Straight-talking activist slams Pyongyang, Bush

Suzanne Scholte. By Yang Young-seok

Straight-talking activist slams Pyongyang, Bush
Just one “very” was not enough for Suzanne Scholte, an American activist for North Korean human rights, to describe her battle to improve human rights conditions in the communist North.

“It was a very, very, very hard battle,” Scholte articulated at an interview with the JoongAng Daily on Monday at a Seoul hotel. “I cannot mention a moment that was not a challenge.”

This battle has brought freedom to many North Korean defectors and, to Scholte herself, the Seoul Peace Prize, with an honorarium of $200,000. Scholte, 49, is known as a godmother figure among North Korean defectors.

Scholte, who was in Seoul for the award ceremony, said, “I am humbled by the prize, which I accept on behalf of the North Koreans. I hope the prize is a watershed to raise the issue to a higher profile.” As president of the Washington, D.C.-based, conservative Defense Forum Foundation, Scholte has dedicated more than a decade to the North Korean cause.

To highlight the issue, Scholte brought North Korean defectors to the witness stand on Capitol Hill, including Hwang Jang-yop, the former North Korean chief ideologue.

“I ran up the corridor to beat on the doors of legislators and drove around parking lots to hand out flyers,” she recalled. Her efforts came to fruition as the U.S. House passed the North Korean Human Rights Act in 2004, which was reauthorized late last month. She has staged rallies and held a North Korea Freedom Week in Washington, D.C. since 2004.

Vigorous and outspoken, Scholte strongly denounced the engagement policy of previous South Korean administrations.

“The government that should have cared the most cared the least,” she roared, calling the former governments “the guiltiest for sending out blank checks to Kim Jong-il.” She added that she welcomes the incumbent Lee Myung-bak government for “putting the priority on the North Korean human rights issue.”

Scholte also criticized the George W. Bush administration for its handling of the North Korean nuclear issue.

“The Bush administration allowed itself to be trapped by giving North Korea leverage,” Scholte said. “We have let Kim Jong-il set the agenda.

“Three million people have died of hunger in 10 years since Kim Jong-il took power,” she said.

North Korea is not just a Korean issue, but one that deserves worldwide attention, she noted. “The United States bears the moral obligation as the world’s police, but we were too reactive. We should have done more.”

Meanwhile, Scholte is hopeful that things will change with a new U.S. president taking office next year. “Senator John McCain made time to visit North Korea Freedom Week and Senator Barack Obama designated Joseph Biden, who played a key role in the North Korean Human Rights Act, as his vice presidential candidate,” she explained.

She also welcomed the reauthorization of the human rights act, which received “bipartisan support amid the financial crisis.”

Scholte, meanwhile, is ready to stage further demonstrations in December in New York and Washington, D.C. and in other countries like Thailand. She also plans to launch a campaign to boycott made-in-China products for American shoppers, in protest of the Chinese government’s repatriation of North Korean defectors.

“I dream of the day North Koreans are freed,” she said.

By Chun Su-jin Staff Reporter [sujiney@joongang.co.kr]