DFF's Work Leads to Congressional Hearings on Radio Broadcasting, Horrors Facing Refugees in China

Congressman Chris Smith (NJ) (center in blue shirt) and members of his staff with the North Korean defectors. Smith was so impressed with them that he cancelled all his appointments to spend several hours with them and to plan a Congressional hearing to get their stories out.

On Capitol Hill, Director of Free North Korea Radio, Kim Seung Min, and his wife, Mun-Myeong Ok, Michael Jung, the station’s engineer, Mrs. Soon-Hee Ma, DFF’s Scholte, Mrs. Kyeong-Sook Cha, and Hye-Young Choi.

Following the April visit of North Korean defectors during North Korea Freedom Week, DFF hosted North Korean defectors again in July and October. Included in the delegations were long-time friends: Kim Seung-Min, director of Free North Korea Radio, and Kang Chul-Hwan, one of the first defectors DFF hosted back in 1998. Kang was the defector who met with President George Bush after Bush read his book The Aquariums of Pyongyang about his childhood in the infamous Yoduk political prison camp. In addition, DFF hosted two very brave women: Soon-Hee Ma and Kyeong-Sook Cha. Ma and Cha and their daughters had all been victimized by traffickers in China when they fled North Korea to avoid starvation. Over eighty percent of North Korean women are being sold in China to brothels, as slave workers, and to Chinese men as wives.

During their first visit the defectors were in Washington, D.C. to participate in Freedom House’s conference on North Korea and during the second visit they came to testify in Congress as a result of a Congressional hearing DFF arranged on their behalf. DFF arranged for them to meet Congressmen Ed Royce (CA), Frank Wolf (VA) and Chris Smith (NJ), as well as Undersecretary of State Paula Dobriansky and Special Envoy on North Korea Human Rights Jay Lefkowitz, Carl Gershman of the National Endowment for Democracy, and Ambassador James Lilley and Nick Eberstadt of the American Enterprise Institute. Media interviews DFF arranged for them led to stories on NBC News and CNN and a front page article in The Washington Times.

Congressmen Royce and Smith were so moved and impressed by Ma, Cha and Kim they agreed to have Congressional hearings on radio broadcasting into North Korea and on the horrific trafficking of North Korean women in China. The two topics may seem different, but both Ma and Cha said hearing information on the radio about the “free world” literally kept them alive. Both had gone through times of such terrible suffering they had thought about suicide but learning through the radio that people cared for them – North Korean refugees suffering in China – gave them strength to stay alive.

For the Congressional hearing chaired by Congressmen Smith and James Leach (IA), DFF also arranged for refugee rescuer Tim Peters of Helping Hands Korea to testify. Peters testified about his efforts to help North Korean refugees seek safety at U.S. Embassies and Consulate offices, but how the refugees had been rebuffed in violation of the provisions of the North Korea Human Rights Act. The powerful testimony of the North Korean defectors and Peters’ accounts of our lack of help so deeply moved the Members of Congress that they sent a joint letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice calling on her to instruct our embassies to abide by the provisions of the Act. As a result, North Korean refugees were finally given asylum and allowed to come to the United States.

On the day of the Congressional hearing, several Members of Congress were hosting a lunch for North Korea’s Ambassador to the United Nations Han Song-ryol. When the media were invited in to the lunch Kim Seung Min entered the room with a sign stating: “The Road to Peace on the Korean Peninsula is the Expulsion of Kim Jong-il.” At that point Ambassador Han said to Kim: “Do you want to die, you b———?” The threat on Kim Seung Min’s life led Congressman Henry Hyde, Chairman of the House International Relations Committee, to write a letter warning the North Korean Ambassador that if any harm came to Kim, relations between the U.S. and North Korea would be gravely influenced.

“I had come to China to find one daughter but ended up losing the other two daughters who were sold. There were no words to express my devastation, hurt, and frustration. I wanted to kill myself, but I could not die because I had to find my daughters.“
– from the testimony of Soon-Hee Ma

“Listening to the radio about how people lived in free societies made me think, ‘I want to live a life like that.’”
– from the testimony of Kyeong-Sook Cha

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