Seoul ups diplomacy to stop return of N.K. defectors in China

The Seoul government is revving up diplomatic efforts, both officially and unofficially, to persuade China to stop the “inhumane” repatriation of North Korean defectors.

On Sunday, Chun Young-woo, senior presidential secretary for foreign affairs and security, paid an unofficial visit to Rep. Park Sun-young of the conservative Liberty Forward Party, who has staged a hunger strike in front of the Chinese Embassy in Seoul since last Tuesday to protest the repatriation.

Chun was the first high-level presidential official to visit a rally taking place before a foreign mission in Seoul.

Observers said Chun’s move, regardless of its unofficial nature, apparently added to the growing pressure on China to deal with the North Korean defectors in accordance with international humanitarian norms.

Under a repatriation pact between Beijing and Pyongyang, which was signed in the 1960s, China has refused to regard the defectors as refugees protected by international conventions. It maintains they are “illegal migrants” that crossed the border for economic reasons.

During 30-minute talks with Chun, Park stressed that the government should recognize the seriousness of the issue and draw up a stronger measure to address it.

She also requested that the government set up a meeting for her to discuss the repatriation issue with Chinese diplomatic officials, and that it specifically mention China while raising the humanitarian issue at a U.N. human rights panel this week.

In a media interview, Chun said, “I visited Park to deliver the message that our government has a grave will to resolve the issue of North Korean defectors, and to encourage her as she is doing this during cold weather.”

“It is a humanitarian issue and also an issue of basic values that the Republic of Korea honors. It is an issue directly related to the reason why the ROK exists.”

At the U.N. Human Rights Council that opened in Geneva, Switzerland, on Monday for four weeks, Seoul was to raise the repatriation issue without specifically mentioning any particular nation regarding it.

Meanwhile, Cho Myung-chul, head of the Education Center for Unification under the Unification Ministry, has sent e-mails and fax messages to Chinese figures who graduated from his alma mater Kim Il Sung University, the top notch school in the North.

“Persecuting the most vulnerable people in the world is never righteous, and there can’t be any excuse for that. I heartily urge you alumni to offer active support and practical help,” he wrote in a letter.

“The letter was sent not with his job title as head of the center. He graduated from the Kim Il Sung University, and we understand that he sent that as head of the university alumni in South Korea,” ministry spokesperson Kim Hyung-suk told reporters.

In related news, a local human rights group, named “Save My Friend,” said that it has collected signatures from nearly 150,000 people supporting its campaign against the repatriation of “our parents, brothers, sisters and friends.”

After getting 1 million signatures, it plans to send the list of those who participated in the campaign to Chinese President Hu Jintao, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Marzuki Darusman, special U.N. rapporteur on North Korean human rights.

Presently, more than 50,000 North Korean refugees are estimated to be hiding in parts of China. Over the last five years, more than 2,500 defectors made it to South Korea each year, with last year’s figure at 2,737.

By Song Sang-ho (sshluck@heraldcorp.com)