ROK Human Rights Ambassador uses “G” word at congressional hearing

You can watch yesterday’s hearing before the House Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations at this link. I don’t have time to hit all of the main points, but broadly –

(1) I was astonished by the strength of Amb. Lee Jong-hoon’s remarks. Lee is South Korea’s Ambassador-at-Large for Human Rights. Along with his prepared statement, he presented this report by the British law firm Hogan Lovells, which draws from the U.N. COI report’s evidence and concludes that, yes, in fact, the facts presented may indeed constitute genocide (the COI report itself stopped short of saying this).

Whether the selective starvation of the “hostile” class is genocide depends on which definition of genocide you use. One of them, as I wrote here years ago, is a narrow one that Stalin favored, to define the term below his own extermination of class enemies. But under any definition, the extermination of Christians and half-Chinese babies ought to count. If you’re reading, Samantha Power, open the link to the Hogan Lovells report, bookmark it, and read it when you can spare a moment. North Korea is your Rwanda.

In responding to members’ questions, Lee also proposed, among other things, a global campaign against North Korea’s human rights violations like the one against apartheid-era South Africa, and using sanctions to target North Korea’s foreign assets and enablers. I’m reliably informed that behind the scenes, however, not all parts of the South Korean government share Lee’s views about this. What South Korea says and what it does are often very different things. (It will be important for Korean-Americans to pressure the South Korean government, even as they also pressure the U.S. government.)

Maybe Ambassador Lee was given a script by someone in the Blue House who wants to pacify people like me, but whoever wrote that script has to know that people in Pyongyang read this site and watch congressional testimony. Or maybe, different parts of Park’s government are deeply divided about what to do about North Korea. If Lee’s statement is evidence of that, it would not be the first such evidence I’ve seen.

(2) How does Shin Dong Hyok do what he does? When he testified, he spoke rapidly, recounting indescribably horrible things, without showing any emotion. (Shin was described as the only person to escape from a total control zone; whether you agree is a matter of semantics.) I know he has recounted these things countless times, for countless audiences. Is there a point at which one develops a vocal muscle memory and ceases to think about what he’s describing? I’ve met and conversed with Shin several times, but I’ve never asked him about Camp 14.

When I met him, Shin made two main impressions on me. The first of these was his obviously high intelligence. Shin grasped the concept and potential significance of financial sanctions faster than most congressional staffers could. (Many of those who filled the hearing room to hear him yesterday appeared to be staffers). North Korea made a terrible mistake by letting someone this smart get away. My other impression of Shin was of his metabolism. Shin is a slender framework of tightly wound piezoelectric coils, with the darting peripheral vision of a Maus in the Black Forest.

(3) When I grow up, I want to be Andrew Natsios. I want his encyclopedic command of the facts, his easygoing sagacity, and his ability to command the thoughts of any audience. By now, I’ve been in several rooms full of highly intelligent people of whom Andrew was one, and I’ve left all of them believing that Andrew was the smartest of us.