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February 23, 2005
The UN Fails Again
China is obligated under international treaties to allow asylum seekers refuge status. There are around 300,000 North Koreans in China right now that qualify for this status and who if returned to North Korea face almost certain torture and death. And the UN group in China that is responsible for them is content to let them languish and die. Here is more:
"The UNHCR keeps an office in Beijing, with a budget this year totaling $4.4 million, to which asylum seekers have no access. Four years ago, a family of North Korean refugees actually stormed the premises and gained asylum after threatening to eat rat poison from their pockets if forced back out onto the street. Since then, the UNHCR has allowed China's security agents to better defend the compound against further visits by the people the UNHCR is supposedly in China to protect.
For years now, the U.N. policy in dealing with North Korean refugees in China has been one of what its spokesmen call "quiet diplomacy." The hushed implication is that behind the scenes, the UNHCR is in deep and earnest discussion with the Chinese authorities. No doubt. And there has been some help for a small number, mainly by way of easing them quietly out of the country once they have risked their lives by storming foreign compounds other than the UNHCR's. But the broad picture, for the hundreds of thousands, is a quiet but dire absence of any help whatsoever."
Posted by Pete at February 23, 2005 02:59 PM
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