Interview with Prof. Jae Ku, Freedom House’s New North Korea Director

OFK: Please tell us about your background–where you grew up, and what people, ideas, and philosophies influenced the shaping of your character.

Jae Ku: I lived in Korea during my first eight years. I have two older brothers and a sister, so there were six of us. I grew up in Midwest, but mostly in Kansas. I spent most of my childhood in the town of Salina. I voted for the first time in 1988, for Mike Michael Dukakis. My upbringing lacked the East-coast cynicism and pessimism I’ve seen in other places I lived. In Salina, I lived at the end of a dead-end streaet, where you could see wheat fields for miles . . . to the ends of the earth, it seemed. There was a sense of peacefulness and optimism that came with that environment. The combination of my traditional Korean conservative upbringing and the “Little House on the Prairie” setting made me less suspicious toward power, and specifically, less hostile toward American power. I consider myself patriotic, in a typically immigrant way. Later, I became and academic. Still, I’d would sum up my outlook in these words: optimism, opportunity, determination, and a willingness to work hard.

OFK: Where did you go to college?

Jae Ku: [Laughs] At a little college by a bend in a river. They call it Harvard University.

OFK: When did you graduate?

Jae Ku: In 1993.

OFK: What was your major?

Jae Ku: I have a B.A. in Government.

OFK: Where did you go to grad school?

Jae Ku: To the London School of Economics for my master’s, and to the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies for my Ph.D.

OFK: When did you finish grad school?

Jae Ku: In 2003.

OFK: Have you ever been to North Korea? Do any of your family members come from there?

Jae Ku: No, but in college, I met some North Koreans in academic settings, and I actually aspired to be the first American to attend Kim Il Sung University.

OFK: You actually met North Koreans when you were in college?

Jae Ku: Yes, theyre were at a conference at Berkeley conference in the early 1990s. The North Koreans sent two academics there, but they were really diplomats. In Washington, the North Koreans would occasionally attend some Track Two meetings. Aside from that, none of my immediate family members are from there, but some extended family members or members of my wife’s family might be.

OFK: What are some of the jobs you did before coming to work for Freedom House?

Jae Ku: For the past three years until May, I was at Brown on a post-doctorate fellowship, teaching Korean politics to undergrads on a fellowship. I also spent two years at the Center for Strategic and International Studies as an analyst.

OFK: How did you find out about the opening at Freedom House, and what made you want to apply?

Jae Ku: I had been living in Providence, Rhode Island, which can seem as cold and irrelevant to the political world as Manitoba [laughs]. I hope no one in Providence reads this. I had been angling to come back to Washington. Providence isn’t actually very diverse, despite the amount of talk about diversity there. When the North Korean Human Rights Act passed, that’s when I heard about this position.

OFK: Prior to coming to work at FH, were you active on human rights issues?

Jae Ku: When I grew up, I was flaming liberal, politically speaking. That wasn’t always easy in Kansas. I actually started the first Amnesty International chapter at my high school. Some of the school authorities thought it was a communist-inspired organization, but I challenged them and eventually won. I headed the chapter for two years. In college, I worked at the North American Coalition for Human Rights in Korea, which was affiliated with the National Council of Churches and headed by Reverend Faris Harvey. They That group waswere mostly focused on South Korean human rights issues, during the time of the military dictatorship. By the 1990s, the rationale for the organization no longer existed, and I’m not sure if they still operate. After that, I left the Korean setting altogether and mostly focused on South Asia and Southeast Asia.

OFK: How is your Korean?

Jae Ku: It’s conversationally fluent, and I do use it every day in my job. It helps that my wife is from Korea. I occasionally run into difficulty with some Chinese words that come up in political conversations, but most native speakers think I’m Korean.

OFK: What to you consider to be your main goals during your tenure at FH?

Jae Ku: We need to finalize our strategy, but more generally, what I hope to accomplish is to improve human rights conditions for North Koreans in both North Korea and China. There are six central demands that will be the key to this: (1) pressure for immediate closure of the gulags; (2) allowing the ICRC [International Committee for the Red Cross] to inspect the camps; (3) an end to public executions; (4) an end to the torture and imprisonment of repatriated refugees; (5) increasing pressure China to end the repatriation of North Korean refugees; and (6) pressuring China to crack down on trafficking of refugees, especially of women. Within that general framework, we are developing an area-specific strategyies for different regions that can play a constructive roles, including the United States, Europe, China, and South Korea.

OFK: What do you consider to be the main target audience for FH’s activities?

Jae Ku: We want to increase awareness in Europe, to get European NGOs more excited about working on this issue, and to get them networked with South Korean and American NGOs. At the end of the day, however, the battlefront is really Korea. Given how opaque North Korea is, the more effective short-term strategy is to work on their South Korean brethren. They need to understand that we don’t oppose engagement, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t bring up the issue of human rights.

Jae Ku: At the end of the day, we all realizeknow that it’s the Koreans themselves who are going to have to resolve this. I want to change the structure of the debate in South Korea. As you know, there is this false dichotomy now, in which government officials and intellectuals believe that anything short of unconditional engagement will lead to war. They claim that anything less would make North Korea more isolated and belligerent, but that argument doesn’t exactly flow to that conclusion.

OFK: Explain why not.

Jae Ku: Since the beginning of the Sunshine Policy and all the time it’s had, after all the money that’s been exchanged, what results–what track record–can we point to? They [the Uri-ruled South Korean government] may think there’s a future payoff, but that depends on a lot of variables. The process is too complex for such a singular approach. And it’s just intellectually dishonest to suggest that war is only the other option. Some sectors of the government and intellectuals have used these arguments to frighten people.

OFK: What, if any, tangible effect do you expect those FH’s activities to have inside North Korea?

Jae Ku: It’s a big unknown, isn’t it? But we have a big event coming up on July 19th, and Radio Free Asia and the Voice of America’s Korean service will both be there all day doing live broadcasting. They’re even extending the normal amount of live broadcasting they usually do, just for our event. We will also webcast this event on the FH site, so people with Internet access will be able to tune in there, too.

OFK: But what makes you think that North Koreans will be able to hear you?

Jae Ku: I talked to some officials at VOA and RFA to get estimates on how many Northerners listen. RFA estimates that about 10% of North Koreans have heard them. VOA estimated, based on, I think, defector interviews, that 38% had heard their programs. I hope the message of hope gets through, and that it will give them a reason and the strength to endure. They must understand that history is on their side. Freedom and democracy is aare waves that will eventually reach their coast, too. When that historical tide moves in, I hope that we will have played a small part in that.

OFK: The World Food Program is reporting that North Korea is again on the verge of a worsening of famine conditions, along the lines of what we saw in the 1990s. The WFP is asking for $200M in donations, and yet the North’s military budget is reportedly over $5B per year. There have obviously been questions about the diversion of aid to the elites and the military. Do you personally support giving more food aid, and if so, under what conditions?

Jae Ku: This is a very tough issue, and such a morally and philosophically difficult one to answer. Personally, I think food aid programs have to be de-linked from political issues. Our government’s stated policy is that this is a strictly humanitarian issue. But that is not to say that this issue is an island unto itself, however, because the target for the food is average North Koreans, who need to be reached somehow. There has to be a better control of allocation of food aid. It has to be more transparent, and there has to be more of a political push from the donors to get North Korea to abide by the international community’s standards, as the NGOs have demanded. At times, the NGOs have been too flexible in providing food aid.

OFK: What do you mean?

Jae Ku: In the sense that they must demand that the food go to the right people, despite the fact that the Pyongyang regime controls the distribution system. Back in the late 1970s, Viet Nam experienced a man-made famine. At the time, the United States had just lost something like 57,000 lives. We had been defeated by them. Yet we provided food aid to our former enemies. I was in high school when I studied this issue. I couldn’t believe the generosity of this country. That’s the message we should send to the North Korean people–that we are a generous country.

OFK: Are you satisfied that the U.S. government is implementing the N.Korth Korean. Human Rights Act as Congress intended? What do you think of the suggestion by some that the NKHRA was an empty gesture?

Jae Ku: Certainly, I don’t think it’s an empty gesture. I found that a lot of very passionate individuals worked on this issue, and movements like that are always difficult to put together. Their good work has culminated in this human rights act. Many never thought this would get off the ground. Compared to other bills, this came out of Congress relatively quickly. That’s an indicator of the passion behind this. That passion is also shared by some very committed people in Congress, and the Administration is listening.

OFK: What do you make of Kang Chol-Hwan’s visit to the White House, coming as it did just days after South Korean President Roh Moo-Hyun’s visit?

Jae Ku: Fabulous. I’m ecstatic. What Kang Chol-Hwan does for the movement is to provide a face and voice for hundreds of thousands of faceless and voiceless North Koreans. He humanizes their mass suffering. When we say that 400,000 people could be in these [prison] camps, the numbers get lost. I’d also note that the visit was not really “a few days after,” as you suggested. This was the next consecutive working day–the Monday after the Friday [when Presidents Bush and Roh met]. Certainly, I think there’s a political message being sent here. And the things that are being said are true–Bush’s reading of Kang’s book has probably reinforced his existing views, and this is going to affect U.S. policy by giving it a strong human rights component.

OFK: Did FH have anything to do with that meeting?

Jae Ku: I would love to take some credit, but I can’t. But Kang is coming to our July 19th event.

OFK: Within a day of that visit, Ambassadors DiTrani and Hill told the Senate that the U.S. would offer North Korea security guarantees even without improvements in human rights and openness in the North. Do you think that this really undermines the tangible meaning of Kang’s visit?

Jae Ku: No. Secretary of State Rice has said similar things in interviews–which is that there won’t be a full normalization of relations without progress on human rights. So has [Ambassador] Christopher Hill.

OFK: North Korea has called broadcasts like those you are talking about attempts to subvert its regime. Do you think that “security guarantees” would also mean an end to broadcasts and other activities intended to promote democracy inside North Korea?

Jae Ku: I really doubt that—-especially with this President.

OFK: Privately, I’ve heard some say that the various groups promoting human rights in North Korea have lost focus and unity in the wake of the North Korean Human Rights Act’s passage. Where do you see this movement going, at least in the United States? Does it have a direction? Will it?

Jae Ku: I certainly want to have a hand in that direction. We need to do better at organize bettering the passionate individuals who make up this movement. We in the human rights community need to think outside of the box, too. And I think we could do a better job of marrying human rights work with capitalism. For example, some of us are getting Kang Chol-Hwan back here to do a book tour, and I’ve been in contact with his publisher.

OFK: Ultimately, this movement is about the people of North Korea, and putting the choices in their hands. Yet there are relatively few North Koreans participating in this movement at present. OFK: How can we do more to involve the North Koreans themselves in the process of opening their society?

Jae Ku: For now, it’s difficult. But on July 19th, at least 20 defectors, hopefully many more, will be here, representing at least two different coalition of defectors’ groups.

OFK: What can you do to advance thattheir participation?

Jae Ku: We have money for sub-grants, and plenty of groups have been asking for them. In some cases, what’s been requested is beyond what we can do. I don’t make the final decisions on the award of sub-grants, but I can tell you that my strong preference is to award them to organizations that are really at the forefront of human rights in North Korea. That means organizations in Korea that are doing this work now. And those groups also tend to need this kind of financial assistance.

OFK: Professor Ku, thank you very much for your time. Anything you want to add?

Jae Ku: Please tell everyone about our July 19th event.

Wish granted.

Some notes on how I did this interview:. I called Prof. Ku at his office and typed notes of what he said, making my best effort to type his exact words as he spoke them. In that, I failed. Since people tend to converse in sentence fragments more than they realize, I formed the fragments into complete grammatical sentences, but preserved the key words, phrases, and ideas as he said them. When I had cleaned up my notes, I forwarded them to Professor Ku and gave him the opportunity to review his statements and make corrections for accuracy, on the theory that these could be considered direct quotes by adoption. I suspect that real journalists probably do things similarly, but some of thema few skip that last part.

A few final editorial notes–an anonymous insider not affiliated with Freedom House wrote in to say that planning for FH’s human rights conference is going well. “Freedom House’s Jae Ku is doing a good job of learning on the job while trying to find middle ground between rather contentious agendas. The conference should take place at the Mayflower Hotel; Jay Lefkowitz, the newly selected Special Envoy for Human Rights in North Korea, is expected to be one of the speakers. Some of the other groups that will participate include LiNK and Korean Churches for North Korea, headed by Rev. Seyku Chang.

Freedom House wants to prepare Koreans to take leadership roles, and Korean-Americans have set the trend by starting to take leadership roles in the United States. FH is also trying to keep the movement ideologically diverse, rather than a neocon echo chamber or another voice for unconditional engagement.