a Congressional hearing in 1999, I remember a veteran news reporter from the Associated Press approaching me after the hearing – his face was totally white – “that was the most horrible testimony I have ever heard in my 27 years of reporting.”
It has been a long fight to make the case that the human rights issue in North Korea is as important as the nuclear issue, but finally, today, we see the internationally community responding, and we so hope that the people of South Korea will also become more engaged in this issue.

The establishment by the United Nations of the Special Rappourteur on the situation of human rights in North Korea in 2004 and the establishment by the UN Human Rights Council to establish a Commission on Inquiry this year to investigate “crimes against humanity” in North Korea are examples of growing international action. While so much more needs to be done on these issues, at least the international community is realizing the severity of the human rights situation in North Korea.

However, despite the progress in the recognition of this tragedy, there has been little progress for the people of North Korea which is why deliberative action must be taken to promote human rights in North Korea by governments, NGOs, and individuals.

North Korea remains the worst human rights tragedy occurring in the world today.

Where else in the world but in North Korea are children born in political prison camps and can be sent to these camps along with their entire families?

Where else in the world can a man be publicly executed for making international phone calls?
Where else in the world does the government turn its back on the buying and selling of its own citizens as the North Korea regime’s cruel repatriation policy has led to over 80% of North Korean women to be exploited by human traffickers?

Where else in the world have we seen millions of deaths by famine in a so called industrialized country in the absence of war?

While the world has been tragically slow to acknowledge the every day horrors the North Korean people face, we now have over 26,000 eyewitnesses who have escaped from North Korea to testify about the horrific conditions there. I credit their bravery in speaking out, but also, many of you who are here today who listened to their testimonies and took action on their behalf through advocacy or though published reports.

For 17 years, I have been making the point that North Korea is arguably the world’s worst human rights violator. It is a fact that North Korea is the only country in the world that does not allow a single human right ascribed to in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. How ironic that that document was passed in 1948 by the United Nations in reaction to the atrocities committed by Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan during World War II. 1948 is the year Kim Il Song came to power to ensure that North Koreans would not enjoy a single one of these human rights.

When the Nazi death camps were liberated by the Allied forces during World War II, the international community vowed NEVER AGAIN would we allow these kinds of atrocities to occur. Yet in North Korea it is happening again today as millions have been killed by the triple Kim dictatorships.

And today, the situation facing those who try to escape is worse today than ever before because of Kim Jong Eun and Xi Jinping have escalated an already brutal crackdown for those trying to escape.

While we have gained greatly in the recognition of the severe human rights violations in North Korea, we have absolutely lost ground on the North Korean refugee issue due to the ongoing collaboration between China and North.

The border situation is worse today than ever before. Since the death of Kim Jong-Il, North Korea has increased its border guards and issued a shoot-to-kill order, while China has increased electronic surveillance and continues to threaten its own citizens if they help North Koreans. Last year, Joo Sung Ha, a reporter with Donga Ilbo, released a Yanbian police document which offered rewards to Chinese citizens who turn in North Koreans who are trying to escape and severe punishment if they do not.

China’s repatriation policy is what has caused ninety percent of North Korean women to be victimized by traffickers.

We have seen a rapid decline in North Koreans escaping to freedom in South Korea and other countries because of this collaboration between North Korea and China. The situation in China for refugees and those who try to help them is increasingly violent. It is appalling that China will allow North Korean assassins and spies the freedom to hunt down and kill those trying to assist refugees like Kim Chang-Whan, Kang Ho-Bing, and Kim Do Hyeon and jail and torture rescuers like Kim Yong Hwa, but will not allow the internationally recognized agency – the UNHCR to have any access to these refugees.

We saw this ongoing cruelty with the incident that happened in Laos on May 27 when the government of Laos and China conspired with the North Korea regime to force nine young North Korean orphans against their will back to North Korea. These nine children had been rescued by a young South Korean, who we call MJ, and his wife. For years this couple gave up their own safety and freedom to shelter these children in China and nurture them back from the misery they had fled as North Korean orphans. All suffered from hunger, skin diseases and digestive disorders. All had the scars from beatings by Chinese and North Korean border guards and police. MJ and his wife not only helped these children regain their health but they also educated them, loved them and treated them as their own children.

We know that the regime in North Korea ordered that these children be forced back to North Korea and we know that the morning they bordered a plane for China that the Laotian authorities lied to these nine children telling them they were going to South Korea.

It is hard for us to imagine this kind of cruelty but this incident reminds us that we are facing a great evil in the Kim Jong Eun regime. We must continue our call for the Government of China to change its repatriation policy and respect the human rights of the North Koreans who are escaping to China.

Dramatic Changes

When Professor RJ Rummel prepared a study decades ago of DEMOCIDE, a term describing governments that kill their own people, he examined all the totalitarian dictators — Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Kim Il Sung and many others. He concluded that in North Korea “In no other country in modern times has control by a party and its ruler been so complete.”

However, as someone who has worked on this issue for 17 years, I am more optimistic today than ever before about North Korea because the North Korea of Kim Jong Eun is not the North Korea of Kim Il Song or Kim Jong Il because of dramatic changes that have occurred in North Korea.

There have been dramatic and unprecedented changes that have occurred as a result of the resiliency of the North Korean people. Two major ways in which the regime has maintained power are gone: the public distribution system (PDS) and isolation.

The PDS, in which the regime distributed food and material goods, broke down during the famine years. This system made the entire population dependent on the regime for survival, but the resiliency of the North Korean people led them to start trading and selling among themselves leading to an explosion of private markets throughout North Korea to such an extent that the majority of the population now survives on their own through these markets.

Capitalism is thriving in North Korea. Attempt after attempt by the regime to shut down and then to try to control these markets repeatedly failed. That is why in December 2009, the regime tried to clamp down on these markets and shut down a growing middle class by a currency devaluation and issuing new currency essentially wiping out everyone’s savings.

The purpose of this action was an attempt by the regime to destroy those who were trying to save and to reassert its control. But it failed. The overwhelmingly hostile reaction to the currency devaluation by the North Korean people led to the regime doing something it had never done in its brutal, repressive over 60 year history: it apologized. Now the regime has accepted the existence of well over 200 markets.
The famine not only led to these private markets but it also led to the people to no longer trust the regime. Defectors tell us that in the past it was every citizens’ strong desire to become a member of the Korean Worker’s Party, the path to success in North Korea. But, now, their goals have changed: their desire now is to survive by making money and providing for their families.

Another powerful tool of the regime to maintain control is also gone —isolation. The ability to cut the North Korean people off from the rest of the world is no longer possible. The information age has also reached North Korea despite attempts by the regime to keep North Koreans literally “in the dark.” Over half a century of propaganda which convinced the North Korean people that they were the most advanced nation and lived in a wonderful paradise has totally unraveled as so much information is getting into North Korea.

More and more North Koreans are listening to foreign radio broadcasts, watching South Korean soap operas and Western films and they know their regime has been lying to them about South Korea and the rest of the world.

Defectors have told me that the Western film TITANIC became so widely watched in North Korea that the regime felt compelled to inform its people that the movie was a depiction of the failure of capitalism — the great ship, Titanic, symbolizing capitalism sunk on the same day as Kim Il Sung’s birthday: April 15, 1912.

Perhaps, one of the greatest changes is the fact that over 26,000 North Koreans have fled and most are residing in South Korea and many are communicating with their family members providing another source of information about the outside world.

Now, you have a population that is increasingly getting information from the outside world and is no longer dependent on the Kim regime to survive.

What Must Be Done

There is so much that we can do to help the North Korean people.

First, we need to continue to pressure the government of China to stop kowtowing to the regime in North Korea. We know that the Chinese people are on our side on this issue – they do not support this cruel, inhumane and barbaric repatriation policy. We are seeing cracks in China’s support for the Kim regime. The Chinese people are increasingly questioning their government’s support for Kim Jong Eun as he continues to provoke and threaten stability in the region.

In fact, Deng Yuwen, editor of Study Times which is the journal for the Central Party School of the Communist Party of China, actually wrote an article stating that China should “give up on Pyongyang and press for the reunification of the Korean peninsula.” He lost his position but his words resonated.
South Korea needs to continue to press China on this issue as the two countries celebrated their twentieth anniversary of diplomatic ties last year and enjoy a robust trade relationship expected to top $300 billion annually by 2015.

As you well know, South Korean culture is very popular in China and to be frank, the Chinese know that the future is with South Korea, NOT North Korea.

While South Korea and the US government need to press China, we must also do our part as NGOs and individuals. We recently posted a YOU TUBE video featuring North Korean refugees who escaped through China as well as released THE LIST of North Koreans and humanitarian workers seized by the Chinese authorities. Both of these have Korean versions – we would love to get your help in spreading the word about this information which is on our website www.nkfreedom.org where a petition can be signed to Xi Jinping — we want people from all over the world to sign this petition which we plan to deliver to the Chinese embassy on December 10th, Universal Human Rights Day.

Second, we must never again sideline human rights concerns for the failed belief that North Korea will ever give up its nuclear weapons. I have been saying this for nearly two decades: the regime in North Korea never intended, nor will it ever, give up its nuclear program.

Now, I know this is a topic of great controversy but history will judge: I was a North Korea human rights activist during the days of DJ Kim and Roh Moo-hyun and you would have thought that these men would have cared about human rights. They were supposed to be leaders who cared about human rights – but they showed no concern for the horrific suffering of the people of North Korea and they contributed to the deafening silence during the years of the so called Sunshine policy.

Tragically, both South Korea and the United State sidelined human rights concerns because of the desire to reign in North Korea’s nuclear ambitions. During all these years of non-proliferation treaties, the Agreed Framework, the Sunshine Policy, the Engagement Policy, and the 6 Party Talks, millions of North Koreans have died. Actually, died is the wrong word because it suggests they simply passed away. They were in fact starved to death, worked to death, tortured and beaten to death, publicly executed, by the very deliberate and very intentional policies of Kim Il Song and Kim Jong-il that are continuing today under the dictatorship of Kim Jong Eun.

How did the regime in North Korea respond to the 6 party talks and the decades of giveaways of both the U.S. and South Korean governments and their peaceful attempts to negotiate a nuclear free Korean peninsula? North Korea became a nuclear power, proliferated its nuclear technology to terrorist regimes, helped Syria develop a nuclear facility modeled after its own facility and develop its chemical weapons program and carried out unprovoked attacks on South Korea that led to the deaths of both military and civilians. Thankfully, Israel destroyed the nuclear site in Syria before it could be used to terrorize that region and our democratic ally, but tragically over 1400 Syrians died just recently as the result of a chemical weapons attack.

The North Korea regime’s longtime friend in Syria, now the center of widespread condemnation as a UN team of chemical weapons inspectors has confirmed the nerve agent sarin was used to kill thousands of civilians in what UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon has described as the “most significant confirmed use of chemical weapons against civilians since Saddam Hussein used them in Halabia in 1988.”

We have failed to learn the lessons of history that appeasement of dictatorships only leads to more suffering. We failed to listen to the North Korea defectors from the highest ranking, the late Hwang Jang Yop, to those who have escaped more recently, who have repeatedly warned us that the North Korea regime will never give up its nuclear program.

It is time to make human rights in North Korea the cornerstone of our policy and the call for human rights improvements in North Korea part of any dealings or negotiations with the North Korea regime.
Third, we must not fund this regime ever again. While his people faced massive starvation, Kim Jong-il continued to spend millions on his nuclear program, and today his son is continuing this reckless and cruel policy. Today most North Koreans that are not part of the regime’s elite, face chronic hunger and malnourishment, while Kim Jong Eun diverts billions to develop nuclear weapons, threaten South Korea, and destabilize the region. The cost of just one rocket launch is roughly US$850 million — enough money to feed 19 million North Koreans for an entire year.

We must not make the mistake again of feeding this regime. We should not provide ANY food or humanitarian assistance unless we can monitor it to the point of consumption. Just this past year, three humanitarian workers who have worked regularly inside North Korea have come to me to express their frustration that all their best efforts only helped the regime. They have come to the same conclusion that the defectors repeatedly tell us: we must work to end this regime if we truly want to help the North Korean people.

They echoed the same stories we heard during the famine from respected organizations like Action Against Hunger and Doctors Without Borders that were trying to deliver humanitarian aid. These NGOs left in protest because they knew their assistance was being diverted. One gripping story by Action Against Hunger detailed their efforts to save North Korean orphans in Chongjin by providing tons of baby formula only to discover the formula had been taken from the orphanage and sold to help the regime. It is hard to imagine that Kim Jong-il and his elites have such a disregard for human life that they would steal baby formula from starving orphans, but Kim Jong-Eun has the same disregard for his own people as his father did.

Just remember that Kim Jong Eun will only act to maintain his own power, he will never act in the best interest of the people of Korea – whether North Koreans or South Koreans.

That is why we must act and make decisions based on how we can best help the people of North Korea – because that ultimately will be what is best for South Koreans, and all Koreans.

Fourth, the South Korean Assembly must act in unity on this issue. It is a national disgrace that the Assembly has not been able to pass a North Korea Human Rights Act. The people who should care the most about human rights, the so-called South Korean leftists, have cared the least. We have seen major political parties in other countries join together to address the North Korea regime’s violations of human rights: the United States Congress in 2004, 2008 and 2012; the Japanese Diet in 2006, the Parliaments in the United Kingdom and Europe, while the United Nations appointed a Special Rapporteur on human rights in North Korea in 2004 and has adopted a resolution every year since 2005 and most recently established a Commission of Inquiry.

Why is it that the international community has recognized the horrific crimes being committed against the people of North Korea but South Korea remains divided on this issue. South Korea has been slow to respond because of the political climate in this country. But, the fight for human rights in North Korea is not a political issue. It is a life or death struggle over the fate of 23 million people who live under one of the cruelest dictatorships in modern history.

Fifth, we must empower the North Korean defectors and support their efforts. There is no more powerful weapon that South Korea has than the TRUTH – the TRUTH told by those who have escaped. It is critical that we reach out to the North Korean people and empower the North Korean defectors to carry out their mission to bring peaceful change to North Korea. For example, there are over 14 North Korean Defector churches in South Korea. Because this is first and foremost a spiritual battle this is a very important development. Unlike the South Korean megachurches which have supported the North Korean regime, these churches are the true church. Like South Korean megachurches, these North Korean defector churches are very missions oriented and their number one mission is North Korea. They are not afraid to speak TRUTH into the darkness that is North Korea.

For example, Pastor KANG Chul Ho, one of the first North Korean defector pastors and his Church, SEATU Church, have as their goal to tear down the idolatrous statue of Kim Il Sung in Pyongyang and build their church on that site once North Korea opens up. These defector churches need financial support because there parishioners are all defectors trying to make their way in South Korean society. Churches here in South Korea should make them their missions project and give them regular support.

We urgently need to support the defector organizations – so many of them are doing such effective work. For example, Free North Korea Radio is broadcasting every day into North Korea, and the Fighters for a Free North Korea is sending in pamphlets with true information, flash drives which depict the uprisings against dictators in North Africa and the Middle East, short wave radios, and money to boost the private markets, through balloon launches.
Both Kim Seong Min of Free North Korea Radio and Park Sang Hak who leads Fighters for Free North Korea are regularly targeted for assassination by the Kim regime. This illustrates how effective their work has been in reaching out to the people of North Korea. In fact, according to surveys, Free North Korean Radio is the most popular nongovernmental radio station that has ever broadcast into North Korea. Every survey since Free North Korea Radio was founded has had this same result. It confirms that there is nothing more powerful than North Koreans living in freedom in South Korea reaching out to their enslaved brothers and sisters in North Korea.

We see signs of increasing discontent inside North Korea similar to the signs in the late totalitarian regimes in Eastern Europe. Supporting this free flow of information though radio broadcasting especially by North Korean defectors is the most effective way to reach the North Korean people because the internet is only available to a small number of the elites in the regime.

Furthermore there is another defector organization: The North Korean People’s Liberation Front which was established in the fall of 2010. It was formed by former North Korean military from officers to regular soldiers. This is significant because the only time there was organized opposition against the regime was from military leaders. These military leaders had studied in the Soviet Union and returned to North Korea with the desire for the country to open up to reform. They operated against the regime from 1989 until 1994. Although they were all discovered, tracked down and most executed, they were able to operate for at least 5 years.

Remember two significant things about the North Korean military: all North Korean males must serve for ten years and the elites are exempt. This means that the North Korean military truly represents the North Korean people.

Remember what happened to Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong il’s good friend, Nicolae Ceausescu in Rumania. The army turned against this dictator in favor of the people. More recently, in Egypt, the army turned against the dictator in favor of the people. We know how important the military is to the regime’s survival as we have seen Kim Jong Eun work aggressively to solidify support in the military for his regime.

We need to convince those in the North Korean military that their true enemy is this regime as the back to back Kim dictatorships have killed more North Koreans than were killed during the Korean War.

Sixth, we must address the one missing ingredient in this fight for human rights in North Korea, and that is the fact that there is no one inside North Korea pressing for change internally – which underscores just how repressive the Kim Jong Un regime is. This is the last stronghold of the regime, the only missing ingredient for change: internal opposition. Right now the elites have absolutely no incentive to oppose Kim Jong Eun because their entire lives are wrapped up in his success.

We must assure them that they would have a stake in the future if North Korea opens up to reform. The elites that have defected know and understand this. They have also formed groups like NKIS, NKSIS and CDNK which can greatly advise us with information and action.

But we also must cut off the flow of money to the regime that buys their loyalty. The U.S. Congress has introduced HR 1771 that we are working hard to pass. This legislation would cut the regime off from the international banking system because of its involvement in the proliferation weapons of mass destruction, counterfeiting, drug smuggling and other illicit activities.

We must also address those who are committing atrocities against the North Korean people, we must put them on notice too – that they will be held accountable for their crimes against the Korean people. This is why the South Korean government needs to do more than just support the National Human Rights Commission efforts to publicize cases as we saw last year with the North Korea Human Rights Infringement Report that publicized 834 cases.

South Korea should immediately convene a tribunal of respected judges to begin the prosecution of those in the regime that are responsible for the political prison camps, the attacks on South Korea, the misappropriation of food aid and other atrocities. The UN Commission of Inquiry half-way through its investigation of crimes against humanity in North Korea and has already concluded the regime has committed “unspeakable atrocities.”

But how can we stop the atrocities that are being committed each day against the North Korean people: we must signal to those in power in North Korea that the price of their continuing blind support of the Kim Jong Eun regime will come at a high cost. We have to make every effort to try to stop the atrocities that are happening at this very moment in North Korea.

We must signal to those who are responsible for working to death hundreds of thousands of men, women and children in North Korea’s gulag that they will be held accountable for their crimes.

We must signal to those who are beating and abusing repatriated refugees and beating the bellies of pregnant North Korean women that they will be held accountable for their crimes.

We must signal to those who are holding abductees from South Korea, Japan, and other nations, and keeping Korean War POWs from getting home, that they will be held accountable for their crimes.

In addition, there are a number of compelling reasons for South Korea to consider as to why such action is important for reunification.

Because North Koreans are citizens of South Korea under the Korean constitution, they have legal standing in South Korea. For example, the Musan detention center guard who beat and crippled Bang Mi Sun who had been sent there as punishment because she had fled to China to feed her starving children; the political prison camp guards at Camp No. 14 who tortured Shin Dong Hyok when he was just fourteen years old because he could not explain why his mother had tried to escape; and the North Korean border guards who beat to death the teenage daughter of Ko Mae Hwa and the North Korean security police who killed her father because she worked for Free North Korea Radio – all must be held accountable for their actions against the Korean people.

Furthermore, people like Kim Young Soon – a Yoduk survivor who lost her father, mother, son, and daughter – may be able to have some peace in her life if she knows that her government – the Republic of Korea –will pursue those who destroyed her family when she was sent to Yoduk simply for knowing Kim Jong-il’s mistress. There is a cathartic healing process that comes from being able to speak out what you suffered and to know those who are listening will take action.

In addition to the National Human Rights Commission, defector groups like Free the NK Gulag and South Korean NGOS like the Database Center for North Korea Rights and the Korean Institute for National Unification have all the evidence that is needed to pursue such action. In fact the Database Center for North Korea Human Rights has been regularly publishing “Victim’s Voices” which is a Human Rights Case Report based on actual eyewitness testimony.

Start naming names now, and print their names along with their photos or sketches of their faces so that the public will see the faces of those who are committing these atrocities against the Korean people.

It is inevitable that North Korea will be free and Korea will finally be unified. When that happens, I promise you this as someone who has worked on this issue for 17 years, we will be even more horrified and shocked at the atrocities committed by the triple Kim dictatorships — atrocities that today are beyond our imagination.

The North Korean people, the majority of whom I believe want to see change come to their country, will ask us the same questions the world was asked when the Allies liberated the Nazi death camps. South Koreans will especially have to face these questions: “What did you know and what did you do to stop our suffering?”

It is inevitable that freedom will come to North Korea and now is the time to act so what when unification comes we can proudly answer that question.
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