North Korea

Fiona Bruce Excerpts

Monday 16th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on North Korea following the execution of Jang Sung-taek.

[The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr Hugo Swire)]

I thank my hon. Friend for bringing this issue to the House’s attention and commend her for her tireless work as vice-chair of the all-party group on North Korea.

We are deeply concerned to learn of the execution of Jang Sung-taek. It is yet another example of the horrifying and surreal brutality of the North Korean regime, which presides over what Carl Bildt, the Swedish Foreign Minister, has called an “empire of horror”. We remain deeply concerned about the impact of that unpredictable regime on regional stability.

Jang Sung-taek’s execution and the reports of executions of people associated with him reinforce our significant concerns about North Korea’s appalling human rights record, which we assess to be one of the worst, if not the worst, in the world. The United Kingdom has consistently raised concerns about the severe and systematic human rights violations carried out by the North Korean Government, including reports of executions; the lack of any sort of basic judicial process; the severe curtailment of all freedoms, including freedom of thought, movement and religion; the systematic use of torture; and the horrific stories emanating from the gulags.

The United Kingdom has been at the forefront of raising those concerns in international forums. This year we co-sponsored two human rights resolutions in the United Nations. We also supported the introduction of a UN commission of inquiry, which will report to the Human Rights Council in March 2014. In October, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office sponsored a visit to the UK by the inquiry panel. The panel heard harrowing accounts from North Korean refugees about systematic abuses of even the most basic human rights. I met the panel and confirmed the United Kingdom’s full and unequivocal support for its work. I am pleased that parliamentarians had the opportunity to meet the panel and discuss its work.

Given the opaque nature of the North Korean leadership, the implications of Jang’s execution remain unclear. Our embassy in Pyongyang reports that the situation on the ground is currently calm. We will continue to monitor the situation closely, not least during the anniversary of Kim Jong-il’s death tomorrow. We are alert to the possibility that the regime may use that as an opportunity to bolster public support for its leader.

It remains to be seen whether the execution will strengthen Kim Jong-un’s power or whether it indicates political instability and a struggle for power. We are in close contact with the United States and the Republic of Korea, and we will speak to other members of the six-party talks in the coming days.

[Fiona Bruce]

I thank the Minister for that reply. As he said, Jang Sung-taek’s execution was just the most high-profile of many. For some six decades, the North Korean people have suffered intolerably. People are incarcerated merely for their beliefs, or for speaking a few words that the leadership objects to. Children are treated as prisoners from birth, and those who try to escape the regime risk not only imprisonment or worse for themselves but punishment for up to three generations of their family. An incalculable number of North Koreans have been, and continue to be, worked to death, frozen to death, burned to death, gassed to death or tortured in the most unimaginable ways. In short, the North Korean people are the most persecuted on earth.

Just because this terrible situation has persisted for so long—over three generations—cannot be a reason for the international community not to address it as a priority. Millions live at or near starvation while international charities say that food aid, if accompanied—and there are the means—will reach them. What more will our Government do to help them through the Department for International Development and otherwise? Food should never be used as a weapon of war.

Given that a major weapon in ending Stalin’s reign of terror was the role that this country played by broadcasting the BBC World Service and breaking the Soviet information blockade—the same has been done more recently with the Burmese information blockade—and given the Foreign Secretary’s role in setting the World Service’s strategic objectives, will the Minister consider extending the BBC World Service to the Korean peninsula?

Having read Amnesty’s recent report on the expansion of North Korean prison camps, which are incarcerating some 300,000 people, and following the recent spate of executions—including that of Jang Sung-taek—the show trials, force-fed propaganda, and an ideology that has starved 2 million to death, and bearing in mind that the UK is now home to the largest number of North Korean refugees outside South Korea, should we not do all in our power, both as a country and as a leader in the international community, to help end North Korea’s reign of terror?

[Mr Swire]

My hon. Friend’s almost fantastical description of North Korea is, alas, not fantastical but only too true. To call it an Orwellian nightmare would be a cliché and would not give a clear enough indication of the horrors vested on the people of that country by its leaders.

I think the United Kingdom is playing an important part. My hon. Friend will be aware that we fully support the United Nations Human Rights Council agreement to establish a commission of inquiry. That was a unanimous vote—which is unusual on such issues—and was proposed in a resolution presented by the EU and Japan, and co-sponsored by more than 40 countries. As my hon. Friend knows, that commission will look at all those issues, particularly the prison camps as well as other matters such as human rights abuses, and report back in March 2014.

My hon. Friend asked about food aid to North Korea, which is understandable given the reports emanating from that country about food shortages. There are even some alarmist reports about how people are going about eating, which, again, are too horrific to recount. The United Kingdom does not currently have a bilateral development programme in North Korea, and neither do we provide money to international organisations specifically for use in North Korea. However, some non-earmarked funds that we provide to organisations such as the World Food Programme may be used for humanitarian programmes in that country. Our embassy in Pyongyang uses some of its bilateral funding for small-scale humanitarian programmes such as nutrition for nursing mothers and greenhouses for children’s homes, although that remains under regular review.

My hon. Friend also asked about the ongoing issue of the BBC and broadcasting to North Korea, which I know is something that the North Korea all-party group has discussed and a matter that Lord Alton of Liverpool has been pushing hard. The BBC has been in touch with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office about the issue—or vice-versa, I should say. It is primarily an issue for the BBC, which has, of course, full editorial, operational and managerial independence. We understand that it is not currently persuaded that a Korean language service would be an effective value-for-money use of available resources. Nevertheless, our embassy in Pyongyang is working with BBC Worldwide on an initiative to broadcast BBC drama, nature and science programmes on North Korean television. We believe that that has the potential to expose significant numbers of North Koreans to aspects of the outside world from which they are normally totally isolated.