Deconstructing the HRC
The deconstruction of the South Korean Human Rights Commission continues in the wake of veteran Korea hand Don Kirk’s report that the HRC supports tearing down the General MacArthur statue in Incheon. I have no reason to believe that Kirk would get something this important wrong, but commenter Antti and The Marmot declare themselves incredulous, in part because the HRC didn’t publish a formal statement.
[Update 8/14: Kirk and the CSM have corrected the story to reflect that the HRC did not take a position in favor of tearing the MacArthur statue down.]
I presume that accuracy of a report published by a well-regarded journalist in a reputable newspaper, but I’m open to inquiring further. To that end, I dashed off an e-mail to the HRC asking for clarification, and when they respond, I’ll print whatever they say (the same goes for any HRC response to the complaint I filed about this). I’ll also try to make inquiries with Mr. Kirk.
As for the lack of a statement, it doesn’t persuade me that Kirk got it wrong. I can see a few other explanations, including the possibility that it’s still in progress, that there were internal differences within the HRC, or the possibility that the HRC is waiting to see how big the backlash will be. They will know soon enough, since daily papers all over the United States are running the story. For that matter, an HRC denial wouldn’t be completely dispositive, either, since governmental organizations have long used the tactic of floating “trial balloons” off the record but leaving themselves room to deny the controversial position in the event of a sudden chunderstorm.
[Update: Reader Aaron, a fluent Korean speaker, notes that the anti-American NGO’s complaint contains some of the same language that Kirk strongly implies was added by the HRC itself. Unlike Aaron, I don’t consider that dispositive, but I agree that it raises a legitimate question worthy of follow-up. I’ll let you know if I hear from the reporter, or from the HRC.]
[Update 2: Thanks to the reader who gave me Mr. Kirk’s e-mail addresses. I’ve asked him several specific questions about his source for the HRC’s position, and if an impertinent blogger’s questions count for anything, we should get clarification soon.]
Of course, the MacArthur controversy is significant for its symbolic value, but in tangible terms, it’s a circus. In the spirit of focusing on matters more tangible, let’s have a look at the HRC’s latest antics in its three monkeys act on North Korea. For whatever reason, the HRC commissioned a study of human rights conditions in the North and interviewed somewhere around 150 defectors to get an idea of how things were for the other half. When the report card came back, the HRC decided not to bring it home to mother:
A day after the long-awaited release of a National Human Rights Commission report on conditions in North Korea, more than 200 prominent South Korean conservatives urged the government yesterday to increase pressure on the communist country to improve its rights record.
Following recent criticism from the media for delaying its report, the rights commission made public its study of abuses in North Korea. Critics charge that the commission did not want to provoke North Korean authorities during the six-party talks over the North’s nuclear arms programs.
Policy differences on the talks aside, I could understand such concerns more if the HRC had been equally concerned about giving offense to other nations on matters beyond the scope of its mission. The critics included academics, intellectuals, defectors, and politicians who want the story of what’s happening in North Korea told. Their concerns are understandable in light of the HRC’s professed independence of political influence, and Seoul’s position that human rights shouldn’t be made an issue during the talks.
Eventually, the outcry forced the HRC to release the report anyway:
In one case, a 55-year-old female defector, who arrived in South Korea in October, depicted a horrible situation in a detention camp in the North. “When a mother gave birth inside the prison, guards laid the baby face-down,” she said in the report. “As the baby cried hard, a security agent yelled at the mother that she must never escape to China.”
Forcible abortions and eyewitness testimonies of public executions were also included in the report. About 75 percent of the defectors in the report said they had seen public executions.
Update 8/28: The HRC responds, regarding allegations that it delayed its report on North Korean human rights:
Our committee didn’t intented not to open this results [to the public]. The media misunderstood that as not [making the report] open to public. The fact that we didn’t announce the results because of South-North korean relationship or their government is not true.
Make up your own mind.