PR1658 - SPEECH BY THE HON. ANĠLU FARRUGIA, SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, DURING THE 10TH MEETING OF THE INTERNATIONAL PARLIAMENTARIANS’ COALITION FOR NORTH KOREAN REFUGEES AND HUMAN RIGHTS (IPCNKR) - WARSAW, POLAND – FRIDAY 2 AUGUST 2013
Data 02.08.2013
Mr President
Mr Chairman
Distinguished delegates
Ladies and Gentlemen
I am indeed privileged to be with you all here today and to have been given the opportunity to share these opening congratulatory remarks with so many friends and colleagues.
May I start by thanking the International Parliamentarians’ Coalition for North Korean Refugees and Human Rights for organizing, for the tenth year in a row, this Meeting which brings together individuals from so many nations around the globe.
I would also like to express my own and my delegation’s gratitude at our European colleagues, the Sejm of the Republic of Poland, for hosting the IPCNKR Meeting this year, swaying it as it were to move, for the first time ever, to a European capital.
The founders of the International Parliamentarians’ Coalition certainly had foresight, ten years ago, when they felt the need to set up this international alliance, this fusion of individuals with different callings hailing from all over the world, tasked with discussing and with striving unabatedly to place and retain on the international agenda an issue which is of such concern and of such interest to the whole world community.
Let us recall what Nelson Mandela, that old stalwart of African democracy, so excitingly entreats: “To deny people their human rights is to challenge their very humanity.” Never have these words of wisdom rung so true as when one considers whatever has been happening, and all that continues happening – alas! – in North Korea.
Human rights have been around since the very beginnings of mankind. Unfortunately, infringements, violations and transgressions are similarly timeless. Thus it were that evil is ceaselessly waging battle on its age-old antagonist good, contaminating the unwary, thickening the skin of authoritarians who preach that might is right, who treat other human beings with disdain and with contempt, who torture, who maim, who mercilessly rape, who barbarously kill. Dictionaries in all world languages are replete with words that describe the atrocities which depraved, senseless people persist in committing.
How appalling that the Latin word victima for sacrificial animal should nowadays epitomize those who receive base treatment at the hands of their tormentors.
Distinguished Participants
Every cloud has a silver lining, however. When the Charter of the United Nations was adopted in 1945, fundamental freedoms and human rights were given formal and universal recognition. Since then, the United Nations, and later other regional and international institutions, notably the European Union and the Council of Europe, entrenched these rights in Conventions and Declarations with obligations that are of universal applicability. The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Bill of Human Rights, the UN 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees, the European Convention on Human Rights and Protection of Refugees, head the list of international instruments which legislate against torture and protect the rights of refugees, bringing out the inherent dignity of every human being and the undeniable rights to freedom and equality of treatment.
Towards the end of last year, the Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Affairs Committee of the United Nations passed a Resolution condemning the human rights situation in North Korea. For the first time since a resolution was introduced in 2005, the consensus vote of the 2012 resolution was the climax in a trend of more and more countries openly condemning North Korea’s humanitarian and human rights’ catastrophe. The 2005 Resolution had garnered support from 88 nations, whilst 21 had voted outright against it, 60 had abstained and 22 had not voted. Six years afterwards, those voting for the Resolution rose to 123 countries, with 16 rejecting it, 51 abstaining and only 3 failing to vote.
The EU, together with Japan, also presented a resolution, adopted by consent on 21 March 2013 in Geneva, to the Human Rights Council, establishing a Commission of Inquiry to investigate the grave and persistent violations of human rights in the North Korea.
To many, European and UN Conventions appear to overlap and might even be repetitive. The EU should work with the UN to consolidate the provisions of these legal instruments, as it is simpler to implement and enforce an authoritative comprehensive piece of legislation than a fragmented one.
Nevertheless, the enactment of legal instruments to prevent breaches of human rights and to protect inherent privileges becomes no more than a toothless bite unless accompanied by a workable and results-oriented enforcement structure. We need the Cerberus to monitor the implementation of the provisions of international instruments, inasmuch as there must also be the Kratos to enforce and to take remedial action on all breaches that are perpetrated. It should not be beyond anybody, beyond any authority, beyond any organization, beyond any pressure group to name and to shame, to do all within its reach to be the good Samaritan and tend the wounds of others, to ensure that democracy and the rule of law are universally applied.
The Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel reminded us that “though there may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, there must never be a time when we should fail to protest.” In 2006, Mr Wiesel himself, along with the late Czech President Vaclav Havel and former Norwegian Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik, had commissioned a report which had called for the UN Security Council to adopt a resolution urging open access to North Korea for humanitarian relief and for the release of political prisoners. In an article carried by the New York Times that same year, they had called on UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon to "make as his first official action a briefing of the Security Council on this dire situation." It is unfortunate that this idea has not yet been taken up.
Dear friends and colleagues
To add insult to injury, North Korean citizens fleeing into neighbouring countries are being sent back. Upon repatriation, they are tortured and mutilated in such a way as to prevent their escaping from their country again. Under international law, individuals have the right not to be forcibly returned to a place where they can face persecution. After years of interviews of North Korean refugees, the NGO Human Rights Watch has found that the intensity and degree of interrogation, torture, and punishments meted out often depended on the subjective assessments of North Korean interrogators as they tried to force the returnees to reveal what they had done whilst outside North Korea, and whether they had sought to contact, do business with, or flee to South Korea.
Only a few weeks ago, Laos and China forcibly turned back a group of nine youths, aged between 14 and 23, to North Korea without fulfilling their obligations to first determine their refugee status. I am sure that members of this audience would shudder were they to be familiar with the word KYO-HWA-SO, the name for the dreaded correctional and re-education centres operating inside North Korea, where forced labour, food and medicine shortages, harsh working conditions and physical mistreatment by guards are the order of the day.
Such punishments clearly contravene the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which North Korea itself has ratified. Specifically, article 12 (2) provides that “everyone shall be free to leave any country, including his own” and article 7 states that “no one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”
Ladies and Gentlemen
Ours is not a compartmentalized world. We cannot ignore whatever happens in one continent because we live elsewhere. The scourge of breaching human rights without respite is universal. Even we, in tiny Malta, face acute problems as we face the influx of irregular immigrants who continue coming to our shores, seeking what they believe is a better future for their families. We have voiced our concerns to the four winds. Solidarity becomes imperative. Support must come from all quarters.
Today I lead a delegation representing the Parliament of Malta, both government and opposition. We want to show the world that North Korea, although off our radar screens in the Mediterranean, still interests us. As a democratic and altruistic nation, we staunchly believe that human rights cannot be divided into regions or into sectors.
The late United States President John F Kennedy had profoundly pondered that “the rights of every man are diminished when the rights of even just one man are threatened.” And so it is that the problems that North Koreans face become our problems too, be we Europeans, or Americans, or Asians or Africans. This is the rationale behind our meeting here today. This is why this Tenth Meeting in Warsaw has to convey a strong message of solidarity, a loud message of hope, a forceful message of support to those men, women and children in North Korea. As the beloved Polish Pope Karol Woytła often repeated: ‘Do not be afraid.’ We are here beside you to help you and we will not allow your situation to be dismissed from the international agenda.
I thank you for your attention.