 President for Asia and Japan Chair here at CSIS. As many of you know, he served in the Bush administration, the George W. Bush administration, as a senior director for Asian Affairs at the National Security Council. Sitting next to him is the famous Cho Gap-Jae, longtime senior journalist at Chosun Ilbo, and a longtime observer of Korean politics, Korean political issues, as well as the North Korea issue. Sitting next to him is our good friend Kim Tae-hyo. Kim Tae-hyo served in a couple of positions in government, but his last position was as senior secretary or national security advisor to President Lee Myeong-bak in the Blue House. And in Washington, we have this phrase, who is the go-to person in a particular country when it comes to policy issues? At least that's the way Professor Green and I used to talk about it when we were on the NSC. And Kim Tae-hyo was the go-to guy when it came to the Republic of Korea. And then poor John Sifton, he arrived here this morning and didn't realize that he'd be serving on two panels and has done a fantastic job in doing that. John Sifton is the Asia Advocacy Director at Human Rights Watch and has been one of the important forces behind the movement in New York and around the world when it comes to North Korean human rights. So like the other panels, we are doing this as a conversation. And I'd like to start by asking my colleague, Mike Green, if you could say a little bit about, again, this idea of the policy context of North Korean human rights. I mean, you served in the White House for six years, I think, in the first and the second Bush administration. How, in your own mind, how do you see the human rights issue? How was it back then? How has it been now? In what ways is it different? What do you see as the policy challenges, particularly when we look at the other priority for the United States, which is the North Korean nuclear issue? Thank you, Victor. Well, first of all, this conference itself, I think, will be viewed as experts on this issue and historians as a real turning point. Because I don't think, quite aside from the snow, I don't think you would have had such a high level of gathering around this issue five or 10 years ago, frankly. And I also think the Commission of Inquiry Report represents, for the international community, the strongest consensus we've ever had on this issue. And I think the Obama administration deserves some credit for putting out some pretty strong statements and consistent statements on North Korean human rights over the past few years. So we've really hit, as hard as this issue is, the strongest international and domestic consensus we've had on it. But for most of the time, I've been working on North Korea. The human rights issue has frequently been posed as a contradiction with diplomacy. That raising human rights was often considered something that would undercut efforts to get progress on the nucleus with North Korea to establish confidence. And this has been true in every administration over the last 20 years or so, including the Bush administration. And as you know, and Amanda knows, President Bush felt pretty strongly about this issue. I remember in the late 90s, for example, when I was at the Council on Foreign Relations, I was responsible for running the North Korea Task Force at the Council, which included about two dozen of the leading Asia experts in town to come up with a bipartisan consensus on North Korea policy. We didn't take it, and this is partly my fault, we didn't take a single look at this issue. It was all about the tactics and diplomacy of the nuclear issue and missiles and so forth. We didn't take a single look at this issue until KDO brought in some defectors to describe what life was like in the camps. And it was a moment that sort of shook everyone. And I remember arriving in the NSC in 2001 and receiving the draft human rights report from the Bureau of Democracy and what, DRL. And there was no North Korea section. And I called and asked why. And they said, well, the previous standing instructions from the seventh floor were to not quote, unquote, name and blame North Korea as long as this sensitive diplomacy was going on about a possible presidential visit and so forth. And the Japanese abductees were largely ignored by the Japanese and US governments in the 90s. And of course, in 2008, when you and I had already left the administration, sanctions were lifted on North Korea in spite of public promises this would not happen until there was progress on determining the fate of the abductees from Japan, which is also, of course, a human rights issue. So we're in a place right now where the diplomacy with North Korea is largely frozen, where the administration talks about strategic patience and where there is more room to be vocal about these issues. And I worry a little bit that if diplomacy gets back on track, there will be an instinct in some part of our government and other governments to start shelving this issue. And one thing to think about from that history is what would be the principles that the US government, the ROK government, Japan, Europe, would follow to make sure there is consistent application of our national sources of leverage on this, as hard as they are. And we could talk about that more, I suppose, in the conversation. But as much as we've achieved and as much as you hear in this conference, the default position for governments often is to view this issue as an inconvenience, frankly. And we need to think about how to make sure it stays in the front burner. Thanks. Cho Gap-je, you have seen many of the issues that Mike Green has talked about from the Korean perspective as a senior journalist. And you've also seen this issue develop over the years in South Korea. Could you give us your perspective? Thank you. I think it is almost two decades, saying in English. So I must request your cooperation to understand my English. Last 18th of December, 2014, was a great day for me. When I heard that news, UN assembly passed a resolution on North Korean issue, human rights issues. It was the day of the dream come true for me. I belong to the first generation of reporters who began to have interest in North Korean human rights issues. In 1989, I first interviewed the famous or infamous woman terrorist called Kim Hyunhee, who bombed Korean airline 105, killing 115. And I was shocked at his testimony about his poor life in North Korea. Because his testimony was almost the same with what our government said. I was always suspicious of government information about North Korea. But what she said was the worst that government provided intelligence. So I began to meet North Korean escape. And the North Korean escape appeared in the scene over South Korea in early 1990s when the Eastern Communist bloc collapsed. They brought truth and fact intelligence information about North Korea. And we conveyed the information to Korean public. And in 1992, Kang Chul-an and Ahn Hyuk, two person who was in Yodok concentration camp, came over to Korea. So we began to focus on concentration camp. In 1994, there was a man called Ahn Myung-chul, who was God in concentration camp who escaped. And he made a very detailed description of his role in concentration camp. And at that time, I was a chief editor of Manchur Dotson. I translated it into English version. And it became almost the poor. So in 1995, early November, I went to Israel to make an interview with Prime Minister Rabin. He was also Defense Minister on afternoon of Saturday. I went to his office in Tel-Aviv. And I made one hour interview. At the end of the interview, I gave English version of concentration camp testimony to him. urging Mr. Rabin to pay attention to concentration camp because you are Jews. Jews may understand what kind of magnitude concentration camp means. But Mr. Rabin got angry at me. He said, never compare to Holocaust. Holocaust is a unique thing. And it is not comparable to anything. Anyhow, I left my pamphlet on his desk. And I returned via Frankfurt to Gimpo Airport. I took taxi. Tax drive told me Rabin was assassinated. I was the last report who interviewed Mr. Rabin. But 2003, David Hawk visited my office to investigate the concentration camp and wrote great report, Hidden Gura. Also, my magazine, Mantri Jorson, made a very great scoop on the escape of Wang Jang-yong. We knew he will make an escape. But we waited until he took the action, not in Japan as planned, but in China. I also witnessed the agony of the late Wang Jang-yong during leftist administration that covered 10 years from Kim Dae-joon and the Roman government. Especially Kim Dae-joon's government put Wang Jang-yong under surveillance. And it took a kind of a covered operation to meet him. Wang Jang-yong brought the information about the inner circle world. I think the most important information what Wang Jang-yong wrote is that in 1980s, first half of 1980s, that was Kim Il-sung's regime. But second half of 1980s were actually that was Kim Jong-il's regime. And I still remember the joy which I felt on the 18th of December last year. Because that joy was doubled by our constitutional court verdict on United Progressive Party. We called them Jong-buk, Jong-buk means North Korea Followers. North Korea Followers. And our constitutional court dissolved the dead party on the grounds of they are pursuing the same goal with the North Korean Labour Party, making South Korea communist state, which will be eventually absorbed into North Korea. So two very important legal documents were appeared on same day. International law said that the North Korean regime committed crimes against humanity, crimes against humanity. And same magnitude as Hitler or Stalin. Also our constitutional law made verdict on the North Korean Followers. You are enemy of freedom. We cannot allow freedom to the party who vows to destroy freedom itself. So two documents has some very important relationship. I want to summarize like that. By UN assemble resolution, North Korean regime became same kind of totalitarian regime like Hitler and Stalin. And in South Korea, they are very strong pro-North Korea faction. And also North Korean Followers, or host of, promote of North Korean Followers, they are, they are like the people. I think it will be some radical comparison. Jews who are defending Hitler's Holocaust, same North Korean Followers who are defending and blocking, have been blocking our National Assembly passing the Human Rights Act almost for decades. I think the most under-reported or even all the thing in Korean politics is the presence of very strong pro-North Korean influence. I want to explain about that phenomenon, because they were successful to make, to make, to block, to have, blocking the passing of North Korean Human Rights Act. Also, they were successful, blocking the sending bloon to North Korea. Also, they were successful, blocking the Noh Myung government joining PSI, but later Lee Myung-bak joined the PSI. This means they are blocking mobilization of national resource, energy, and the national will to confront nuclear issue, nuclear threat, as well as human rights issue. I want to explain the background of this phenomenon. It all began in 1980s, Kwangju uprising. Kwangju uprising was a kind of crucial event in shaping of student movement. And North Korea used Kwangju incident to influence democratization movement. And movement was infiltrated by North Korean nationalism propaganda. And it focused to influence on South Korean public to sympathize the North as the weak and to the American as a kind of bully state. This student who experienced the leftist viewpoint during 1980s after graduating from colleges, they moved themselves into politics, media, academic, professor, law practice, NGOs, and became assemblyman, journalist, teacher, professor, judge, and activist. Kim Dae-ri and Noh Myung regime successfully elected full support with these leftist elements. And I can calculate the structure of public opinion in Korea now as three or four groups. 10% is, I think, core North Korean element. 20% sympathize to pro-North Korean element. And 30% core conservative. And the remaining 40% I will classify them as opportunistic middle. But the minority left is young, but the majority is old and disorganized. Why this kind of thing happened? I think Korea has too much dependence on the United States for its national security, made Korean people irresponsible people. And this public opinion made also irresponsible politicians, a kind of vicious circle. I want to make three interesting statistics. How the leftist rule has a kind of hegemony in Korean politics. The new politics alliance for democracy, the number one opposition party, they have 130 members in 300 members of the national assembly. Among them, 21 members from new politics party have the record of being convicted of violating national security law and anti-communist law, which punishing mainly the pro-North Korean activities. Almost all of them were convicted after 1988, when, which means that they violated the law after the democratically elected government began to respect the lawful proceeds. And another statistic is like this. During the Normans administration, 26 assemblymen criticized openly the passing of the North Korean Human Rights Act of 2004 in US Congress. All of them were ruling party members. Nine of them are serving as assemblymen in opposition party now. According to capture the North Korean spy called Kim Dong-sik, he said in 1990s, North Korean operation bureau instructed the North Korean followers in South Korea as fellow. You can criticize North Korea if necessary, except for these five areas. You never criticize. It is five points. One is North Korean leadership. Second, leadership inheritance. Three, North Korean political system for Kim Il-sung's self-reliance doctrine, so-called to change, lastly, human rights atrocities. I think pro-North Korean faction or North Korean followers faction, they are followers. This guideline, royally, even now. So I made a little long. I want to start here. Thank you. I have a picture. Sure, thank you. Kim Tae-hyo, if I wonder if you could also pick up on this issue of that, both Dr. Green and Jo Gap Jae raised about this, the human rights and the nuclear issue. How did you have to deal with it in your administration? But particularly looking forward, if you were still in the Blue House, how would you deal with this momentum now on the human rights issue? Depending on which way the wind blows, there's always a chance that nuclear talks could restart again. I mean, how would you bring those two things together, close that circle, or is there just a zero-sum trade off there? To be included in the last session is not a good thing normally, because session after session, normally you lose the number of the audiences. But today, it's very strange. Most crowded and more important people in this last session, so I feel lucky today. And I was impressed by the divergent various elements of the audiences, particularly, because there are some lawmakers here and administrators, journalists, international organization staff, key people, and NGO activists. So very diverse membership, promises, in-depth and dynamic discussion. And also, I found diverse methodology here today. I learned a lot. There were some comparative case studies, and there were some narration approach, and there were some audio display, and there were some interview approaches. So these mixture of all different methodologies makes social science more mature and diverse. And also, I enjoyed interdisciplinary approach today. There were some ethics and political science and the cognitive psychology and also international law. So these all approaches makes me more exciting to approach the same human rights issues in terms of policies and also academic positions. Let me be more succinct in order to allow more feedback questions and comments after all. And first of all, I try to just mention on three dimensions of North Korean human rights issues. First aspect is the threat to North Korean people's freedom of their thoughts and also threat to North Korean people's pursuing a better life in a new open society. The other dimension is the tens of thousands of North Korean core elite members. They are also victims because they are captured by Kim Jong-un's reign of terror. They say what they have to say, but they do not believe so. This is the problem. Third dimension is South Korean people. We are also victims because we have to pay higher political, military, economic, and psychological costs because of a divided peninsula and also these human rights conditions. There are some international challenges against the ROK government. First challenge is our coordination with the U.S. governments on balancing sticks and carrots towards the DPRK. If we reword Kim Jong-un regime, it will aggravate North Korean human rights condition. If we punish them, they'll try to send more laborers to international society and also it will aggravate North Korean human rights condition. But good thing about this is that you reduce the power of the distribution system by the Kim Jong-un regime and in consequences you intended or not markets and more information and materials will be flourished in the black market in North Korean society simply because of the weakened central control over local society and their economy. Second challenge is South Korea's separating security cooperation from history conflicts with Japan. South Korea and Japan is struggling for their bilateral relationship and as a result, we do not have a efficient and dynamic trilateral security cooperation as we did 10 or 15 years ago. So this is a huge challenge not only for Japan but also Korean government. Third international challenge is handling the PRC's reluctance to encourage North Korean change while initiating discussions on a unified Korea. We have free trade agreement with China and the more and more we talk about future unified Korea relationship with China. But still China focuses more on peaceful and agreed unification rather than a South Korea-initiated peace and open democratic society. So we still a lot of challenges and tasks still left in terms of our engagement with China. The other point is out of case domestic challenges. Professor and Honorable Jo Gap-je already explained Korean domestic histories and our dilemmas better than anyone else. And let me point out just three domestic challenges. One challenge is ideological division politicized North Korean policy already. We are divided between left and right and both sides are competing to buy more support from a, as you, Mr. Cho, said, opportunistic critical mess or ignorance mess, medias and public messes. They do not have exact information. And sometimes when they witness summit meeting between North and South, they believe dialogue is better than anyone else, anything else. But some other government appears and try to publicize that market is much more important and human rights issue is almost important. We have to limit our strategic assistance and then people start to get more other side of understanding about North Korea policy. So they are shaky. So key is what is the central government position? What kind of network and power could be utilized by the president and his office staff members in order to provide accurate information and lead public to support their North Korea policy? The other one is as a result, Korean vulnerable democracy into which North Korea has deeply penetrated. Already Mr. Cho mentioned. Third one is our preparation for unification. Particularly unification plan assimilating each field of North Korean society. Education, welfare policy, military and economics, jobs, trainings, everything. So regardless of any normal time, peacetime North Korea policy, we have to separately focus more on our own independent unification plan. My final point is about policy prescription. We have to focus more on the presence and immediate human rights violations in North Korea. As Michael Green already mentioned, diplomacy and engagement policy toward North Korea cannot be and should not be conflicted by our focus on humanitarian concerns. It's a problem of balancing and you can wisely uphold and pursue these two things depending upon your strategy. My second point is to ensure that ROK US policy toward North Korea is consistent and well coordinated. In particular, essential military and political measures that can be adopted without negotiation with North Korean leaders should be our top priority. We don't have enough time wait out until North Korean leaders might change. So for now what we can do and what we should do is to find out more creative and effective solutions that can change North Korean local societies, that can change North Korean elites, that can change North Korean people's minds through our own independent creative measures. So alliance and like-minded countries active and proactive approaches can still make meaningful, tangible results without strong agreement from North Korean leaders. My final point is about strengthening strategic dialogue with the Chinese government on the issues of North Korean refugees and limiting flows of strategic materials to North Korea and possible cooperation during and after North Korean contingencies. Thanks, Daniel. John Sifton, perhaps you can tell us a little bit about what are the challenges that you see going forward for the NGO community now that momentum has built over 2014. And as we look to the future, what sort of things do you see NGOs having to do to try to move government policy in the directions that you'd like to see? Well, first of all, I'll say I share Michael Green's anxiety about the trade-off that will happen if diplomacy is revived in a meaningful sense. I don't think we should care ourselves, we need to be very honest that if there was a well-coordinated effort of outreach by the North Korean government to the international community on the nuclear proliferation issue or just on general issues, proliferation and human rights, it would immediately impact the capacity to keep human rights issue on the table at the Security Council. Simply their extension of a invitation to the Special Rapporteur cost us huge amounts of anxiety and heartache as we lobbied in the Security Council for votes on the general, excuse me, in the General Assembly on votes for the General Assembly resolution. As many fence-sitting countries said, well, they've invited the Special Rapporteur, should we perhaps consider easing up on the language? And we had to say, no, don't, don't let up. It would be a terrible bargain to trade off a single Special Rapporteur visit for operative language in a historic General Assembly resolution. We have to keep the ball rolling. And thankfully, it didn't go forward in part due to DPRK's own lack of honesty in extending that offer. But I raise all that because I share your anxiety. I really think this is a concern down the line. We can balance, we can try to balance, we should try to balance, I think that's correct. But at the end of the day, diplomacy's gain will be the human rights movement's loss. We will suffer as we try to push this forward. But you asked before on the earlier panelists what can be done to mitigate that or offset that problem. There are a couple of ideas. I mean, one is if you create institutions and processes, whether in the United Nations context or any other, which can't be traded away in diplomacy very easily, then they can't be traded away in diplomacy very easily. So if you create a sole office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights which is actively investigating and carrying out research and you wind it up as it were to go and it's funded and it can't be easily or procedurally unwound and stopped, then it can't be traded away in the diplomatic realm and that's good because it should keep doing its work. If you have certain things going on in the context of the other special procedures, excuse me, that's inside UN talk, the special procedures of the UN Human Rights Council, the special rapporteurs, the working groups, if they are actively pursuing efforts which are paying dividends, you've created a process that is moving along that can't be traded away because the nonproliferation diplomats, whether they're from the ROK or Japan or Russia or the United States can't just turn off the UN system. UN system is its own thing and it can't be controlled by the National Security Council or the ROK government. So that's one solution. The other is just in the domestic law of the ROK in the United States, passing the legislative regimes which create new sanctions, listings for the Treasury Department here in Washington to restrict financial relationships with individuals in North Korea, banks in China which do business with them. If you start these things going, it's not as though they can be unwound so easily if diplomacy revives. I'm not against diplomacy. I'm not saying, I'm not trying to sabotage diplomacy but I think there are some hedges that can be taken so that negotiators can't simply trade away legitimate and meaningful and important human rights efforts. The lessons of Burma, again, rear their head here. The sanctions regime played a huge role in convincing the military, Hunter and Burma to turn away and the sanctions in Burma and human rights watch's view were lifted, were relaxed a little bit too quickly and the leverage was lost a little bit too quickly. It's the sense that you will trade things away if North Korea engages in real legitimate diplomacy down the line but let's try to keep it to a minimum and not relax those sanctions too well. I think it's right not to make too much of a big deal about the politicization issue. I mean, it's definitely true that in the ROK the domestic situation has been towards North Korea's human rights situation has been highly politicized but let's remember that it's become less so and that in Japan it is much less so and that here in Washington it is very much not so. It is not politicized. President Bush met objectives from Japan and other victims, President Obama met objectives when he went to Tokyo last year. We have Senators Rubio, Senators like Barbara Boxer, different people, very interested in the North Korea situation, Representative Royce, Representative Engel, co-sponsoring efforts on legislation in the House. This isn't about communism, it's not about free markets, it's not about Republicans or Democratic ideologies, it's about human rights and that's an important thing to remember as we go forward. Great, I was by way of answering your question. Great John, those are a great set of comments in particularly this point about how policy makers have to really internalize that what's happening here and what's been happening with the COI over the past year are truly meaningful things. They're not simply, they're not sort of things that just happen because there's nothing else happening with North Korea that they really do have meaning for everybody. We do have some time for questions. I know the audience has been very patient. If you, I think we have people with mics roaming around. If you could ask your question, we'll go here at Jong Han Kim. Hi, my name is Jong Han Kim, I'm an attorney. I have a question for Michael Green. It appears that the United States is an important party, perhaps the most important party in this issue on North Korean human rights. How do we keep this issue alive and get the traction going with the current administration, with the US administration, or even if in the next US administration? And when the diplomacy comes back, you had mentioned there's a tension and so we don't make sure that this issue doesn't get pushed aside. So with consciousness raising, I would hope that in our presidential cycle, this comes up and candidates are asked about it. And I would hope their answer would be that engagement and diplomacy have a purpose, but there are two areas where the United States will not compromise for the sake of dialogue. And one would be illicit and illegal activities by North Korea, which violate international law in which they're a threat. And the second would be human rights violations and just set that out as a principle. I like very much what John said about ways to institutionalize this. I think the reporting requirements within legislatures, US Congress, the National Assembly, the Japanese Diet, annual regular reporting requirements. In the 90s, it was very, there was a great debate in the Clinton administration about whether or not to talk about the PLA military buildup until Congress required an annual military report on the PLA. So it became a matter of course for the Pentagon to report on what the PLA was doing. And it led to an unemotional pragmatic discussion of what that meant for US policy. So a regular reporting requirement within the legislatures would help. I think there are specific issues that should be targeted. One would be what's called in diplomacy, Ray Falmont, which is returning forcibly refugees, which China is guilty of. I would like to see in the US ROK 2 plus 2 and other statements a strategy for convincing countries, China principally, to not violate international norms with respect to forced repatriation. And to come up with this as a joint position of the US ROK and one would hope other democracies vis-a-vis Beijing, but one that's highlighted early. I think a number of these things will help keep this at the forefront. We're not in the same place as we're in the 90s because I think there's so much skepticism now about what diplomacy will yield with North Korea. They've cheated on so many agreements on nuclear issues and missile issues that the currency of negotiations is reduced somewhat. So that might make it a little bit easier. The last thing I'd say is I always felt in the White House it was the first passage of a resolution against North Korea was in around 2003, right? But it was a very near-run thing and the governments of Kinde Jun and Nomuhyun were very hesitant to move on this. They were one of the last movers. And as a result, it was very hard for the US or other countries to get the Europeans to act with one voice. There were very different opinions within Europe. And so the real Achilles heel or the international effort to focus on this is what Tehio and Mr. Cho pointed to, the polarization within the ROK. That's really the Achilles heel and passage of a North Korean Human Rights Act would help. But as listening to Mr. Cho describe these former prisoners and people who'd been arrested and street protesters and I was thinking, yeah, these were victors in my counterparts in the Blue House when we were in the NSC and we worked pretty well together. And I think that ultimately there's gonna have to be a dialogue across ideological lines in the ROK. It can't just be imposed from the right, even though most of the energy is from the right. It has to be a dialogue to try to find middle ground to close the biggest Achilles heel. Yes, Andrew Yeo. Hi, Andrew Yeo, Catholic University. My question is for our two distinguished panelists from South Korea. I was wondering if you could give us an update on the North Korean Human Rights Act in South Korea and what your thoughts are on a path forward in getting this legislation through. Thank you. As Governor Kim Moon-soo already mentioned during his luncheon speech, more than 15 Korean local governments is urging a Korean parliament to speed up the process of North Korean Human Rights Act. And in this coming April, Seoul is a plan to host the North Korean Human Rights Field Attaché office in Seoul. So there'll be, I think, another positive momentum for Korean people to remember and to assure the importance of this issue. So I think not only the ruling party, but also the opposition and mass media and all the Korean people need to be continuously get a ring for the importance of this matter. And then they should be a self-compare, what is international audiences and what the other outside members are doing on this same issue and how much they have been so reactive so far. That kind of a comparison will be tested, I think, in this coming spring. Do you want to say anything on this? Would you like to say anything about the North Korean Human Rights Act? Okay, next question. Yes. My name is Grace Kong. What do you think of the idea of harnessing the momentum created by the COI to seek the downgrading of the legitimacy of DPRK at the UN by rejecting the credentials of DPRK so that it cannot participate in the activities of the UN General Assembly? This would be akin to what happened to South Africa. What do you think of that? John, do you want to take part in that? That's a great law school exam question. Awesome. I think there would be losses, costs to doing that. There would be a pretty minor benefit in terms of isolation, but I don't think that the benefits outweigh the costs. There is some talk, by the way, about the international criminal court jurisdiction of the Republic of Korea being interpreted as the whole of the peninsula, which would give the ICC jurisdiction over North Korea, which might be made possible by such a move, but I don't think the benefits outweigh the costs. It's one of those strange ideas which has been floated, like the trillion dollar coin to pay off the national debt that I think, it's interesting to think about, but perhaps not the best policy idea. But others may feel differently. Carl? The costs are you would lose the dialogues. I mean, they are at Geneva. They are talking to, they are brought before the Human Rights Commission. They engage, there are fora in which you can engage with them, which Ambassador King has engaged with them and others, and those are areas in which, when there will be improvements, when there will be progress made, that'll be where it happens. So you'd be losing all that if you could comment on the UN. Thanks. Carl Gershman. Mr. Kim spoke about tens of thousands of elites in North Korea that are victims. I wonder if you could speak a little bit more about that. How to reach those people, and are they the source of potential cleavage within the North Korean system? Okay, since because they cannot change their mind they cannot change their existing position even during and after unification. But those members are less than 100 people. Except for these, a few number of people, I think almost tens of thousands of North Korean elite members can be mobilized or transformed into pro-South Korean people after unification. Like German cases, you have to prepare for your own alternative solutions, finding jobs and retraining themselves and give them more field experiences in military area and factories and some more expertise fields and areas. But at this moment, many progressive people in South Korea arguing that a hawkish policy toward North Korea has not produced any good consequences. See Pyongyang, more buildings and the lively streets and North Korean economies. You cannot find any feminists as before. But these are missing some important facts. North Korean people are not starving because of their own autonomous markets, not because of central government distribution system. As Remyonggwa government and current government are limiting strategic aid to North Korea, including rice, cash and oils, North Korea should extract more of caches using other illegal ways. And then North Korean society and people and elite groups are corrupted and they are finding their own independent new patterns of lives. This one is accumulating much more in mutual discrepancies and mutual suspicions even among all elite groups. So if something happens and if their internal debate deepens against their policy failures, you can see some surprising consequences. These phenomena are accumulating now, but from the surface you can say that Kim Jong-un is safely controlling everything and you cannot see any problems from the core elite groups and North Korean streets and Pyongyang seems to be okay. But I see and I sense that more danger and uncertainties of internal Pyongyang and North Korean society. Ambassador Lee, you want to say something on this? Yeah, sort of a two fingers. I think you're very, I know the forum is not really possible. There's a mic behind you. I think it's a very important question that you raised. I just wanted to make one very quick point and this is probably the reason why we have to transition from the, especially as the international community, particularly the United Nations, I don't know whether we'll take the ICC route or the international tribunal route, but as we think about and prepare for the criminal-prosecutory mechanism, it's very important to transition from the collective responsibility to more individualized sort of crimes, criminal act or guilt, which basically means that we have to look at individuals and start naming these people who are directly responsible. I think that's a very important foundation for any prosecutory mechanism. So I think that in part sort of addresses the issue that you raised. I just wanted to raise that. Thanks, and I think we have one last question from Nick, so Nick Everstad. Thank you, Victor. Nick Everstad, American Enterprise Institute. I've got a question for my friends, Kim Tae-hyo and Cho Gapche, about the politics, or maybe we should call it the psychopathology of North Korean human rights in South Korea. It's very, very hard for South Korea's foreign friends to understand the tremendously deep ambivalence that so much of the South Korean population has about promoting human rights in the DPRK. The nearest analogy for American society or for European societies was the intellectual disorder that was known as anti-anti-communism back in the old days. And anti-anti-communism really didn't end until the collapse of the Soviet Union. My clinical question is, do you see practical ways in which people on the progressive side of the aisle can be welcomed in and included in the North Korean human rights movement in South Korea? And if so, what needs to be done to include them? I think in Korean, the most important thing is ideology. I think ideology is the most important strategy also policy. And we are fighting with the communists. Communists, they are communists. Of course, someone calls the North Korea not communists, but they are communists plus the kind of cult, or you can say, gangsta family, anyhow. But this kind of thing not happened in South Korea already. We can say in 1930s in Europe, there was many intellectuals who defended the Stalin's mass execution and the short trial. And this kind of defending Stalinism transferred to their country, their country because the intellectual wrote many books, articles, and it became a kind of a moral decay among the European intellectuals. I think similar thing happened in 1930s in United States, United States, after the pressure the intellectuals turned to left and many bright men from east joined the communist party and became spy. I remember two famous person, Elger Hiss and the next white. So the UN and IMF planned by two Soviet spy. Almost the same thing happened in South Korea in during 1980s. And the genius propaganda from North Korea, they disguised as nationalists, not communists. And you said progressive, but actually in Korea there is no progress. The pro-North Korean section in Korea is called progressive, but they are not progressive, they are ultra-reactionary. And some English newspaper in Korea even called the United Progressive Party which is solved by a constraint called liberal. How you can say the pro-North Korean section liberal, they are blocking the passing of human rights act in the national assembly. But they are called in South Korean media as liberal, progressive, democratic fighters, et cetera. So I think it explains some situation in South Korea, but it is not only thing in the world. Some happens in another country, in another age. Thanks, Tae-ho, did you wanna say something on that? I'd like to find an answer on next question from power politics in both North and South Korea. Most North Korea experts makes mistakes simply by looking at North Korea from the lenses of some just radical communism. This is not a simple communist country, this is a very unique Kim family dynasty leadership country. So Russia and China, they are collective leadership. So newcomers come and try to deny former leaders and then they should focus more on daily lives of the people to gather more public support, to sustain their power. But North Korea, grandfather, father and grandson, they are all from the same family. They do not have any flexibility to look at human rights issues or other things. They just absorb into their own family power. That's the nonsense dilemma of North Korean human rights situation. South Korea too, opposition party, try to do their own best to win the next presidential election. And 2000, there was a first South-North Summit meeting. People got surprised and they get emotionalized. And then they voted for another next president, no. And then 2007, less explosive, but people still pour into tears. And many people became to believe in 10 years that dialogue is best. And then they do not have enough information on North Korean nuclear threat. They do not have enough understanding on human rights situations. So human rights situation now in South Korean politics is a little bit boring than just simple dialogue with North Korean leaders. So it takes time. You have to change the perception of the people and then you have to find out the new way of winning the next election. Thank you. Great, thanks. So unfortunately, we're at the end of our time for this panel, so I wanna thank our panelists very much for a very stimulating session on policy issues. So it's my job just to adjourn the session. And let me start by thanking everybody. So I wanna, and I have the list. I wanna thank Ambassador Kirby and Commissioner Deruzma and Commissioner Braserco for joining us today. Ambassador King, Ambassador Lee, Kurt Campbell, who was with us this morning, Carl Gershman and Governor Kim Min-soo for your speeches at lunchtime. I wanna thank my co-organizers, Amanda Schnitzer, Lindsay Lloyd from the Bush Institute, as well as Greg from HRNK and Lee Jung-hun and Liz from the Yonsei Center for Human Liberty. And I also wanna thank all of our staff. I feel that we need to do this since they all, we're working late into the night yesterday to make this happen. Marie Dumond, Ellen Kim, Rosa Park, SJ, everybody. Liz, thank you very much for all of your thoughts. Let me just say in closing that I'll never forget the time I was at the White House, one conversation I had with a North Korean defector and Mike was there for this as well, who we brought in to see the president. And afterwards, as we were walking out and leaving, he looked back at the White House compound and he pointed to the West Wing and he said, is this the White House? And we said, no, that's the West Wing. The big building is the White House. That's where the president and Mrs. Bush and everyone live. And he just looked at us and he said, thank you. And I said, thank you for, do you want a tour? Is that what you want? He said, no, just thank you because if you didn't care, meeting all of us here, then nobody would care. And I think as your video said, I mean, why do we all work so hard on this issue? It's because we care. And I feel like today was something very special. I mean, we had all the elements against us. We had the snow, we had late arriving food, we had protests from the DPRK in New York. And in spite of all this, all of you are still here at the end of a very long day. And I think it's just testament to the fact that we're celebrating the commission's work, but there's still a lot more to do. And I think we're all here because that's what we're gonna do. We're not done yet. There's a lot more to do. So thank you all very much. Thank you.