Korean Americans Back Bill

Korean Americans rallied in front of the South Korean Consulate on Wilshire Boulevard on Tuesday in support of a House-passed bill designed to improve North Korea’s human rights and help defectors and refugees from the world’s most isolated state.

Carrying bilingual placards that read, “We Fervently Support U.S. Government’s North Korea Policy” and “Destroy North Korean Regime,” about 100 people criticized South Korean legislators in the ruling Uri Party, who are conducting a petition drive opposing the bill.

The measure is expected to go to the Senate in September.

Some South Korean lawmakers say the legislation is a threat to improving relations between the two Koreas and could hurt prospects for a peaceful end to Pyonyang’s nuclear weapons’ program.

Bong-Keon Kim, president of a Korean War veterans’ group that organized the protest, condemned South Korean legislators.

“We don’t know what these so-called lawmakers [in Seoul] are thinking,” he said.

“Instead of bowing their heads 100 times to express their gratitude for what U.S. congressmen have done, they are advocating a position that goes against the security of the Korean peninsula.”

Min Ryu, a spokesman for the South Korean Consulate, said opposition to the bill is not his government’s official position.

“It is an expression of only a minority of young lawmakers,” he said.

The situation underscores the contrasting approach between South Korea and the United States over how best to promote human rights in the Stalinist state.

The South Korean government has maintained a conciliatory stance on human rights abuses by North Korea while it pursues its so-called “sunshine” policy of engagement with its communist neighbor.

Last year, South Korea abstained on a resolution by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights condemning “widespread” human rights abuses in North Korea.

The North Korean Human Rights Act of 2004, which human rights activists praised as a milestone in showing America’s concern for suffering North Koreans, is the culmination of more than two years of congressional hearings, study and lobbying by human rights organizations.

The Rev. Douglas Shin, a Korean American minister from Artesia who has helped North Korean refugees and defectors, condemned the South Korean legislators’ stance as “heartless.”

“Their heart lies with the despot [North Korean leader Kim Jong Il], rather than with the downtrodden and oppressed people of North Korea,” Shin said.