North Korea

Andrew Selous Excerpts

Wednesday 11th January 2012 Westminster Hall

[Fiona Bruce]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. One of the issues that I will ask the Minister to address is the monitoring of humanitarian food aid across the country. Currently, food rations are distributed by the DPRK under the North Korean Government’s food distribution programme, on which millions of people are dependent, but it meets less than half the daily calorific needs of most recipients.

To underline the urgent need for food, I will relate some of the descriptions given to the APPG at a meeting here in Parliament, just a few weeks ago, by Baroness Amos, the UN Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Co-ordinator, after she visited the country late last year. I hope to report what Baroness Amos said accurately. She stated that the background to her visit was that in 2011, for the first time in 16 years, the North Korean Government made an international appeal for assistance—welcome news. By a UN assessment, she said that 16 million people in the DPRK are now in need of food aid and that the number is increasing because of the growth rate, especially in women and children.

Baroness Amos recounted that during her visit she was at pains to stress to the North Korean Government that humanitarian aid is impartial. She visited a hospital, a market, a biscuit factory, a Government food distribution point and a co-operative farm. She reported a situation of chronic poverty and underdevelopment, with an annual gap of about a million metric tons in the amount of food needed, according to the DPRK’s own targets. People live mainly off maize, cabbage and occasionally rice. There is no oil, although if people live near the sea, there is occasionally fish, but no meat. She asked some mothers when they last had an egg: no one could tell her. So there is virtually no protein for people in need of food aid. In fact, there are hardly any animals to be seen.

The nutritional deficit in children is acute, and there are major structural problems with food production, with severely low production from land and an almost total lack of mechanisation. Indeed, another visitor to North Korea, who went last month, told me this week that she had seen only three tractors over several days of travelling across the countryside.

Transport is a major problem. Baroness Amos reported seeing steam lorries—something she had never seen anywhere else in the world—where coal is burnt on the back of lorries to create steam and three out of four of them appeared to be broken down.

Food for much of the population comes from the public food distribution system and is obtained on production of ration cards. People receive about 200 grams of food a day, on average, although the DPRK’s own target is about 600 grams. Needs are particularly acute outside the capital Pyongyang. People living in Pyongyang rarely travel out of it, and vice versa, so the desperate needs of those outside the capital are perhaps not as well understood as they could be.

Will the Minister advise us about the endeavours of the British Government to facilitate the provision of food aid to North Korea, either directly or through international aid agencies? Will he press for unrestricted access for humanitarian aid organisations to all parts of the country and inform us what the British Government are doing, by themselves or through the European Union or United Nations, to address the crisis? What efforts have been made to ensure monitoring of aid and what assessment have the Government made of the effectiveness of international aid and the ability of international humanitarian organisations to reach North Korean people in need?

I want to highlight two other concerns: the situation of abductees and the plight of refugees. The Minister will, I hope, be familiar with the case of Dr Oh, who has been mentioned. There are many other cases. Will the Minister tell us what the latest position is regarding Dr Oh’s family and what efforts the British Government are making to press the North Korean authorities to account for the large number of foreign abductees, believed to run into several thousand, and to release them? What steps can the British Government take to work with Governments of countries whose citizens have been abducted and with international organisations such as the UN to secure their release?

Additionally, what steps can be taken to urge China to desist from the forcible repatriation of North Korean refugees and to tackle the plight of refugees who subsequently suffer at the hands of human traffickers? The number of women affected in that way runs into tens of thousands.

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on her speech, which I am listening to with interest. Does she agree that there has been quite a lot of discussion in the media about nuclear and military issues and the backward economic situation, but that human rights in Korea has had little exposure? Does she agree that that needs to be remedied urgently?

[Fiona Bruce]

I agree. I hope that this debate will raise awareness of those two key issues.

The former UN special rapporteur for human rights in North Korea, Mr Vitit Muntarbhorn, has called on the international community to

“mobilise the totality of the UN to promote and protect human rights in the country”.

Will the Minister advise us whether the British Government would consider taking a lead to seek the establishment of a UN commission of inquiry in this respect on the subjects that my hon. Friend mentioned? In particular, what steps is the Minister taking to press the new leadership to open up access to international human rights monitors, including the UN special rapporteur for human rights, who has repeatedly been refused access? Can the Minister say whether any progress has been made in negotiation and dialogue with the DPRK authorities by the new UN special rapporteur to the DPRK?

With reference to the prison camps, such as the one Shin Dong-hyuk described, I understand that the North Korean authorities regularly say that these are not prisons as described. Will the Minister, through a process of Government engagement between the two countries, endeavour to arrange access to some of the camps for British parliamentarians, such as those from the APPG, who have already sensitively endeavoured over several years to build constructive relationships with North Korean people? In this regard, I pay tribute to the chairman and founder of the APPG for North Korea, Professor Lord Alton of Liverpool and his colleague in the House of Lords, Baroness Cox.

I welcome the British Government’s improved funding support, despite their austerity programme, for the British Council’s English teaching work within North Korea. It is particularly pleasing to note that English is now being taught as the second language in the DPRK. I should particularly like to offer my congratulations on the recent acceptance of the first two scholars to study at Cambridge university, which is to the credit of our Government, the Foreign Office and those scholars.

I welcome the Minister’s thoughts on what can be done to encourage the flow of information from the outside world into North Korea, perhaps through support for radio broadcasting.

I understand that there are some 400 North Korean refugees here in the United Kingdom. The book, “Nothing to Envy”, which I have mentioned more than once already, describes how difficult modern life, with all its choices and complexities, is for North Korean refugees. What support is available for them in the UK to help them prepare for a better future for themselves and their country? Is there dialogue between the Government and those refugees to aid our country’s understanding of North Korea and in turn help build relationships with that country?

I thank the Minister for meeting Shin Dong-hyuk personally. I believe that that is an indication of his sincere concern about these issues. Will he also consider meeting Dr James Kim, a remarkable man who has founded Pyongyang university of science and technology—PUST—within the past two years, when he visits Parliament on 15 February? Perhaps after hearing of the wonderful story of hope that the establishment of that university provides, the Minister may consider making representations to the Department for International Development to give support to PUST, if not on a wider basis for North Korea.

It is encouraging that the UK Government have developed, over the past 10 years, diplomatic relations with the DPRK. I pay a particular tribute to our diplomatic staff in North Korea, especially our new ambassador, Karen Wolstenholme, who I am sure will follow in an equally exemplary manner her immediate predecessor in the British embassy in Pyongyang, Mr Peter Hughes, whose ongoing concern for the people of North Korea has been evident to me whenever I have had the pleasure of meeting him.

What a positive step it would be if the United States established diplomatic relations with the DPRK and thereby effectively formally ended the Korean war. Can the Minister advise us what steps, if any, the British Government may be taking to encourage the Americans in this respect?

Shin Dong-hyuk told me that the North Korean people cannot change their situation by themselves. They need help from the international community. I hope that the Minister gives us an indication of what we can all do to give more hope to the people of North Korea.

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[Mr Gary Streeter (South West Devon) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) for securing this debate, and for the tone of her speech. She achieved the right balance between raising legitimate concerns about human rights, and reflecting a positive way forward and underlining the importance of engagement, and I warmly congratulate her.

I would like to share a few personal reflections. Seven or eight years ago, I visited North Korea with Michael Bates, who is now in the upper House—actually, he is not there, as he is walking from Mount Olympus to London on a 3,500-mile journey to raise awareness of the Olympic truce, which again is about peace and human rights. We went to North Korea of our own volition, and it was an extraordinary experience.

What hon. Members have said in this debate is correct: I have been to many countries in the world, but nowhere is quite like North Korea. One of my most striking memories, which I will carry with me to my grave, is of being woken at 5 o’clock in the morning in the state-owned hotel in which we were staying. We were woken by military music blaring not from a radio, but from loudspeakers on street corners. It continued for about 10 minutes, after which the odd light would turn on in apartment blocks all over Pyongyang. The music started again at 6 o’clock, and as we looked out of the window, we saw people filing down in silence from their apartment blocks, walking three abreast along wide pavements. There was not a car to be seen and the roads were empty; people were walking silently to work.

One point that has perhaps not been touched on in the debate is the regimented nature of the North Korean regime, which is extraordinary. One morning, we got up and walked along the pavement with other people. It was eerie; thousands and thousands of people were walking to work in complete silence. In North Korea, people tend to work from 6 o’clock in the morning until 6 o’clock at night, and then go home and do two hours of self-improvement. How about that as a policy for the United Kingdom?

We were in North Korea shortly after its latest famine, and we saw extraordinary poverty. One day, we were taken out of Pyongyang, even though not many people are allowed to leave the capital. We were taken to see something that the North Koreans were quite proud of: a new latrine block—not a toilet block, but a latrine block—in a hospital in a city about an hour and a half north-west of Pyongyang. They showed us this extraordinary thing that we would have condemned in the 1950s. That is just an example of how far behind they are.

Sometimes people say to us that politics is not important. One of the abiding reflections that I have is that down in the South are people who are broadly free and broadly prosperous, but in the North—it is not a small country; it has a population of 25 million people—the people are very much not free and not prosperous. Many of them are in poverty, and all of them are in oppression, apart from the ruling elite. The only difference between the two—these are the same people—is the political system and structure, so we must never let anyone tell us that politics is not important. It is crucial in underpinning freedoms.

My visit to North Korea was an extraordinary experience, and one that I thought hon. Members might like to hear about. I believe that it is right for the Government to engage with North Korea, despite all the problems that we have heard about today. We are all scratching our heads as to what we can do about that, and perhaps there is a glimmer of hope with a new leader coming in. As the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) suggested, we do not know the extent to which people are secretly listening to certain radio stations or hearing news from the outside world. Of course, there is no internet access for the ordinary masses. However, we do not know the extent to which there is awareness of how life is different outside North Korea, and how there might well be an opportunity in the future. My instinct is that if there is change in North Korea, it will come quickly and suddenly and from who knows where, so I think that it is right for the British Government to engage positively with North Korea in the meantime.

One thing that I did while in Pyongyang was vote in the Conservative party leadership election taking place at that time. My hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous), who is sitting beside me, had my proxy vote, which I exercised by telephone from a hotel in Pyongyang. I am probably the only person ever to have voted in Pyongyang. Whether I made the right decision, history will decide.

I just wanted to share those reflections. North Korea is an extraordinary country, and I believe that we are right to engage with it positively. I pay tribute to Christian Solidarity Worldwide, which has been mentioned several times, for the excellent work that it does in banging the drum and raising awareness of human rights abuses in North Korea, but also in other countries. Whatever attitude our Government take in terms of positive engagement, it is very important that British non-governmental organisations are raising awareness, fighting for the causes and championing human rights around the world. They do a fantastic job, and long may that continue.

As for the attitude of the North Koreans to outside pressure, one thing that we have to realise is that they have lived for 50 years with hostility from outside. All over Pyongyang are billboards, and almost all of them show North Korean soldiers squeezing the life out of an American soldier or bombing the Japanese. They hate the Japanese and they hate the Americans, for all sorts of historical reasons, and there are billboards proclaiming their hatred of those countries, so in one sense external pressure simply bolsters the regime. It is already saying to its own people, “Look, it’s us against the world.”

As has been mentioned, China is the key relationship, in the way that I guess the relationship with the USA is key for Israel. I suspect that it suits China quite well to have this slightly odd regime on its doorstep, almost like a buffer zone. Is it not extraordinary that there is a country on earth that can make the Chinese human rights record look quite good? It happens to be right alongside it, in North Korea.

[Andrew Selous]

Does my hon. Friend agree that when our Government quite properly raise human rights issues with the Chinese authorities in relation to what is going on China, they should at the same time mention the situation in North Korea, given that it is a country of 25 million people where there is such widespread abuse of human rights?

[Mr Streeter]

Yes, I do agree, and I am sure that the Minister will touch on that in his response.

As we are paying tribute to the Government’s position, which I think is absolutely right, and to non-governmental organisations for raising awareness, I think that we ought not to let the opportunity pass to pay tribute to Lord Alton, who has been mentioned a couple of times. He has done an extraordinary job as chairman of the all-party group on North Korea. I am privileged to serve as one of the vice-chairs. He has done an extraordinary job in getting the balance right between entertaining people from North Korea when they come over here and organising all kinds of meeting and so on, and being robust and firm about human rights abuses. I wish him every success in the future.

I have the privilege of chairing the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, and I have had a couple of meetings with members of the Korean Workers’ party when they have come over here in recent delegations. It is extraordinary to be talking about that kind of democracy with people from a one-party state, where people really have no understanding of it at all. However, it is important that those discussions continue, because all the time we are sharing our values and our pitfalls and mistakes—we always talk about our own mistakes along this journey towards democracy. Although that is a very long-term venture, it is important.

One way to get into the heart of the regime is to support education initiatives in Pyongyang and elsewhere in North Korea. The English language is increasingly valued by the North Koreans. It is now taught, I think, in all their schools as the second language. They have universities that are broadly staffed by English lecturers. They have an interest in English literature and in English culture. If I may say so to the Minister, he should work with the British Council and with his own Department to continue to build links, bridges and relationships. That is about looking forward. It may seem fruitless, but I believe that in the long term it will pay off, and I very much encourage him to continue down that road.

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[Andrew Selous]

The UK Government recently tabled a resolution on Syria at the UN. It was unsuccessful, but they nevertheless tried. Why do the Government not take the same approach to North Korea?

[Mr Browne]

At the UN, one always has to assess how one can be most effective. There is a place in politics for dramatic statements of intent and a place for trying to achieve the objectives that we all share. Our approach has sought, as much as we are able, to bring about those objectives, but we keep an open mind about how we can best achieve them in future.

The succession of Kim Jong-un brings with it an opportunity for us to push the new leadership to acknowledge the need for greater respect of their citizen’s human rights. However, that will be difficult in the next few months, as it is likely that those who have recently assumed power in Pyongyang will take some time to establish policy priorities and a modus operandi for dealing with foreign countries. On 5 January 2012, the Presidium of the Supreme People’s Assembly issued a decree to implement an amnesty of prisoners to mark the 100th birthday of Kim Il-sung and the 70th birthday of Kim Jong-il. We will push for further details and encourage transparency, but if it goes ahead, it will be a welcome small step forward for human rights.

We will need to be mindful of the increased risk to stability on the Korean peninsula, as the new leadership in Pyongyang establishes its security credentials. To that end, we continue to be in very close contact with key allies, including South Korea, the United States, Japan and our partners in the EU. Despite that important work, we will ensure that we and international partners continue to prioritise all the justifiable human rights concerns that have been articulated in this debate.

I again thank my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton for raising the topic this morning. I assure all Members present that the situation in North Korea is as grave and as big an affront to our common humanity and decency as that in any country in the world. The British Government and Parliament will continue to work to bring about radical change.