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Sakie Yokota, mother of Japanese kidnap victim Megumi Yokota, testifies on Capitol Hill on Thursday before a House committee as Koh Myung Sup, a South Korean abductee listens at right. Holding up photos of her daughter is her son Takuya Yokota. /AP-Yonhap
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U.S. President George W. Bush on Thursday morning met with North Korean refugees including seven-year-old Kim Han-mi and his family, who defected from North Korea in 2002, and Chung Seong-san, the artistic director of the hit musical ¡°Yoduk Story¡± about a North Korean concentration camp. The hour-long meeting at the Oval Office also brought together Free North Korea director Kim Sueng-min and Sakie Yokota, the mother of the famous Japanese abduction victim Megumi Yokota snatched when she was only 13 in 1977.
President Bush listened to accounts of the human rights situation in the North from his guests and offered consolation while vowing that the U.S. will do more to fight for improvement of human rights in the Stalinist country, according to sources at the meeting. Bush last met with a North Korean defector when the author of ¡°Aquariums of Pyongyang¡± and Chosun Ilbo reporter Kang Chol-hwan -- himself a former detainee in a North Korean camp -- visited 10 months ago. Jay Lefkowitz, the special U.S. envoy for human rights in North Korea, Ryozo Kato, Japanese ambassador to the U.S., and Suzanne Scholte, the head of the activist group Defense Forum Foundation, were also present at Thursday¡¯s meeting.
Meanwhile, events of a "North Korean Freedom Week" came to an end on "North Korea Freedom Day" Thursday in front of the Capitol in Washington attended by some 1,000 activists and Korean-Americans. In the evening, participants headed to the Chinese embassy for an all-night prayer vigil to call for an end to Beijing¡¯s forced repatriation of North Korean refugees.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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