Survival is biggest issue for North Koreans, activist monk says

Buddhist monk Beop Ryoon

He urges politicians to look at human rights from ’both sides’

With the U.N. Human Rights Council expected to discuss North Korea’s human rights situation at their meeting June 19 in Geneva, Switzerland, Beobryun, a Buddhist monk well known for his involvement in humanitarian issues, discussed the issue with The Hankyoreh.

The monk said that North Korean human rights issues and the pursuit of peace and reconciliation on the Korean Peninsula should be solved simultaneously. He criticized some conservatives who maintain that in order to improve the human rights situation of the North, its regime must collapse.

He asked that the issue be considered not from an outsider’s perspective, but from the perspective of North Koreans themselves, saying that the most urgent thing for them "is the right to live.” He maintains that large-scale food aid, rather than "a blockade," is the most effective way of improving the human rights situation in the communist country.

Beobryun also advised the North Korean government that, instead of focusing on political matters, it should allow its residents freedom to survive, citing the right to do business in marketplaces and to choose which crops they will grow.

The monk said that North Korea punishes too severely those who express their political views. "They should be punished according to fair trials and laws,” he said.

Beobryun will be in charge of four discussion forums under the sponsorship of The Hankyoreh on May 22 in Seoul, in which experts will try to come up with ideas for improving the human rights situation in North Korea. He is director of Good Friends, a nongovernmental organization (NGO) which has provided supports for survival of North Korean defectors and residents since the late 1990s.

Regarding a position of some progressives that to mention the human rights problem of North Korea is to align with the anti-North Korea behavior of the U.S., he pointed out, “It is true that the North’s human rights situation is bad and North Korean defectors in China are living difficult lives.” However, he said, “the U.S. must not blame other people’s right to spread spiritual values without reserve, but criticize the use of coercion and force." The monk said he will seek a forum with participation by both the progressive and conservative camps of South Korea, as well as the international community.