OLD BUT IMPORTANT NEWS ON KOREA... NORTH KOREA HUMAN RIGHTS ACT PASSED

It's been a week on this (lazy about transferring my bookmarks to blog), but for some of you that didn't know the U.S. House unanimously passed the North Korea Human Rights Act:

The bill specifically enumerates for the U.S. to take certain steps like including the North Korean human rights issue as a major topic of discussion with Northeast Asian states; providing generous financial support for North Korean human rights groups; expansion of radio service to North Korea; strengthening inspections of the distribution of humanitarian assistance; recognizing defectors as refugees and establishing international refugee camps; and permitting defectors to apply for asylum in the United States.

The bill calls for yearly totals of US$24 million -- including US$2 million for activities improving human rights in North Korea, US$2 million to promoting freedom of information in North Korea and US$20 million to refugee assistance -- to be given in aid from the 2005 fiscal year. (full article)

The messed up thing about this is the reaction from South Korea's left. The U.S. is the only country seeking to help out North Korean refugees and some of these lawmakers are in an uproar. I swear some of them must be a few of the North Korean spies that infiltrated South Korea over the decades. This line from the article cracks me up:

Some civic organizations charged that the human rights act "is trying to induce the collapse of the North Korean system."

And the collapse of the North Korean system is bad? Who are these people? Good response by the opposition party:

Representative Lee Han-gu, policy committee chairman of the GNP, told a meeting of major party executives, "Human rights is a universal value. If a child is abused by someone, it is natural for the neighbors to raise the issue and report it to authorities." Recalling that former American President Jimmy Carter, who visited Korea during the Park Chung-hee military regime, was welcomed by Korean intellectuals when he raised the human rights issue of the country, Lee called on the ruling party, "Don't distort the question based on a strange yardstick."