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Timothy Peters' testimony before Timothy A. Peters Chairman Smith and Chairman Leach, I would like to thank you both for this opportunity to share my recent experiences relating to North Korean refugees and the extreme difficulties they, and we activists, face in China and its surrounding countries. I believe that this hearing is most timely and appreciate the attention and concern you and your respective Subcommittees have devoted to this grave human rights problem. As was the case when I was invited to appear before the International Relations Committee, first in May of 2002, then again in April of 2004, I would like to give prominent place to the fellow activists who have sacrificed so much in rescuing North Korean refugees. In 2002, I highlighted the imprisonment in China of South Korean Pastor Chun Ki Won. Last year, among others, I cited South Korean Choi Young Hoon, who to this day remains detained in China for a period that now is approaching a full three years. In my written statement, I will include a fuller listing of all known detained activists and refugees (see Appendix I), but I would like to emphasize one case in particular today. This year the arrow of misfortune has struck closer to home. Fellow American, Pastor Phillip Jun Buck, aged 68, was detained in May of this year in his courageous work of sheltering and protecting North Korean refugees. I am mentioning Pastor Buck in part because I have the privilege of knowing him personally and cherish the honor of being among the supporters of his refugee shelters in recent years. Phillip Buck would appear quietly and unannounced at our weekly Catacomb meetings in Seoul. He would then share uplifting testimonies from his refugee shelters in China. Particularly worrisome to his family and loved ones, Pastor Buck suffers from severe sleep disorders that stem from an auto accident in Russia years ago, and which pose particular hardships under prison conditions in China. I would ask, Gentlemen, that just as you exerted such swift and critical influence with the Chinese government that resulted in the release of Chun Ki Won in August of 2002, that you would give equal attention and commitment to the unjust and harsh imprisonment of fellow American Pastor Phillip Jun Buck. His case is particularly urgent as the bitterly cold winter of northeastern China is very nigh. Our experience with other detainees suggests that his prison cell will be unheated in temperatures that will plunge many degrees below zero. (see Appendix II) At this point, I would like to draw attention to the fact that a full year has now elapsed since the passage of the landmark North Korean Human Rights Act. of 2004. Many in the activist community remain, as I am, grateful to you and your colleagues for drafting and unanimously passing this legislation. At the same time, I am compelled to be candid in my assessment. During my extensive travels related to the refugee assistance work of Helping Hands Korea in the past 12 months, which included trips to China and its surrounding southeastern and northeastern countries, I have become increasingly troubled. A few examples, I hope, will illustrate the causes of my concern. In this past summer, on the very morning that I was about to depart for China, I was given an update of a most dire situation pertaining to a 17-year old North Korean girl and her sister, who had been hiding in a shelter after wading across the Tumen River. For the teenagers, this had been their second hazardous crossing. The first exodus had been in the company of their parents, and had taken place, to the best of our knowledge, in late 2004. The girls' father had been an army officer in the military of the DPRK. Tragically, the entire family of four had been caught, as so many refugees are, by the Chinese authorities and quickly repatriated. It should come as no surprise that the girls' father, upon his return, was swiftly executed for the DPRK capital crime of betraying the Fatherland. The army officer's wife, the teens’ mother, was sent to a political prison camp. In the wake of these extraordinary personal tragedies, the two teen daughters demonstrated amazing resourcefulness and somehow managed to make a furtive second crossing into China. Shortly thereafter, a fellow activist brought their plight to my attention. On the very morning that was I was to leave for China, I was told that the younger, 14 year-old sister had wandered away from the secret shelter and was picked up by the Chinese police. Thanks to the arrangement of another activist here in the US, I was able to meet with US Embassy officials in Beijing during that visit. I shared my urgent and grave concerns for the safety and fragile psychological state of the 17 year-old North Korean girl, who had so recently lost her father to a firing squad, her mother to the gulag and her sister to a Chinese police sweep. There was no question that there was sympathy in the room among those that were in the meeting. I proceeded to ask if there was any way that the US Embassy could help in this extraordinary emergency. Might it be possible, for example, to secretly bring the teen under the protection of the US by slipping her into an embassy vehicle? Then I was startled by the response of one of the political officers of the embassy. I felt as though he took on almost a scolding attitude towards me, cautioning me against what he seemed to perceive as rash activities by North Korean human rights activists. In response to my pointed request for direct assistance for the psychologically shell-shocked teenager, the political officer replied that there was nothing that could be done by the embassy, except that an inquiry could me made with Chinese officials as a way to prevent the repatriation of the younger sister. I was then urged to seek out the assistance of the UNHCR office in Beijing. I thought to myself, "Is this the State Department's idea of implementation of the North Korean Human Rights Act?" A second example: Only two months ago, I was informed that eight North Korean refugees who had made their way across the Sino-Vietnamese border had been kidnapped and were being held for ransom in a private house by a corrupt Vietnamese official near the border. In this difficult and rare case, we activists felt that the lives of the eight were in the balance, so did our utmost to negotiate a reduced ransom. We were successful and the refugees were released to our co-worker on the ground in Vietnam. I then immediately communicated their predicament to US Embassy officials in Seoul, asking if their counterparts in Vietnam could take the eight refugees under their protection to prevent further kidnapping and extortion. A message from the US Embassy in Vietnam and the State Department was relayed to me that, no, this would not be possible. To add insult to injury, because of strained diplomatic relations stemming from the airlift of about 480 North Korean refugees from Vietnam to South Korea last year, the South Korean Foreign Ministry recommended to the US Embassy official in Seoul that perhaps the best solution would be for us to take the eight refugees to yet another country! We could hardly believe our ears that a US Embassy official would relay such a message. In fact, however, that course of action was exactly what we were forced to do: guide the eight North Koreans across yet another dangerous frontier between Vietnam and Cambodia. Providence smiled on this operation and another activist and I traveled to Phnom Penh the next day to rendezvous with the refugees, interview them for their amazing stories and guide them to safety in a South Korean diplomatic mission there, which took them in.(see Appendix III, slides 2-5) It is difficult for me to express the disappointment I felt in my own government's failure to act decisively in this emergency. In a separate case, I learned in June of this year that a North Korean refugee had made his way to Thailand. All indications suggested that he belonged to a nascent resistance movement within North Korea. Due to political developments in South Korea that this refugee deemed to be overly submissive to Pyongyang, he hesitated to ask for resettlement in South Korea, worrying for his own personal safety there and the possible impediments to his continued liaison work with fellow resistance members in North Korea. He specifically requested assistance from activists to obtain entry into the United States. I immediately called a US Embassy official in Seoul, whom I had found to be both knowledgeable and helpful in refugee matters. Outlining this refugee's remarkable situation, I asked the embassy official if he could coordinate communication with the State Department and his colleagues in Thailand to consider this man's exceptional situation, for which the North Korean Human Rights Act seemed particularly well-suited. He did so promptly. But again, the relayed responses from Washington and the US Embassy in Bangkok were both opaque and equivocal. We were urged NOT to take him to the US Embassy in Bangkok, but instead to the UNHCR office in Thailand to determine his status as a refugee and which country would be best suited for his resettlement. I was assured that if the UNHCR were to recommend his resettlement in the US, then the US would be willing to accept him. I agreed to take him to UNHCR and immediately communicated with the Bangkok office of the UNHCR (see Appendix IV). However, I also notified the State Department via the US Embassy in Seoul. that there was a high likelihood that this man's movements were being monitored by North Korean agents in Thailand. Therefore, I requested a non-contact security escort for this North Korean refugee, a fellow activist and myself, as we physically escorted this resistance figure to the UNHCR office in Bangkok. I was told that the US Embassy in Bangkok would not provide such security for us as we were not diplomats. On the day we took him to the UNHCR office, we simply invoked the power of prayer and the time-honored promises of Psalm 91 for our protection. I'm happy to report that no untoward incident occurred despite our obvious vulnerability. What has transpired in the past four months was nothing short of a Catch-22 scenario between the UNHCR office and the US Embassy in Bangkok(see Appendix III,slides 6-9). According to our understanding, the US Embassy there never came forward to declare to the UNHCR its willingness to take this refugee. We subsequently discovered that the UNHCR in Bangkok does not routinely make a determination of the suitability of other possible countries of resettlement for North Korean refugees, but instead, simply treats them as de facto South Korean citizens. Consequently, this brave North Korean refugee fell between the bureaucratic cracks and, at one point, ended up on the streets of Bangkok, working as an illegal construction worker to make ends meet. In my estimation, Mr. Chairman, this prolonged stiff-arm of Mr. Park makes a mockery of the State Department’s claim in its recent report to Congress that “resettlement of North Koreans in the United States is available in cases where this solution is deemed appropriate.”(see Appendix V, pg. 24) Finally, after months of waiting and flagging hopes, in early October 2005 this refugee resigned himself to the stark reality that the State Department would not be willing to invoke the provisions of the North Korean Human Rights Act on his behalf. He contacted the Republic of Korea's embassy in Bangkok that he would go to South Korea. NGO budgets were being strained by his continued support and need to move him frequently to protect his security. After all, there are many tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of other North Korean refugees in China that are in desperate need of our attention and resources. These “first aid” needs must always be balanced against those in relatively “safe countries” already. To the best of my knowledge, the refugee in Thailand continues to await processing and remains vulnerable in that setting. This refugee's story and our attempts to assist him through this extended ordeal will be explored in a U.K.Channel 4/CNN documentary on or around Nov. 11th, entitled "Undercover in the Secret State." Chairman Smith and Chairman Leach, in sharing these actual North Korean refugee emergencies that my NGO has been involved in within recent months, I wish to highlight that, in my opinion, the US State Department is seriously out of step with the spirit and the letter of the North Korean Human Rights Act. To be more specific, one of the Act’s clear intents is to facilitate refugee applications at US diplomatic missions abroad. To my knowledge, not a single North Korean refugee has been assisted in this way in the past 12 months since the Act's passage. Last week’s State Department’s report confirms this conspicuous absence of North Korean refugee applications. Repeatedly, NGO’s have been encouraged to take North Korean refugees to the UNHCR for processing, giving the distinct impression that US actions hinge on UNHCR refugee referrals. However, in the State Department’s own language in its own report to Congress pertaining to Priority 1: Individual Referrals of refugees, it is extremely clear that refugee referrals can also be made by a “U.S. Embassy or a non-governmental organization.” (see Appendix V, pg. 8) I have personally outlined all of the above refugee operations in personal meetings with State Department officials that included director-level personnel in the Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM) division in addition to frequent communication with US Embassy personnel in Seoul, Korea. With our demonstrated interest and prolonged involvement with North Korean refugee protection and rescue, I am frankly quite mystified as to why Helping Hands Korea and other NGOs in our network were not notified of the State Department’s “third regional training workshop for NGO humanitarian assistance workers on how to identify and refer refugees in need of resettlement.” that was conducted in 2005. It would seem the perfect tool to help NGOs work together with embassies in refugee applications (see Appendix V,pg.v). I have also shared the above refugee emergencies in an NGO meeting with Special Envoy Lefkowitz on his first day in his new position at the State Department. At that time, the Special Envoy conveyed the impression that grants had not yet been distributed to NGOs in part due to concerns as to whether the funds would be spent wisely. I would ask if any meaningful inquiries have been made to ascertain which NGOs are actively providing refugee protection and what their respective financial track records are thus far. To my knowledge, no such NGO survey has been carried out. What is this judgment based upon? (Appendix III,slide 9) One final comment, if I may, is to urge the full Congress to swiftly pass a long-overdue appropriations bill that would help the activist community do a better job of sheltering North Korean refugees and guiding those at particular risk along the so-called "underground railroad" to safety. In the year 2004, my small NGO provided shelter spaces for well over 600 North Korean refugees hiding in China. I ordinarily do not broadcast these types of figures, but I believe the time has come to make an important point. More than 85% of our 2004 budget to provide safe haven for North Koreans in crisis came not from the US, but from Europe where the memory of desperate refugees fleeing the Stalinist regimes in the former Soviet Union and East Germany has yet to fade from memory. At present, another fiscal year has come to a close without Congressional funding to support NGOs that are helping refugees in China. I regret to say that bewilderment and disappointment have spread to North Koreans hiding in China. The North Korean Human Rights Act had constituted a true beacon of hope for them, but they now wonder if the legislation, in the end, was a relatively empty political gesture. The EU doesn’t have its own North Korean Human Rights Act, yet individuals and Christian organizations there are moving proactively to help. The unfortunate circumstance at present is that European donors are understandably assuming that the US, in keeping with the North Korean Human Rights Act, will now shoulder the brunt of funding for refugee assistance and are thereby reducing their aid accordingly. With no Congressional appropriations approved for FY 2006, we and many other NGOs are now facing, and will continue to face in the coming year, a dramatic shortfall in resources for this life-saving work. I believe that sending radios and radio signals to the North is important, but sheltering and assisting refugees in extreme danger in China is of equal importance. I would invoke the Biblical injunction, “This ye ought to have done, but not to have left the other undone.”(Lu.11.42) I hope and even pray that you and your colleagues will show the North Korean refugees that this Act is more than sky-writing of the words of freedom and refugee protection, principles that we all cherish. Indeed, they need to see that this landmark legislation also has “landing gear” in the form of very real and practical emergency assistance for their plight as refugees. Chairman Smith and Chairman Leach, thank you very much for this opportunity to share my experiences and views. These vitally important issues will have a crucial impact, either directly or indirectly, on a population of 20 million enslaved North Korean people. |
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