NORTHEAST ASIA PEACE AND SECURITY NETWORK ***** SPECIAL REPORT ***** November 3, 1999 The following Special Report refers to the report of the North Korea Advisory Group of the US House of Representatives, which was released on November 3. The report is available at: http://www.house.gov/international_relations/nkag/report.htm This special report consists of a press release by International Relations Committee Chairman Representative Benjamin Gilman (Republican-New York), and an extension of remarks by Representative Tony P. Hall (Democrat-Ohio), head of the Congressional Hunger Office. ------------------------------- "GILMAN RELEASES NORTH KOREA REPORT," Washington, 11/03/99. US Representative Benjamin A. Gilman, Chairman of the House International Relations Committee, released a congressional report today on DPRK threat to the US and it allies. Members of the North Korea Advisory Group are: US Representatives Ben Gilman, Floyd Spence, Porter Goss, Chris Cox, Tillie Fowler, Sonny Callahan, Doug Bereuter, Curt Weldon, and Joe Knollenberg. Gilman released the following statement concerning the report: "The Speaker asked us to answer a question: Does North Korea pose a greater threat to U.S. national security than it did five years ago? In sum, we found that the comprehensive threat posed by North Korea to our national interests has increased since 1994. Specifically, we think this report contains new information that the American people deserve to know and understand about the threat posed by North Korea to U.S. security. First, the American people need to know that there is significant evidence that North Korea is continuing its activities to develop nuclear weapons. Remarkably, North Korea's efforts to acquire uranium technologies, that is, a second path to nuclear weapons, and their efforts to weaponize their nuclear material do not violate the 1994 Agreed Framework. That is because the Clinton Administration did not succeed in negotiating a deal with North Korea that would ban such efforts. It is inexplicable and inexcusable. Second, the American people need to know that North Korea can currently strike the United States with a missile capable of delivering a chemical, biological, or possibly, nuclear weapon. In the chart on page three of the report, the inner ring represents the maximum North Korean missile range in 1994. The outer ring represents the maximum North Korean missile range today. And third, I don't believe the American people know that the United States has replaced the Soviet Union as the primary benefactor of North Korea with some $645 million in aid over the past five years. We supply half of North Korea's heavy fuel oil needs and feed one third of the population. It is as if some foreign power fed 90 million Americans each day. We were not asked to make specific recommendations as part of our report, and we remained within the confines of our mandate. Let me just address one more issue, one that I believe is very important. Our study revealed that the government of North Korea has established prisons for the specific purpose of imprisoning hungry children. It is no exaggeration to say that the North Korean regime has the worst human rights record of any government in the world." --------------------------------------------------------- Extension of Remarks of US Representative Tony P. Hall November 3, 1999 Mr. Speaker, I rise today to express concern over some of the findings of the Republican task force formed to examine U.S. policy toward North Korea. Most troubling to me is its assertion that there have been significant diversions of food aid we have donated in response to that country’s famine. All evidence suggests that this is just not true. Moreover, it is clear -- to me, to our military stationed in South Korea, to policymakers in Washington, Seoul and Tokyo, and to attentive observers -- that U.S. food aid to North Koreans is thawing 50 years of icy hostility toward Americans. Our wheat and corn, and our aid workers, are putting the lie to decades of Pyongyang's propaganda about American intentions. We are proving by our presence to all who see us and our sacks of food that Americans are compassionate people who will not stand by while innocent Koreans starve and suffer. As you know, I have visited North Korea five times -- not out of any particular interest in the country, but because their people are suffering. It is a famine that, I believe, history will mark as one of this decade's worst. In my trips, I always have brought my own translator as well as a member of our armed forces. Other members of my delegations have included a Marine who served in the Korean War -- Congressional medal of honor winner General Ray Davis; a doctor from the Centers for Disease Control; reporters from USA Today and the Washington Post; an agriculture expert; and a Korean-American economist who specializes in humanitarian aid. During every trip, I have met with Western aid workers working in North Korea. In all, I have spoken with scores of them over the past three years. These are people with expertise on hunger and the diseases that prey on hungry people -- and with experience working in challenging situations. None of them has any cause to lie to me, and every reason to raise concerns that I can use to press North Korean officials on. And yet, in five visits I have not found a single aid worker who said food aid is being diverted from hungry people. The General Accounting Office report turns up no such diversion either; nor does any other U.S. Government agency. Even counting an incident in early 1998, where food was sent to a county that later was closed to monitors, the record in North Korea is well within the two percent average loss rate that the United Nations World Food Programme maintains in its operations worldwide. Compared to other difficult situations -- such as in Haiti, where more than 10 percent of food was lost in the last reporting period, or Honduras, where the rate was 6 percent -- the 1.7 percent loss rate in North Korea is not bad. That incident should not be dismissed, because it was serious enough to provoke WFP to increase restrictions on its aid. But it should be kept in perspective. It is not only my own experience, and the experiences of knowledgeable aid workers, that refute the allegation that there have been serious diversions of food. Common sense dictates that such a conclusion is off-base, because North Korea has its own harvest and the considerable gifts it receives from China to draw upon to feed its soldiers and government officials. There simply is no reason for North Korea to raid international aid shipments -- and every incentive to see that this food reaches those in need. Mr. Speaker, I don't doubt the conviction of Members of this task force. Since the United States first began efforts to engage North Korea five years ago, there have been doubts by some in Congress about the wisdom of this initiative. But there is equal conviction by others in Congress and the Administration that engaging North Korea, an approach begun under President Reagan, is the wisest course available to us. There is also broad support for it among U.S. military leaders, and our South Korean and Japanese allies. And there is support among Korean Americans; I am submitting for inclusion in the Record the statement of a group of notable Korean American citizens and organizations whose views have helped to inform our policy and should be respected as we continue to refine it. The task force's findings on North Korea's involvement in narcotics trafficking, missile proliferation, possible nuclear development in violation of the Agreed Framework, and other activities are serious and deserve our attention. It is tempting to instead focus our attention on concerns about food aid, because that is easier to do something about. But cutting off food aid -- whether we do it outright, or by tightening the monitoring requirements so much that the effect is to cut off food aid -- would not solve these other problems. All it would do is prevent us from saving millions of lives, and prove to North Korea's people that its government was right about America all along. Mr. Speaker, I strongly believe the task force's quarrel over U.S. policy toward North Korea does not center on our efforts to feed its suffering people. At a hearing last week, Chairman Gilman said, "no one -- I repeat, no one -- wants to cut off food aid to North Korea." I share his concerns that our food aid be monitored to ensure it reaches those in need, and his read of public support for a humanitarian policy that refuses to use food as a weapon -- even against North Koreans. Mr. Speaker, I can't tell you and others who would like to see it that, after this crisis passes, North Korea's people will overthrow their government. History shows that people who survive a famine sometimes do that, and sometimes do not. But I can guarantee you that Koreans -- in North Korea, in South Korea, and in our own country -- will remember how we respond in this time of crisis. They will remember who helped those who were suffering; and they will never forget those who found excuses to do too little to save the many who died. Mr. Speaker, I urge all of our colleagues to focus on the serious concerns about North Korea that this task force has highlighted; but to remember as we debate our policy toward North Korea, that -- in the words of President Reagan -- "a hungry child knows no politics." Our food aid is making the difference between life and death for hundreds of thousands of children and other vulnerable people in North Korea. The private organizations' aid workers, and the staff and leaders of the World Food Programme and other U.N. agencies, are doing everything they can to ensure that our food gets to those in need. We should support their work, and seize the historic opportunity that our humanitarian aid has put within our reach: to end the Cold War in this last, desperate outpost, and to secure a lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.