Mick Hartley

Last month six North Korean refugees were arrested by Chinese authorities in Shenyang as they were attempting to obtain sanctuary in the US consulate, and now await deportation back to the DPRK, and almost certainly a grim death. It’s the tip of an iceberg:

Ban Ki Moon got off to a good start at the United Nations this week when he declined to criticize the execution of Saddam Hussein. Here’s another way the new Secretary General could outshine his predecessor: Demand that Beijing live up to its international obligations to let the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees help the tens of thousands of North Korean refugees hiding in northeast China.

As a fellow Korean, Mr. Ban has special moral authority to address this little-known humanitarian crisis. A good place to start would be by making a public plea on behalf of six refugees who tried, but failed, to obtain sanctuary in the U.S. consulate in Shenyang, China, last month. The six are in jail in Shenyang, awaiting deportation under China’s policy regarding the North Korean refugees it tracks down.

China’s treatment of the North Koreans violates the International Convention Regarding the Status of Refugees, to which it is a party and which bars “refoulement,” or the repatriation of refugees to places where their lives or freedom would be in jeopardy. North Koreans who are sent home by Beijing face execution or a term in one of Kim Jong Il’s prison camps, which can amount to a death sentence.

The six refugees in jail in Shenyang include two orphan boys, ages 16 and 17; a 22-year-old woman; and three women in their 40s. One of the older women is the mother of a 19-year-old who made it to safety in the U.S. consulate last year and is awaiting resettlement in the U.S. along with two orphan boys — if China lets them leave. One of the women has relatives in Hawaii; another has family in South Korea.

The six were captured just before Christmas along with two Americans who had been sheltering them in safe houses in another city and were accompanying them to the consulate. Their rescuers — young women who don’t want their names used — belong to Liberty in North Korea, or LINK, a U.S. non-profit dedicated to helping the refugees. LINK’s director, Adrian Hong, was also arrested — pulled out of his hotel room in Beijing and taken to a prison cell in Shenyang. The three rescuers were deported this week.

[Via Joshua at One Free Korea, who speculates that with the very real prospect of a repeat of the Nineties famine in North Korea, China is doing all it can to keep the lid on, especially with the Olympics coming up next year:

China is testing the world’s reaction, and I share China’s confidence that Ban Ki Moon and the U.N. won’t do anything particularly effective to interfere.

Check out also the rather fine response to Reporters Without Borders, and their obsession with Saddam’s execution:

You have ceased to lead in a direction of moral significance. Have the decency to seek gainful employment.

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