News-Info-Alerts

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Re: North Korea and POWs

Date: November 05, 2000

"For the Record
November 3, 2000; Page A32

From remarks by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright yesterday at the National Press Club:

On the human rights issue, the State Department put out a human rights report on every country, and the North Korean one is not good--not good at all--bad in fact in terms of people's basic human rights, what happens to labor, religious freedom.

And we make no bones about it. When I met with Foreign Minister Paek [Nam Sun] in Bangkok, I made very clear that the discussion of human rights would be a constant theme in whatever relationship we establish, because it's essential to the United States.

But . . . I think it's very important for us to understand what we're doing and what steps we are involved in.

And at this stage, we are focusing ourselves on the security issue, never leaving the human rights and terrorism issues out of the picture, or questions about the POW/MIAs or the economic issues.

But I think that we are embarked on a long road here. I have said that we are closer to the beginning of it than even the middle or the end, and we are very much aware of the human rights situation.

I know that I didn't see anything in North Korea beyond what I was supposed to see, and I saw an empty city, and I saw a perfectly orchestrated, totalitarian performance of people all dancing in step. Only a dictator can manage to get 100,000 people to dance in step."
© 2000 The Washington Post Company