Lord Wallace of Saltaire
Main Page: Lord Wallace of Saltaire (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to this debate which, as the noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock, has reminded us, is about both the security situation and human rights in North Korea. As she rightly says, the focus of the international community has been rather more often on the whole question of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the illegal trade in weaponable materials smuggled out of North Korea, but we are all also concerned about the human rights situation.
It is quite remarkable that the Government of North Korea continue to permit the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, and the noble Lord, Lord Alton, to visit. I suppose that we should take some moderate optimism from their willingness to talk to outsiders who clearly do not share their views. We work very hard to try to open up the hermit kingdom. Her Majesty's Government maintain an embassy in Pyongyang, as we have for 10 years. It is one of the embassies which serves the six-power talks, because neither the United States nor Japan—nor South Korea, which remains formally at war with North Korea—has representation there. That provides Britain with some limited useful opportunities to talk to people there, to influence at the margins what happens, to discover a little bit—but not enough—about what is happening outside Pyongyang and, as the noble Baroness remarked, to undertake some very limited British Council activities and a very limited aid programme. The European Union attempts to operate similarly within the very sharp confines of what any outsiders are permitted to do.
I shall report on recent developments since the tragic sinking of the South Korean naval vessel. The UN Security Council held a meeting yesterday, 14 June, with South Korean and North Korean delegations to hear their accounts of the incident. The UNSC will continue to consult members on an appropriate response. Her Majesty's Government believe that we should work for the strongest possible response consistent with maintaining the unity of the permanent five members of the Security Council. The South Korean Government have shown remarkable restraint in their response to date, and we hope that the rhetoric is now cooling on both sides. Everyone will be aware that South Korea had formally asked the UNSC to consider a response to the sinking of the “Cheonan” on 4 June.
All of us recognise that China remains the key player in securing an appropriate UN Security Council response. China is, after all, the only outside state with direct influence over events inside North Korea. My right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary and my honourable friend Jeremy Browne raised the question of North Korean human rights as well as other matters with Foreign Minister Yang and Vice-Minister for Europe Fu Ying respectively on 4 June.
The noble Lord, Lord Alton, asked whether the “Cheonan” incident warranted a referral to the International Criminal Court. Her Majesty's Government are, of course, in favour of seeing crimes against humanity investigated. However, we all have some sad awareness of the limitations of referring matters to the International Criminal Court and, in this case, South Korea has not yet asked for the International Criminal Court to investigate.
There was a question about whether a UN commission of inquiry should be set up to investigate North Korean crimes against humanity, which raises similar issues of diplomacy as against justice. To establish a UN commission of inquiry or a referral to the International Criminal Court would require the UN Security Council unanimously to agree to that step and North Korea to recognise the jurisdiction of the ICC. Regrettably, neither of these scenarios currently looks likely. We believe that there should be no impunity for the most serious of international crimes, but the possibility of establishing a UN commission of inquiry is low, so we are left, unhappily, with our UN and EU partners to focus on activities that are more likely to produce results that will improve matters at the margin.
We are, of course, concerned with the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Resolution 1874 of the UN Security Council was one of the toughest resolutions that it has accepted on sanctions against international trade. The stopping of ships outside is now very strong. We are conscious that one or two ships are still getting through, but those sanctions are biting against North Korea.
The North Korean regime’s treatment of its people is a matter of equal concern. We take every available opportunity to raise human rights abuses with the North Korean Government. We do so through our embassies in the region and the relevant embassies in London. During the UK/China human rights dialogue in March, FCO officials raised with the Chinese Government the treatment of North Korean refugees who are returned by China to North Korea. We have also expressed our active support to Japan and South Korea in their efforts to resolve the abductions carried out by North Korea in the years since the Korean War. We are active bilaterally with our partners in the EU and within the UN. We took part in the UN Universal Periodic Review of the human rights situation in North Korea in December 2009 and in March this year. We are disappointed by how little change there has been in the response from North Korea. We supported retaining the mandate of the UN special rapporteur on human rights but, as the noble Baroness remarked, he has unfortunately not yet been able to visit North Korea. Our embassy in Pyongyang tries to engage practically so far as it can. Last year, it provided assistance to a nursery, a hospital and an association for the disabled. We also invite a number of North Korean teachers of English to visit Britain each year, so we are working as far as we can.
We are unfortunately unable to discover reliable information about what is happening inside prisons in North Korea. We thus rely, as do those who have taken part in this debate, on what we are told by the very small number of people who have been through those prisons and have escaped to the outside world. We take up individual cases. Robert Park was mentioned. He has now been released. Mr Gomes is sadly still in jail. The embassy was able to provide some assistance to the two American journalists who were imprisoned last year and who have now been freed.
The European Union continues to raise human rights with the North Korean Government at every opportunity, including during the troika visit to Pyongyang in November last year. The EU continues to lobby for the resumption of the human rights dialogue with North Korea, which was suspended seven years ago following the decision of the EU to co-sponsor a UN resolution on the human rights situation there. The EU is fully seized of the situation in North Korea but, yet again, we have the problem of how far the North Korean Government will accept the need for an effective dialogue.
Let me say a little about food security. The noble Baroness suggested that we perhaps need an embargo strategy. We all know that food security in North Korea is of considerable concern. We are conscious that North Korea prevented external UN agencies from going in last year to get a more accurate assessment of the food situation in the country. We think that several million people are suffering from chronic malnutrition, but of course we cannot be entirely sure. We are conscious that whatever you do with food aid, you are likely to get into a highly compromised situation. If you provide a large amount of food aid, it tends to go to the elite and the military. If you cut off food, it is the poor who suffer most.
The problem with the conditional strategy suggested by the noble Baroness is that it requires a rational dialogue with a relatively rational regime. The Helsinki process worked because the Soviet Union, by the 1970s and early 1980s, was a rational partner with which one could bargain. We are not clear yet, as the North Korean regime enters a very uncertain stage of likely transition from one member of the Kim dynasty to another, that we have a rational partner with which to deal. Sadly, the same caution applies to some of the other issues raised by the noble Baroness; namely, religious liberties, separation of families and the trafficking of women.
The six-power talks therefore remain for us the key way forward. Her Majesty’s Government do not take part directly in those talks, although because we have an embassy in Pyongyang we are able to play a useful ancillary role in assisting in them. We hope that the North Korean regime may move towards a more open situation as the health of its current leader may continue to deteriorate, We recognise that on 25 June we will mark the 60th anniversary of the opening of the Korean War and we will continue to do everything that we can towards encouraging peace, stability, better human rights for all and, in time, a more open society in the northern part of the peninsula.