U.S.: Hands Off the DPRK!

U.S.: Hands Off the DPRK!

Dear Friends,

March 20, 2006--This email is going out to thousands around the country to oppose an international campaign of vilification by the U.S. government to brand the the DPRK (north Korea) as a violator of human rights. We hope you will join us in opposing this campaign.

The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and Freedom House are spearheading this U.S. government sponsored and funded campaign. NED is organizing a so-called informational event about "human rights" in north Korea next Wednesday, March 22nd, in Washington, DC. This event is part of an international campaign to vilify north Korea, and bring about the overthrow of its government, replacing it with a U.S. client state.

A "private" hearing on North Korean refugees will be held at the Council of the European Union, and the Third International Human Rights Conference on North Korea will be held at the Crown Plaza Hotel in Brussels. The conference is being sponsored by the U.S.-based Freedom House, which received $2 million in funding from the U.S. State Department. Freedom House and NED work closely together.

As part of this right-wing campaign, a few days ago, the Bush administration announced a new national security strategy in which it vowed to end `tyranny' in north Korea and declared that the U.S. is ready to take "all necessary measures," including pre-emptive strikes against that country.

In the U.S., NED is attempting to garner support from the progressive community for this campaign, and have elected to hold the DC event at the Bus Boys And Poets cafe, which is usually a venue for progressive events. They have even attempted to do outreach for the event amongst the progressive community.

We strongly urge all to read the form letter below and send an email, call and/or fax the public officials and event organizers listed below, registering opposition to the events and demanding they be cancelled. The form letter can serve as the basis for an email, phone call or fax.

In D.C., The International Action Center will be organizing a picket at Bus Boys And Poets (2021 14th St NW, near U street in DC) of this reactionary event, starting at 6:30pm-that's next Wednesday, March 22nd. The IAC will be there with signs and informational flyers. Please join the picket if you are local to the area.

Contact info for public officials and the reactionaries organizing the so-called informational events about "human rights" in north Korea follows. Please email, call or fax them to lodge your protest:

The DC organizer:
David Hurwitz
davidirahurwitz@hotmail.com
(202.364.1199)

The DC Speaker:
Debra Liang-Fenton
Executive Director
U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea
1101 15th Street, NW Suite 800
Washington, DC 20005
hrnk_org@hotmail.com
Phone: (202.293.7396 x651)
Fax: (202) 223-6042
http://www.hrnk.org/

The Brussels Organizer (Freedom House)
Tel. (202) 296 5101
Fax: (202) 293 2840
E-mail: fhdc@freedomhouse.org

President George W. Bush
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20500
president@whitehouse.gov

Vice President Richard Cheney
Eisenhower Executive Office Building
Washington, DC 20501
202-456-9000
vice.president@whitehouse.gov

Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice
Department of State
2201 C Street, NW
Washington, DC 20520
phone: 202-647-4000
fax: 202-647-2283

Secretary General Kofi Annan
United Nations Headquarters
First Avenue at 46th Street
New York, NY 10017
sg@un.org

Sen. William Frist
Board Member, National Endowment for Democracy
email from http://frist.senate.gov
SH-509
Washington, DC 20510
Phone: (202) 224-3344
Fax: (202) 228-1264

Rep. Nancy Pelosi
E-mail: sf.nancy@mail.house.gov
2371 RHOB
Washington, D.C. 20515-0508
Phone: (202) 225-4965
Fax: (202) 225-8259

Sen. Richard Lugar
Chair, Senate Foreign Relations Committee
E-mail: senator_lugar@lugar.senate.gov
SH-306
Washington, D.C. 20510-1401
Phone: (202) 224-4814
Fax: (202) 228-0360

Rep. Henry Hyde
Chair, House International Relations Committee
Email via website: http://www.house.gov/hyde
2110 RHOB
Washington, D.C. 20515-1306
Phone: (202) 225-4561
Fax: (202) 225-1166

You can use the sample letter below as the basis of an email, phone call or fax:

President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretary of State Rice, Secretary-General Annan, Congressional Leaders, and officials of the National Endowment for Democracy and the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea,

I am writing this letter to oppose an international campaign that has been launched by the U.S. Government to brand the DPRK (north Korea) as a violator of human rights. I demand that all aspects of this campaign be stopped immediately. Part of this campaign is an "informational event" in Washington, D.C. being organized by the so-called U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea. This committee is nothing but a front for the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), which the Los Angeles Times, without a hint of irony, called "a private group funded by Congress!" The campaign also includes an "International Human Rights Conference on North Korea" being held in Brussels, Belgium. This conference is being organized by The U.S. based organization Freedom House, which received $2 million in funding from the U.S. State Department.

The board of the "U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea" is packed with former White House, Pentagon and CIA officials, neo-cons and members of congress. It is intimately connected with NED. I demand that these phony events be cancelled immediately! NED's first president, Allen Weinstein, admitted openly that "a lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA."

NED has also infiltrated into Venezuela and has tried to overthrow the democratically elected government of President Hugo Chavez. While they tout themselves as champions of human rights and democracy, the brazen interference of a U.S. government funded organization into other countries affairs shows they are the very antithesis of real democracy.

NED has also funded NGO's in Eastern Europe that have been largely responsible for the overthrow of governments in Serbia, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan and Ukraine. Today some 450,000 of these NGOs operate in Russia. Also on the U.S.-funded NGOs target list are Iran, Cuba, Chile, Nicaragua, Belarus, and Haiti.

Hiding under the moniker of "human rights", the NGO's subvert and overthrow governments that don't follow U.S. foreign policy dictates or allow free reign for U.S. corporate interests.

And the penetration of U.S. funded NGO's into a country is often a prelude to war. In Yugoslavia for example, NED funded NGO's to organize both Serbian and Albanian "opposition" groups to weaken the government. When the government tried to counter these moves, the Clinton administration said it was violating human rights and a war soon followed.

A war of aggression is the worst possible violation of human rights. A new U.S. war on the Korean peninsula would surely bring the deaths of tens or hundreds of thousand of innocent Koreans, and possibly of many U.S. service men and women as well. I am firmly opposed to any U.S. war moves on the Korean peninsula.

The Korean peninsula is today occupied by 37,000 U.S. troops, who despite the persistent demands of the Korean people, have refused to leave. The U.S. military acts as in imperial overlord, trampling on the rights and lives of the people. The most heartfelt desire of the Korean people is for reunification of their homeland. Successive U.S. administrations have sought to keep the Korean people divided to maintain their dominant position on the peninsula.

Presently the U.S. is turning South Korea into a forward military station for possible aggression against other parts of the world. They are also planning to utilize South Korea to build up the U.S. led Missile Defense system in Asia.

North Korea, like Cuba, is a small, genuinely independent country that has wrested itself free of U.S. domination and is constantly struggling to maintain that independence. The U.S. should keep its hands off and stop meddling in the affairs of independent sovereign states.

U.S. lecturing on "Human Rights" to other countries is utter hypocrisy! Five million Koreans died during the U.S. war there from 1950 to 1953. U.S. massacres of Korean civilians are now well documented, such as the machine gunning of hundreds at No Gun Ri. The U.S. occupation of the southern part of Korea resulted in a brutal military dictatorship and the jailing of tens of thousands of political prisoners.

The Abu Graib torture scandal, the prison camp in Guantanamo, Cuba, the killing of over 100,000 innocent Iraqi civilians, have exposed before the eyes of the whole world that the U.S. government is the world's greatest violator of human rights.

Disband the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea. Stop the slanderous vilification campaign against the DPRK now!

posted March 20, 2006