[imText1]On April 14, 2007, a beautiful Saturday morning, a group of people with diverse backgrounds gathered in the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale University for a special workshop hosted by the East Asian Studies at Yale University and the United States Department of Education. Featuring several panelists in diverse fields of International Economics, International Relations, Psychiatry and more, the workshop started with the panelists each giving a short 15-minute presentation on his respective field of study and research.
Marcus Noland, professor at the Department of Economics and Council on East Asian Studies at Yale University and researcher for the Peterson Institute for International Economics, made opening remarks giving a short background history and summary on the current situation in North Korea. “North Korea’s political leadership has considerable consequence from internal violence,” he started, as the “absence of political, human and civil rights that warrants as the cause for 20,000 – 400,000 refugees to leave their homeland”. Clarifying the difference between economic migrants and refugees, Noland made a comparison to Mexico. In Mexico, economic migrants are not imprisoned; if and when they return, they are praised not punished. Public execution does not exist. Conversely, North Korea’s current situation is quite dissimilar. The fear of repatriation lies in that defectors who are caught will be placed in political prison camps with possibility of public execution.
The first presentation was given by Stephen Haggard, professor at the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies at the University of California – San Diego on the context of many desperate people who want to leave North Korea. Giving an overview of the circumstances generating the refugee crisis, Haggard claimed the origins of the refugee problem are the famine and subsequent chronic foot shortages in North Korea. Understanding the famine involves two factors: external distribution and political economy, which transitions into the present day humanitarian crisis.
With detailed maps showing the agricultural history of North Korea, Haggard pointed out that the North Korean government pursued a collectivization of agriculture. Using the collective farms as a source of food, a PDS (Public Distribution System) was used in this socialist economy to provide rations for the public. Providing an historical overview with external factors such as the Soviet Union, Haggard claimed that the collapse of the economy and the famine had started with a long secular decline in 1990 in total food output. This is contrary to the North Korean explanation for famine, which includes adverse weather and floods in 1995 and 1996. As a result of the struggle in North Korea, the government used this humanitarian system as a balance of payments as the food system became marketized. In a fully socialist economy, the main source of food should be from the PDS. However, in North Korea only 30% was from government rations in 1995; this decreased to a mere 2% in 1998. The public had turned to a form of “borrowing, forging, bartering and growing” instead of the PDS as a process of market emerged from households and work units. Thus, the state failure had led to a marketized economy with an intensification of illicit activities and widening inequalities that most severely affected the industrial proletariat.
Moving onto monitoring and diversion of humanitarian aid, Haggard pointed out the inadequate monitoring with fifty monitors at best for a country as large as Louisiana. The diversion of aid supported the creation of markets and the best guess on human toll during the period ranges from 600,000 – 1,000,000 deaths or roughly 3-5% of the pre-crisis population. Broader consequences include widespread and chronic malnutrition as the World Food Program reports in 1998 that seven-year-old children in North Korea tended to be 20% shorter and 40% lighter than South Korean counterparts. This is smaller than any cohort of Korean seven-year-olds tracing back to 1910.
Raising the question if the past is a mere prologue to a renewed humanitarian emergency, Haggard concluded that the long-term solution is the development of the industrial economy to earn foreign exchange to finance food imports. Food aid is likely to continue but outside actors need to continue to press North Korea on three issues: access for effective monitoring, economic reforms that will mitigate suffering and freedom of movement.
The following presentation was by Courtland Robinson, Ph.D – the Deputy Director, Center for Refugee and Disaster Response at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. Repeating Noland’s earlier point on the fact that all North Koreans in China are refugees, Robinson sought to identify the patterns and motives of this “forced migration”. Related to this, he claimed that other pressing issues include trafficking of North Korea women into marriage and citizenship issues of North Korean – Chinese children. If a child is born between a North Korean mother and a Chinese father, it is highly difficult for the child to obtain a Chinese citizenship. Nonetheless, if the child is automatically banned from returning to North Korea as he is named a bastard child. “Women who are pregnant at the time of repatriation are subject to forced abortion,” Haggard claimed, answering a later question at the astonishment of many participants.
Placing the history of migration in the timeline of the food crisis, Haggard said that people have been crossing border into China since 1996. Various groups in China had provided assistance but despite the country’s signatory status to the UN Resolution, none of such assistance was government sanctioned. Delving more specifically into the problem today, Haggard pointed out that this was not a homogenous problem but several different pockets of problems. Explaining further about the Dunwha region in the Yanbian Province, only 5% are Korean-Chinese, which is an effort of the Chinese government to make sure that minorities stay as a minority. Haggard’s presentation was further supplemented with photographs of the Tumen River where the refugees cross to reach the Yanbian province and the Tumen Detention Center where they are sent when arrested. The Tumen Detention Center is the most active among the detention centers but the actual sentences range mostly from 1-3 years of jail time as claimed by interviewees that were deported.
With further explication on graphs that relate the patterns of seasonal differences to the trend in migration effects, Haggard also pointed to the Vollertsen effect, which was the consequences that arose from the efforts of German human rights activist Norbert Vollertsen to orchestrate embassy events where refugees would escape to the Spanish embassy. Haggard further analyzed graphs released by the South Korean Ministry of Reunification that shows the peak years of arrival to South Korea in 1998-1999. Aside from South Korea, Thailand, Cambodia and Russia rank high on the list of destinations of refugees and external factors such as the Vietnam airlift in China were pointed as the causes of changing patterns in these countries.
Thus, Haggard answered the following three questions in his presentation. Who are the migrants? What are their reasons for leaving? What are their modalities for leaving? The trends of movement since 2000 show short-term movements across the border to be principally circular and predominantly male. Longer-term settlement in China are predominantly female among adults. The purpose of movement into China is onward permanent migration to third world countries. Closing with present day statistics, Haggard claimed that there are approximately 30,000 North Korean migrants and asylum seekers in Yanbian. The principal strategy for survival for North Korea woman is to marry a Chinese man, which results in at most one child. Many also constitute trafficking – the use of coercion, fraud, deception and the giving and receiving of payment – for the purposes of exploitation. Claiming that China will not tolerate illegal migrants in an Olympic city, Haggard ended with a picture of a mother and child hiding in a house. Physical needs are met for the moment but they cannot show their faces in public as they are at high risk of arrest.
The next presentation was by Marcus Noland himself – co-author of the newly published “Famine in North Korean: Markets, Aid and Reform”. Presenting the conclusions from 1300 surveys of defectors, Noland said that the majority of refugees were between 36 and 40, with slightly more women than men. Seeking to find a correlation between the 2002 policy changes and the effect on refugees in China, the distribution showed that the new arrivals were younger with a higher percentage of males. It was most interesting to see that while surveying on the topic of ‘Life in North Korea’, only 57% knew of food aid and a mere 2% believed that they received food aid. An overwhelming 99% believed that such food aid went to the army. Noland was careful to clarify that these responses do not prove such statements. The majority of surveys were answered by farmers who were removed from the mainstream distribution and the urban recipients could have received this aid but it may have been dispersed in the markets. The status of knowing the existence of aid but that you did not receive – this feeling of abandonment by the government in the time of aid – is a “profoundly demoralizing experience” that Noland claims has even a bigger impact than being in a political prison camp.
The next surprising conclusion was the difference between those wanting to go to South Korea as opposed to the U.S. The defectors wishing to go to South Korea were older and less educated whereas the ones wishing to go to the U.S. were younger and better educated. These results are surprising considering North Korea’s degree of isolation and propaganda on the U.S.
Finally, on policy recommendations, Noland points that since we have little direct influence on North Korea, we must focus on China, South Korea and the U.S. First, China must uphold obligations under the Refugee convention and consider hosting temporary resettlement camps. South Korea must make it an affirmative obligation for diplomats to assist refugees and Consider resuming larger payment to arrivals. South Korea should also appoint a special envoy on NK human rights. The U.S. should improve implementation of North Korean Human Rights Act. These policy recommendations are not to provoke a flood of migration but to protect life in China.
Finally, asserting two of his personal opinions, Noland said that under the auspices of the UN in an ad-hoc way, the U.S., South Korea and Japan should offer China the option of resettlement camps. If China formalized the agreement, external countries would pay and take these people “off their hands” to prevent the disturbing track record of people being turned away at embassies and consulates. Second, the government of South Korea should return to the past by granting large cash payments when upon defecting from North Korea. Such cash payment would lessen criminal gangs in the process of travel. Furthermore, the U.S. has the obligation to provide a user-friendly service to keep family members updated about the status of relatives in China. The State Department should have a phone number that someone answers to provide such information.
Noland ended with the fact that this is only the tip of the iceberg. The fundamental humanitarian concern is economic deprivation driven by the state of North Korean economy with repressive conditions of basic civil and political rights.
The following speaker, Dr. Woo Tae Jun from the Department of Psychiatry, College of Medicine at Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea presented on the “New Paradigm of Social Adaptation of North Korean Defectors in South Korea : Frustration of Hope”. As of February 16, 2007 there are over 10,000 defectors in South Korea. Jun asked these defectors seven questions about their lives in South Korea and found that there is an inadequate amount of monetary support, a generational conflict, problems in job employment and a need for change of the way of thinking of NK defectors. Specifically, he asked the following questions: 1. Are defectors satisfied with lives in South Korea? 2. Are their differences in mental change according to demographic differences? 3. How can they live with hope in South Korea? 4. How to overcome difficulties caused by confusion of values? 5. How does religion influence defectors’ adjustment in South Korea? 6. Does the perception of defectors to other defectors or NK changed? 7. What is the Quality of Life (Qol) in South Korea?
From these questions, Jun gathered that in the transition of the South Korean social environment from 1995 to 1997, cultural events in movie or TV drama, which showed that North Korean defectors were accepted more positively in South Korea.
Also, young North Korean defectors are different from their parents’ generation in
educational background, social experiences and attitude to ideology. Nonetheless the mental health of defectors coming to South Korea has worsened. In 2001, 29.5% experienced PTSD and 20.9% experienced torture. The circumstance and torture seem to have exacerbated and such problems of their mental health is closely related to their human rights issues. Jun also claimed that there is a change in defectors’ social perception and social participation as there are small signs that defectors are beginning to make actions. This can be utilized positively to raising their status and strengthen political future and attention needs to be paid to such problems caused by action problems caused by action. In addition, NGO support has become more professionalized.
The settlement support for each individual defector is decreasing and the discontent of the defectors is growing with lessened government support.
With the number of North Korean defectors marked over 10,000, the question is raised regarding their meaning in South Korea. Addressing the question of the defectors’ roles in reunification, Jun said that they will become a deciding factor in SK as major efforts for North Korean defectors to integrate in South Korea should not merely be humanitarian task but also for peace and reunification. Reunification requires long time, not of land or system but of people with a “constant vision”.
Following Jun’s detailed presentation on the current situation of North Korean defectors in South Korea, a “horrifyingly beautiful documentary” was shown. Titled “North Korea – A Day in the Life” directed by Peter Fleury, the film portrayed an “average” North Korean family as the cameras followed the daily routines of several family members. Nonetheless, this highly controversial documentary is considered as a staged propaganda on behalf of the North Korean government as many scenes and imagery in the documentary suggest that this is not a typical North Korean family but rather an upper-middle class family with tight relations to the government.
Several examples include a scene where the family is eating breakfast where the camera focuses on three, not two portraits, of the Kim Il Sung family. The fact that this particular family has a picture of Kim Jung Sook – Kim Il Sung’s wife – on the wall as well indicated that they are part of the social elite in the North Korean society. Most families will have Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il’s portraits only. In addition, the overwhelmingly prevalent anti-American statements – ranging from the grandfather’s personal recollection of the Korean War to the children’s song sung in harmony by a mother and daughter – indicate that this film has an underlying message specifically directed at the outer world from North Korea.
A discussion after the screening with Andrei Lankov with several key questions from the audience showed exactly how disturbing this film was. How completely dumbfounding is it to see a perfectly functioning family in the midst of the family and humanitarian crisis that we know of? This documentary portraying many skewed views of North Korean daily life left the audience in amazement as this surreal and distorted sense of reality left an eerie aftertaste.
To end the conference, a question and answer session with the panelists addressed questions and individuals interests of the participants. The first group of questions dealt with the North Korean refugees and the security implications. Haggard addressed the issue of programs in the U.S. for North Korean refugees stating that there were several programs that were headed by the Woorihana Church that also helped with the underground networks. He briefly mentioned on the religious groups that provide assistance.
Regarding the issues of defectors in South Korea, Jun first said that there is a constitutional obligation of South Korea to settle anyone who is a North Korean. However, on the question of how to deal with prejudice and discrimination against the defectors, Jun commented that it was a very serious and pending issue that must be approached in two ways. As the older generation of South Korea still has strong sentiments of Anti-Communism and the younger generation feel that the defectors may cause further competition in the job market, Jun felt that the two ways to approach this issue was through individual economic interests and a religious point. Without a personal attachment to the issue either through their own economic or religious interest, he felt that it would be difficult to reach the hearts of South Koreans. However, he was also overall optimistic. “Just like the World Cup, in the beginning people had not shown any interest whatsoever. However with the collective identity of Koreans, once this starts to catch on as an interest, all of South Korea will start to care.”
Overall , the Yale conference provided a thorough discussion of the immediate and surrounding situation of North Korea as well as future implications in South Korea, the U.S. and the rest of the world. Raising questions from economic situations and security implications to societal perspectives, the following quote from Noland resounds most strongly. “There are statistics and figure that I can present. But in the end, it’s that picture of a starving boy and the ethical obligation I feel to help in this humanitarian crisis”.
