Description

North Korea is perennially in the news. Recent preparations for what appears to be another long range missile test have much of North East Asia on alert. The Six Party Talks effort to negotiate away North Korea’s nuclear program appears to be stalled and levels of rhetoric and threats out of Pyongyang towards South Korea have reached levels seldom heard since the end of the Cold War. Yet behind the scene there is an equally important but less understood humanitarian crisis going on in North Korea. Located in the middle of what has been one of the most economically vibrant regions in the world, North Korea has suffered decades of food shortages, a serious famine in the late 1990s that may have claimed over a million lives, and a remarkable contraction of its economy. All this has taken place in one of the most closed and oppressive societies on earth. As information regarding the human rights situation in North Korea has trickled out, a growing body of private, governmental, and international organizations has begun to focus on North Korea’s humanitarian crisis amid all the clamor over security issues. As part of the North Korea Human Rights Act of 2004 the U.S. Congress mandated the creation of a “Special Envoy for Human Rights in North Korea,” a position filled without distinction during the Bush Administration and which has yet to be filled by the Obama Administration. L. Gordon Flake, Executive Director the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation will discuss the issues and challenges facing the new U.S. Administration, Canada, and the rest of the World in addressing the situation in North Korea today.

L. Gordon Flake joined the Mansfield Foundation in February 1999. He was previously a Senior Fellow and Associate Director of the Program on Conflict Resolution at The Atlantic Council of the United States and prior to that Director for Research and Academic Affairs at the Korea Economic Institute of America.