Democratic United Party lawmaker Jung Cheong-rae stressed that any legislation on North Korean rights should include clauses that directly help them out of their humanitarian and economic quagmire.

“What does the legislation on human rights amount to if it does not include food and medicine for the starving people of North Korea?” the opposition lawmaker said in an interview with The Korea Herald.

The Grand National Party, precursor to the ruling Saenuri Party, first proposed a bill on North Korean human rights in 2005 after the North Korean Human Rights Act was signed into law in 2004. 

The conservative party’s bill proposes establishing an organization under the Ministry of Unification that would undertake studies of North Korea’s human rights; appointing a special envoy to gather international support; and increasing government subsidies of nongovernmental organizations hostile to Pyongyang, among others.

Jung points out that the bill lacks direct support for the North Korean people, including food and medical supplies that were the hallmark of late President Kim Dae-jung’s Sunshine Policy.

“The bill does nothing to help our countrymen up north. It merely amounts to paying off NGOs that distribute leaflets across the border,” the two-term lawmaker said, referring to anti-North Korean organizations that attempt to distribute pamphlets criticizing the North Korean government across the 38th parallel line via balloons.

The DUP has proposed its own North Korean rights legislation, putting livelihood rights ahead of human rights. The bill proposed by the progressive party adds items that are absent in the conservative party’s legislation: rice, farm fertilizer, and medicine.

But the bill aligns with that of the conservative party’s in asking for strengthened monitoring and effective distribution of the aid bundle.

“The food aid should be distributed to the starving people, not channeled off to the military,” said Jung. The 47-year-old native of South Chungcheong Province has also proposed a bill to provide humanitarian aid to North Korean children under the age of 6.

“What is most important when thinking about the human rights situation in North Korea? What should be the foremost step taken?” asked Jung. “What human rights boil down to is the right to live as a human being should, and the quintessential aspect of that is the availability of food.

“North Korea is a country that we should coexist with on the Korean Peninsula.”

South Korea should work toward preventing the collapse of North Korea as that could inflict serious economic damage on the South, and legislation on North Korea’s human rights should be directed toward that end, he said.

By Samuel Songhoon Lee (songhoon@heraldcorp.com)