WASHINGTON - The US administration pledged Thursday to step up its efforts to stem human rights abuses in North Korea and said it would soon name a special envoy to deal with the issue.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told a Senate appropriations committee that more attention must be paid to the worrisome rights record of a regime whose nuclear weapons program has dominated headlines.
"We've identified a special envoy for North Korean human rights. There should be an announcement of that very soon," the chief US diplomat said.
"We do need to shine more of a spotlight on the human rights issues in North Korea," she said. "And we're working with homeland security and with others about what we might be able to do on North Korean refugees."
Her remarks came as a US senator and a refugee watchdog group both suggested that Washington was not doing enough for refugees and victims of persecution in the insular Stalinist state.
Rice has branded the Asian country an "outpost of tyranny" and President George W. Bush called North Korean leader Kim Jong Il a "tyrant" who oppressed his own people.
But the post of US special envoy has yet to be filled although it was mandated in the North Korean Human Rights Act signed by Bush nearly seven months ago.
Rice responded to a question by Republican Senator Sam Brownback, sponsor of the legislation, who earlier Thursday joined the group Refugees International in urging Washington to take greater action.
Both called for more pressure on China to halt the forcible repatriation of refugees to North Korea. Brownback threatened to seek economic sanctions if Beijing refused to comply.
"There is probably no greater humanitarian crisis on the Earth today than in North Korea," Brownback said, citing estimates that 10 percent of the population had died from starvation or deprivation in the past decade.
"It is a horrific situation," the Kansas lawmaker told a briefing organized by Refugees International and the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) think tank.
He said thousands of North Koreans were fleeing persecution and starvation only to be rounded up by the Chinese in contravention of international law and sent back to likely reprisals and even death.
Brownback accused the State Department of blocking full implementation of the North Korean Human Rights Act, which authorized 20 million dollars in aid to refugees, defectors, migrants and orphans.
"It's time to act, because each day we delay, more get in prison, more get killed," the senator said. "It's wrong, it's happening before our eyes, it must stop."
The theme was echoed by Refugees International in a new report titled "Acts of Betrayal" that urged Washington to make the issue of North Korean refugees a major part of its human rights dialogue with China.
The group also called for the appointment of a senior retired US official of ambassadorial rank or higher who could carry on discreet discussions with the Chinese on the subject.
Tom Casey, a spokesman for the State Department, rejected suggestions it was not doing enough to support the North Korean refugees. He said US officials had made regular representations on the issue, including some at high levels.
On the nuclear front, the United States had little new to say after North Korea reported Wednesday it had unloaded 8,000 spent fuel rods from its reactor and planned to reprocess them to make bombs.
Rice reiterated her appeal to Pyongyang to avoid isolating itself and rejoin talks with the United States, China, South Korea, Japan and Russia that were broken off nearly a year ago.
"The North Koreans have not much to gain by what they are continuing to do and they have quite a bit to gain by coming back to the talks, and we hope that that logic will prevail," she said.
05/12/2005 22:09 GMT