White House Puts Face on North Korean Human Rights

Kim, 31, is popularly known by a pseudonym. Her real name has been reported in South Korean newspapers as Lee Chun Sil. North Korean authorities put her in prison for eight months after other family members escaped to the South. Her 5-year-old son died during her captivity. She managed to cross into China last September and on Nov. 30 tried to enter a school for Koreans in the Chinese city of Dalian on the Yellow Sea, hoping to win asylum and be sent to Seoul to join relatives. But the school kicked her out.

Usually a North Korean asylum seeker who manages to get into a South Korean school or diplomatic facility in China is allowed to go to South Korea after several months of waiting, while those captured on the outside are often sent back. So Kim made her way to Beijing, where she tried to enter another Korean school on Dec. 2, but Chinese authorities arrested her. Her sister in Seoul began faxing letters of appeal to politicians and human rights workers around the world.

A week later, Lefkowitz attended a conference in Seoul dedicated to North Korean human rights. A lawmaker he met there, Kim Moon Soo, sent him a letter dated Dec. 16 asking him to help Kim. "Do you think it would be possible for you to use any influence you can to free the North Korean woman?" he wrote.

What happened next soured U.S. officials on China. U.S., South Korean and U.N. officials all began pressing China not to deport Kim to North Korea, noting Beijing's obligations under the U.N. convention on refugees of 1951 and its 1967 protocol. The Chinese responded that the case was under review and told U.N. officials that she would probably be released on the occasion of the visit of Antonio Guterres, the U.N. high commissioner for refugees, who visited China from March 19 to 23.

But according to the U.S. diplomat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, Beijing had already sent Kim back to North Korea even as it was promising her release and informed the U.S. Embassy of her deportation on March 24, the day after Guterres left. "The Chinese basically misled us," the diplomat said.

Now no one is sure what has happened to Kim. Many defectors who are returned to North Korea face prison or death, according to human rights groups. "I don't know whether she is alive or dead," her sister said by telephone, asking not to be identified for security reasons.

Fikes said Kim's case became an important example for activists, who made their concern known to the White House and State Department. Six days after the embassy was informed of her fate, the White House issued its statement. "The United States is gravely concerned about China's treatment of Kim Chun-Hee," it said, reminding Beijing of "China's obligations as a party" to U.N. conventions.

Lefkowitz said the White House highlighted Kim's case because she offered a rare face to a broader problem. "A lot of what goes on over there is shrouded in such secrecy," he said. "The North Koreans have made it very, very hard to get out. Over the years, a lot of people have been sent back over the border. In this instance, we had a name. It was very appropriate for the international community to call it out."

Bush has expressed visceral distaste for North Korea's autocratic leader, Kim Jong Il, calling him a "tyrant" who runs "concentration camps" and saying he "loathes" him for the way he treats his people. Last year, Bush invited to the White House defector Kang Chol Hwan after reading his memoir, "The Aquariums of Pyongyang," recounting 10 years of eating rats in a North Korean prison.

"This is a topic he raises frequently, not just with leaders from Asia but around the world," said Michael Green, the president's former Asia adviser. "He cares deeply about it. It's not just about Kim Jong Il. It's the fact that these kinds of horrors happen on this kind of scale in our day and age."

But Wolf and others complain that personal commitment is not translated into enough action. In 2004, Congress passed the North Korean Human Rights Act, which created Lefkowitz's position. But the administration has not designated money to implement the law or offered asylum to any North Korean, according to a Feb. 21 letter to Rice signed by Wolf and eight other lawmakers.

Some administration officials said the State Department is more focused on North Korea's nuclear arms and has not made human rights a priority. "He is completely right," one official said of Wolf's criticism. Another official said "it's been a struggle" to get the administration to pay attention. During a White House briefing on Monday discussing issues at tomorrow's Bush-Hu summit, no official mentioned North Korean refugees.

Human rights groups and evangelical activists vowed to press until they do. "We intend to carry through on this," said Richard Cizik, vice president for governmental affairs at the National Association of Evangelicals. "The forthcoming coalition is going to be stronger than ever and we don't intend to lose. This is a major movement. . . . We have a left-right coalition that bar none will move Washington, and it's got China in the headlights."

Special correspondent Joohee Cho in Seoul contributed to this report.