Preemptive military strikes. The discussion is an hour and a half. Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. Welcome to the center of National Interests and our session on north korean crisis. You may have noticed the large camera and good looking, and were live on cspan 1, im told. This should be a good session. Im honored to be accompanied by two good friends who have some experience with north. To my right, ambassador joe, fluent in mandarin, a u. S. Representative to the Korean Economic Development agency. Necessary manages Mission Manager for north korea, and hes able to talk well about this. To my left, greg, executive director for the committee of human rights in north korea. He comes to his knowledge of communist governments honestly, raised in romania during the regime. I would like to start off with greg and go to the group. Thank you. Youre about to shed an eye 28 years after the collapse of communism and soviet union. The kim jongun regime has developed, terrifying weapons and refused two heritage transmissions of power, grandfather, son to son. Kim jongun ill to son and to grandstand son kim jung unin 2007. How did we get here. One argument is to the fact they had witnessed other systems, good, bad. The system now is truly the result of three totalitarian systems. There is stalinist communism, japanese imperialism, from 1995, under brutal occupation. And one argument is theyd is that this i do nastic dictatorship of the kim family regime is truly the result of the fusion of three to tolltarian systems. We know for sure this is a criminal champagne and in 2014 the commission submitted a report from a year long investigation supported a report to the you man Rights Council and found what it happening in north korea at the north korean prison camps amounts to crimes against humanity. None of us have a record, and many work hard. There is only one country on the face of the planet. That is north korea. There are 120,000 men, women and children being held at north koreas political prison camps. Pur you ant to a system of guilt by association, a system of futile inspiration. This is the only country on the face of the planet that classifies its own citizens based on their degree of perceived loyalty to the regime. There is a core class, 2025 , a wavering class, 40significant of the op wlaiks. Inspectors there is a classified as hostile have been sent to prison camps and many banished in remote areas in the northeastern part of north koreas dedengs facilities is unbelievable. We had numerous accounts of execution and starvation. Theyre subjected to a forced cycle of forced labor and induced malnutrition. One can see this fast system as unlawful imprisonment is the heart of darkness. The next question, how they have stayed in power so long. Next year, they will be celebrating the 70 Year Anniversary of the establishment of the and two leaders were good friends and certainly romania was a very oppressive regime and some of us or all of us still remember the notorious secret police, for a population of 23 million in 1989, the secret police had 14,000 agents. Pretty similar population of 25 million in north korea today. 270,000 agents as north koreas internal agencies. The state department, ssd, the gustapo, they have 50,000 agents. The ministry of public security, police force, its a police force that executes Political Police functions as well, 210,000. The military security command Whose Mission is to keep an eye on Senior Officers in particular, 10,000 saagents. In romania, it is a stain on them and in north korea each person has to become an agent. Every north korean has to participate in the neighborhoods watch system. Each and every north korean has to participate in weekly indoctrination sessions, people confess and pledging to strengthen their ideological prowess and others criticize them and it goes on and on. Tropical the life of a north korean is lived under an overwhelming level of coercion, control, surveillance and punishment, which means the level of social cohesion is very low, very difficult for people to get together and organize and discuss sports even. Forget about politics. Although the situation has changed to a certain extent and i will mention that in a few minutes, nork continues to restrict very severely information coming into the country and information getting out of the country. North korea if one thinks of buddha hess, prague, and one in 1989, was r what is the age of the revolution . Later 20s . Perhaps mid 20s . At the age of the revolution each and every young man is in a military uniform for 10 years, age 17 to age 27. Many of the women spend six years in a military uniform. I have spoken to millions of North Koreans who sons spent 10 years in the military and all said under this permanent indoctrination under kim jongun, the level their sons had been subjected to was frigtening even to a north korean in north korea. By the time theyre out of the military the age of revolution has already passed. I would be stating the opposite if i said north korea today is different than 10 or 20 years ago. As we all remember, in the late 1990s, between 600,000, 3 million North Koreans starved to death or died deduced by malnutrition. The reason behind the great trag that affected the people of north korea, while International Aid was coming in, jim jung un, we know is survival. This regime does not want its people to buy by the millions. If that is what it takes to stay in power it will do it in the blank of an eye. This is what happens in up the 1990s. There have been some Positive Side effects. First and foremost, many North Koreans escaped the country. There were 8,300 defectors leaving in ssk. They have played an extraordinary important role. Through them we have learned the stories of north korea. And after all i will take the liberty of saying the work, that organizations such as hours do is the work that the kim regime fears the most. We find out the truth and tell the truth about north korea. This regime cares about its pocketed book and eliminatesy. If we bring up this once we should address this five times. I am not an avid reader, but i read it every day. Pretty similar. Doesnt take that much time. Nuclear whens have become an essential part of this. It fills up articles of Nuclear Weapons and every time why mention human rights at the u. N. Or other international for ra, this results in understand mining the legitimacy of this regime. The fundamental objective of this regime is survival. This is an absolutely monopoly on power. It is the kim regime and only the kim regime. The kim regimes main competitor is south korea. As prepostster house this may sound, this regime understands the only long term guarantee of its over survival is to establish hedgeamoney. Have we seen positive developments in recent years for the past two decades. Basically during the days of kim woo un, they tried to replace money with exchange of rations. During the great days of the great famines, they were no longer able to feed its people for the pbs, ever since the past two decades we have seen innormal marketization in north korea. Farmers markets, black markets, open markets. Many more people depend on the markets today than the public Distribution System which is is still active for those living in the capitol city of pong young. Most of the elites live in the capital city of poyongyang. Theyre quite impressive. I also have the memories of romania where there was a lot of construction but very little economic utility to that construction. The regime of kim jongun has vested heavily in the building projects such as buildings in the capitol of pyongyang. If you look at pictures from one year ago, the typhoon affected north korea very considersly. Pictures of men participating in recovery efforts. They had no tools. Not a shovel, hammer, forget about tractors and truck. This is how the regime operates by concentrating, focusing all resources first and faux most critical to its survival and not ordinary people of north korea. Not having to depend on the public Distribution System. The regime not being able not to control its people is a positive development. The other positive development is social dynamics are somehow changing in north korea. Slowly but surely in the past prior the center life used to be center on the winter storm place and the place of residence. The workplace is always assigned. The place of residence is assigned by the workplace. On paper, everybody has to be employed. In north korea, everyone has to punch in and punch out. Men have to participate in Public Mobilization campaigns, why the women are the main actors. Going back to social dynamics, this is not a society that thrives on trust, actually distrust is everywhere. However, since there is nowhere to lend or borrow money, no banks active in this market. Goods coming from china and sold at wholesale markets in the border areas and wholesale markets in the provinces and retail markets, most of these transactions are executed based on trust. Perhaps one interesting element that will again take time in north korea, is that a bit of trust more than before is developing in personal relationships. That is not to say that the regime of kim jongun is less of a human rights denier than that of the father the other grandfather. My organization, committee for human rights in north korea has identified several trends in human rights under the kim jongun regime. We have identified these trends based on a Research Methodology that comprises satellite imagery, testimony by defectors inside the country, and in this day and age, given technological advances we can benefit from, we even have access to sources inside the country. We have all heard about the purge going on inside north korea since 2009 when kim jongun began preparing for the second transition of hereditary power and think tank staffed with defectors iss, institute of National Strategy during the first five years of kim jongun 340 officials were purged or executed. Remember, this is a humongous bureaucracy, more than one individual. The entire bureaucratic support taken out underneath, friends, associates, family, colleagues. The favorite method of execution on kim jonguns watch is execution by zpu 4 antiaircraft machine gun system. Hrnk managed to acquire a satellite image of such an execution taken just minutes before. Youre talking about a machine gun system, four machine gun barrels, 50 caliber, automatic fire, human bodies are just pulverized. Theyre turned into pink mist. Remember, this is still a con fusion society. Old elites were exterminated. Christians were exterminated. New elites were terminated. These officials were executed and even denied the fundamental right of leaving a body behind. North korea is a member of the United Nations thus bound by the declaration of human rights. It has ratified several human rights incidents including the International Covenant on civil and Political Rights and social and cultural rights and Womens Convention and Childrens Convention yet each and every conceivable human right is violated in north korea. They have zero diplomatic credibility given all the the engagements it has broken. As far as were concerned, human rights organizations will continue to tackle the toughest issues first and the most difficult of all issues in north korea is surely its vast system of unlawful imprisonment. North koreas political prison camp system, if i may use the same terminology, what we aim for, what we want to see is the complete verifiable irreversible dismantlement of north koreas goulogue. Thank you very much. On that happy thronote, let turn to you. We were talking about that. And we are still talking about it. Thank you for the invitation. This is obviously a very important subject, one being discussed as we speak at the United NationsGeneral Assembly meeting and our president will be speaking there tomorrow to include north korea. Let me follow up on gregs outstanding presentation was focused on. Thats human rights, criminality, elicit behavior. Let me follow up on that and then i will go into what i would like to get a little more deeply into. In september 2005 we had a joint statement into. In september 2005 we had a joint statement with north korea, and it took a number of years to come up with this joint statement. And the joint statement speaks to north korea, and thats the father, kim jungil, committing to the verifiable dismantment of all their Nuclear Program. And we made that very clear to north korea. And in turn for that they would eventually getting the provision of we made it very clear to north korea that was a site for normalization. And i remember saying wait a minute, if we denuclearizize comprehensive, that doesnt lend itself to the normalizing with the United States. And i said, no, there are other issues. These are bilateral issues. And it wouldnt be immediately denuclearization or moves towards denuclearization, they would get the benefits to include certainly security assurances. But then we said there are bilateral issues, which in japan there are a lot of human rights issues, but the abductee issue. And in the United States, further to gregs comments, human rights, we need transparency on human rights issues. We need to see some progress on what youre doing on human rights, because thats part of your value system. Ask for us to have normalization, thats part of it. This is criminal behavior that we need to see progress and indeed elimination. But indeed transparency and progress. Then that would lend itself, and then these become bilateral discussions. But the opening of these bilateral discussions would be, again, that september statement when they committed dismantlement, for those deliverables that are important for north korea. So i couldnt agree with you more, greg, on the human rights issue. And thats always been a strong core element of our dialogue with north korea that the nuclear gets us into the core issues that touch our values as a nation and indeed other nations at the table. South korea, japan, certainly their allies, russia and china. About september 2005, let me go back a few years because it took us about two years to get to that point. Because the first meeting of the talks was in august 2003. And i remember that vividly because in april of 2003 we were at a very tense point with north korea. A tipping point. North korea was reprocessing spent fuel rods they took out of cooling pods. It was the end of the agreed framework. There were reprocessing fuel works. They told us. Dont have to do much intelligence on these issues. They tell you. And they were doing that. And it was the secretary of state who went to his counterpart in beijing and said, look, this is getting very tense and the chinese spoke to koreans. And that was a dialogue that happened in april 2005, which established the six Party Process. So the koreans came to the table with china, the United States. We discussed it, and it was the beginning of the six body process. The first meeting as i mentioned was in august. I remember one of my fir meetings at the Six Party Talks was a statement that rings very true today as it did in 2003 when north korea very casually said, you know, mr. Detraini, accept the fact we will be a Nuclear Weapons state. Why dont you the americans need to understand that and accept that, and we could be a good friend of the United States if you accept that. And look at pakistan, the relationship you have with pakistan, they put that on the table. And ladies and gentlemen, theyve not walked away from that issue. And as greg indicated its part of the constitution, Economic Development and a Nuclear Weapons state. And theyre pursuing that. That has been their goal. And the sense one has and let me just go back to the 2001 joint statement. That fell apart at the end of 2008 for the very clear reason. We expected our monitors, who were going to monitor and verify their adherence to the commitment to denuclearize. Orally we had the commitment. We wanted it in writing. They wouldnt put it in writing, and that was the beginning of the end. We said if you cant put that in writing, we cant have our monitors comply with this joint statement, then really we dont have anything here. We dont have the trust. And that was the beginning of the end of the joint statement. We go way back to the end of the agreed framework. And that was in 2002. Basically telling our representatives in pyongyang we have this and other things merchandise and basically theres not much you can do about it. So it speaks to north korea even with the agreed framework and the light water reactors that were being built and the heavy fuel being provided, they still wanted a path of Nuclear Weapons. And then in 2005 when we had the joint statement, the sense was they werent committed to let the monitors if they were in total compliance, leave pyongyang to confirm other areas. So there are pieces there that speak to where we are in 2017. 25 years of negotiations, and weve had weve had the famework, the joint statement. But we also had the pairing process where we had our secretary of state meeting with kim jungil in pyongyang. We had some significant developments, but they eventually all fell apart. As it is right now, as weve experienced over this past year with over 16 Missile Launches, Intercontinental Ballistic Missile missile to intermediate range ballistic missiles. Now icbms that can reach chicago, states. Weve heard about missiles that can reach guam. Weve heard kim jungun talk about that. Weve seen the very sixict nuclear test