Suzanne Scholte, a well-known North Korea human rights activist here, said Thursday the South Korea government was very helpful in recent partially successful rescue efforts for more than a dozen North Korean defectors, mostly in their teens.
She said, however, the U.S. government needs to do more to lower the bar for the asylum of North Korean refugees seeking to resettle in the country.
Nearly two years ago, Scholte, the head of the Defense Forum Foundation and the North Korea Freedom Coalition, joined a project to salvage a total of 15 North Koreans holing up in China, many of whom are orphans. They fled their hunger-stricken communist nation, crossing the relative porous border.
Three of the youngest -- 12, 13 and 16 years old -- arrived in the U.S. through Thailand last year.
"I have to say that it was the South Korean government that was very helpful," she said in a phone interview.
South Korean diplomats provided big help in moving them to Thailand, she added.
Scholte and her partners in the project, code-named "Operation Rising Eagle," then reached out to the U.S. State Department.
"It was hard. We made a request in September 2011. But it took seven months for them to come here," she said.
If they wanted to go to South Korea, they could have gone there within a week, she added.
Three other North Korean defectors actually managed to resettle in South Korea about a year ago.
Scholte said she was devastated by news that the final group of nine, which was hoping to go to the South as well, was caught in a "trap" set by China, Laos and North Korea.
The nine North Koreans were repatriated by China to the North earlier this week after being deported by Laos.
Although it was unsuccessful, the South Korean government made a lot of efforts to help the refugees, she said.
The U.S. government, U.N. agencies and global human rights groups voiced concerns over their fate amid reports that they would face harsh punishments.
Scholte said he is not sure whether the U.S. government was aware of the attempt by the nine refugees to resettle in the South.
"We did not directly talk to the U.S. government about them as they wanted to go to South Korea," she said.
She stressed that the U.S. was willing to help those seeking asylum in the U.S., and it should intensify efforts to speed up the entry of North Korean refugees, especially kids, onto its soil.
"I think there's more that should be done," she said. (Yonhap News)
