Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-06-15-Speech-4-222"
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"en.20060615.31.4-222"2
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".
As a historian, I have, through my studies, acquired some knowledge of the atrocities meted out by the totalitarian regimes in the 20th century. What would it have been like for the citizens of those dictatorships, though? As Mr Posselt has already said, it is difficult for us in the free West to imagine. This afternoon, we will briefly dwell on the Communist reign of terror in North Korea. Mr President, the juxtaposition of North Korea and ‘human rights’, words so often used by this House, is essentially shocking and should prompt us to be quiet. By doing this, though, we would leave the so ill-treated North Koreans to their own devices.
Needless to say, the beloved leader Kim Jong Il has every reason to favour our political inertness. Moreover, there is no need for us to expose him and his cronies, for, shockingly, regimes of terror have a habit, in the first instance, of taking care of that all by themselves, even though Pyongyang has been sealed as hermetically as possible and reports from and about the place are few and far between. Indeed, the accounts of North Korean refugees speak volumes.
The urgent question that arises here is: what is the European Union to do about this depressing situation in North Korea? In my view, the Council and the Commission should primarily urge China to apply its growing influence in its neighbouring country North Korea in a positive way, in the sense of an urgent and external restraint of Pyongyang policy. In the final analysis, Beijing stands to benefit from this as well.
This may sound very pragmatic, but this message only aims to ease the material and spiritual suffering of North Korean citizens. People, fellow creatures of God, subject to like passions as we are, yearn for freedom of movement and, lest we forget, thought, speech and, above all, faith."@en1
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