Remarks for Tokyo International Conference on NK Human Righst

Speech for Tokyo International Conference December 10, 2007
Sin-U Nam Remarks
Vice Chairman, North Korean Freedom Coalition
Co-Representative, International Coalition to Save North Korean Slaves

Thank you for the opportunity to speak before you here in Tokyo today. It is my great honor to be your guest and to have been invited here to speak on the North Korean human rights issue. I am a Korean-American architect in New Jersey. I went to the U.S. in 1968, and practiced architecture since. I designed mostly public school buildings in New Jersey, and still designing and building schools over there. In the year 2000, I read a book and it changed my life. It was a book written by Mr. Hwang Jang-yop, the top-ranking North Korean defector who came to Seoul in 1997. The title of the book was “Darkness on the Side of Sunshine cannot erase the Darkness.” In that book, Mr. Hwang reported that more than 3 million people died of starvation in North Korea from 1995 through 1998. He said it was conservative estimates. The number could be much higher. Furthermore, he said that these people did not die. They were murdered by this evil dictator, KIM JONG-IL. Kim Jong-il had enough money to buy food and feed these people. Instead, he chose to build the 9-billion dollar monument mausoleum for his father dictator Kim Il-Sung who went to hell in 1994. Did he love his father that much? No, No! He built the mausoleum to consolidate and solidify his power in North Korea. He killed 3 million people to consolidate and solidify his power.

I read and translated two books Abraham Lincoln in the 1980s and 1990s. Abraham Lincoln was the U.S. president, who saved the Union as one country and who freed the 4 million black in the South. Lincoln charged me in 2000, you read about me and even translated my books. You just read more than 3 million of your own died back where you used call your home, Korea! Lincoln shamed me into action. I became a North Korean human rights activist in the U.S. I was lucky. I met Mrs. Suzanne Scholte in Washington, D.C. in November 2001. One night I e-mailed her a message, can I help? She wrote back to me in less than 5 minutes. I need help! We worked together ever since. I met Mr. Moon Kook-han in April 2002. Mr. Moon told me he had to save a refugee family of 5 in Yenji, and he was broke. He did not have money to save them. This was the famous Kim Han-mee family. Mr. Moon, Suzanne Scholte, and I went into action right away. Mr. Moon went to China, Suzanne and I prepared the petition for asylum, and submitted it to the U.S. State Department. You all know the rest of the Han-mee Chan’s story. Han-mee and her parents came to South Korea, and met President W. Bush, along with Mrs. Yokoda Sakie in April 2006. Mr. Moon, Suzanne and I’ve been working together since 2002 as Co-Representatives of International Coalition to Save North Korean Slaves.

Suzanne and a small group of dedicated activists in the U.S. formed a nonpartisan coalition in June 2003 to work more closely for the freedom, human rights, and dignity of the North Korea people. The Coalition currently has over 60 public member organizations and individual members representing millions of American, South and North Korean, and Japanese citizens as well as other nations. The Coalition also has private members that provide humanitarian relief inside North Korea and members in China and other nations that feed, shelter, and rescue North Korean refugees.

Members are from all political parties and religious faiths and have many different views about North Korea, but share one thing in common: all believe that promoting human rights for North Korea must be the central focus of any and all policy towards North Korea.

The Coalition works closely with elected officials, other non-governmental organizations and governments to achieve its goals.

The Coalition is most proud of the fact that all the major NGOs in the USA, Japan, and South Korea, and especially the North Korean defectors' organizations, are either members of the Coalition or work as partners with the Coalition on its many activities.

The North Korea Freedom Coalition is credited with being the driving force behind the passage of the North Korea Human Rights Act of 2004 and has been working to ensure that it is fully implemented, sorry to say, with little success due to the recent change in Bush policy toward North Korea. Anyhow, NKFC has also sponsored protests at the embassy of China for the North Korean refugees, organized hearings and press conferences, documentary screenings, and embassy meetings, to achieve its goals, and was responsible for North Korea Freedom Day 2004, North Korean Freedom Week 2005 and North Korea Freedom Week 2006 and 2007 to raise public awareness of the issue. I see here today many faces familiar whom I met at those demonstrations and rallies the other side of the ocean.

“The pivotal efforts of the North Korea Freedom Coalition, a group of more than 40 nonpartisan NGOs, deserves particular attention.” Congressman Jim Leach, author and sponsor of the North Korea Human Rights Act of 2004, on the day of its passage: The Congressional Record.

What are the goals of North Korean Freedom Coalition? These are the stated goals of NKFC.

- Make Human Rights the key policy of all governments in dealing with North Korea

- Save lives by helping rescue refugees and pressuring China to end its brutal repatriation policy

- Close down political prison camps in North Korea

- Pressure the DPRK to Release all abductees including Korean War Pows

- Promote information into North Korea through all means

- Get food aid directly to the North Korean people and end all food aid distribution controlled by the regime

- Bring freedom, human rights and dignity to the North Korean people

What is my personal goal in the past 8 years since I began to work on this issue? It is to get rid of KIM JONG-IL by whatever the means. He is the worst ever foul cruel evil dictator in human history, east or west. He terrorized his own people with food distribution, hunger, political prison camps, public executions, and secret police, military, and other means. He killed more than 3 million people. He abducted and kidnapped tens of thousand people from around the world, including this beautiful Japanese girl named Yokoda Megumi. I watched the movie Abduction at a theatre in Washington, D.C. almost alone. I could not go down at the opening show, so I went down a couple of weeks later by myself. I cried alone so much with Megumi’s parents watching their heartbreak and search for their lost daughter. We must get rid of KIM JONG-IL to end all these tragedies.

Who stopped you and me from getting rid of KIM JONG-IL? China? Yes, they saved the Father and Son Kim during the Korean War by sending millions of their so-called volunteer Red Army. But the traitors who saved Kim Jong-il in the 1990s when he was about to collapse, as incredulous as it may sound, were Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun, the former and the current presidents of South Korea. Back to the book by Mr. Hwang Jang-yop: Darkness on the Side of Sunshine cannot erase Darkness. South Korean government with its phony, criminally treasonous Sunshine Policy saved the archenemy of the Korean people, KIM JONG-IL.

So, it does not matter what kind of fight we wage against Kim Jong-il, Kim Dae-jung, and Roh Moo-hyun. Any fight against the three of them are good fights, righteous fights. If President George W. Bush does not want to fight against Kim Jong-il with human rights, he is no friend of mine either. If he believes resolving the nuclear issue with Kim Jong-il is his only issue, he is no leader of mine. We have to attack KIM JONG-IL with human rights issue:

Dismantle the political prison camps!
Stop stealing the food aid to the North Korean people!
Stop the public executions of the innocent people!
Send back the abductees to South Korea!
Send back the abductees to Japan!
Send back the abductees to the world!

In this, I work with anyone and everyone. I work with Americans. I work with Japanese. I work with Chinese. I support Czech President Vaclav Havel in his effort to globalize this issue. I work with politicians. I work with Christians.

We are not different nationals in this, Koreans, Japanese, and Americans. We are all brothers and sisters trying to help save oppressed and terrorized people. If a Japanese girl is taken away from her parents, she is my daughter too. If a Korean fisherman is taken away from his family, he is my father too.

In December 1862, my hero Abraham Lincoln said to his people. "In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free -- honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best, hope of earth."

Forty three years ago in June 1963, John F. Kennedy said before the Berlin Wall : Ich bin einer Berliner! I am a Berliner! He became a German in front of and with Germans.

Another U.S. President Ronald Reagan in June 1987 said at the Berlin Wall right before it came down: Tear down this wall, Mr. Gorbachov! And the Berlin Wall finally came down in 1990.

We have to shout like them: Freedom to North Korean Slaves means Freedom to the Free World! We are all North Koreans! Tear down the wall, KIM JONG-IL! Stop killing your own people! Send back Yokoda Megumi Chan and our sons and daughters!

Thank you for listening.