US envoy on N.Korean rights paints bleak picture
 

SEOUL, Friday (Reuters)

The U.S. special envoy for human rights in North Korea called the state "a hidden world of hopelessness and terror" on Friday and said Pyongyang's treatment of its citizens was a global concern.

Jay Lefkowitz, who earlier this year took up the new post of Washington's point man on North Korean human rights, said the only way for Pyongyang to claim legitimacy was for it to ensure human rights for its citizens.

Lefkowitz, speaking at a rights conference in Seoul, noted North and South Korea were under authoritarian rule after the 1950-1953 Korean War. As South Korea embraced democracy, free markets and human rights, its economy grew to become one of the strongest in the world, he said.

"The contrast could not be more stark. While South Korea has grown fully into a proud democracy with the rule of law, North Korea is a deeply repressive nation," Lefkowitz said.

He also described a trip he took to the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ), a heavily fortified frontier that divides the two Koreas.

"Only a short distance from here, beyond the thicket of barbed wire, which I saw yesterday when I travelled up to the DMZ, lies a hidden world of hopelessness and terror," he said.

Human rights groups describe North Korea as one of the world's worst abusers, with prison camps, guilt by association and public executions meant to intimidate its citizens.

South Korea's government argues it does work to improve human rights but prefers not to make it a high-profile topic for fear of aggravating Pyongyang.

"I am aware that many in South Korea are wary that calling for greater human rights for North Korea is proxy for other aims, or an excuse to isolate and antagonise North Korea's sovereignty," Lefkowitz said.

North Korea has criticised the appointment of Lefkowitz, saying his work casts a shadow over six-party talks aimed at ending its nuclear weapons programmes.

North Korea typically brands criticism of its human rights record as part of a U.S. conspiracy to topple its government.

"The U.S. has become loud in trumpeting that there exists a 'human rights issue' in the DPRK," a state-run newspaper said in a commentary on Friday.

"This is, however, a product of its strategy to realise a regime change in it to serve its purpose of tarnishing the image of the dignified DPRK," the Minju Joson said in a commentary carried on the official KCNA news agency. DPRK is short for the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

The U.S. ambassador to South Korea, Alexander Vershbow, told the conference Washington had no hidden agenda. "We simply want to improve the living conditions of the people of North Korea," he said.

Some at the conference pointed out the conspicuous absence of of any speeches by officials from President Roh Moo-hyun's administration.

A former interpreter for the United States, who has been in the room for many diplomatic meetings over the years between officials from Pyongyang, Seoul and Washington, said South Korea was trying to use quiet diplomacy on the rights issue.