Statement Before Balloon Launch to North Korea on Kim Jong-il's Birthday

Statement of Suzanne Scholte February 16, 2009

Now is the most important time for reaching out to the North Korean people. We must help them through every means possible to get them true information about their circumstances and we must get them humanitarian assistance. We know from the defectors that have escaped that radio broadcasts, balloon launches and one on one contacts have been an important means for North Koreans to learn about outside conditions. With the speculation on Kim Jong-il's health and with his regimes latest threats against South Korea and the free world, it is more important than ever that the North Koreans realize that the greatest threat to their well-being and their security is their own dear leader, Kim Jong-il, not the South Korean people or the American people who have provided billions of dollars in aid to try to help the North Korean people.

While Kim Jong-il is preparing another missile launch, he also has his hands gripped around the necks of the North Korean people. His desire is that we only focus on his missiles, and ignore the political prison camps where hundreds of thousands are imprisoned including children and the starvation he has caused by using food as a weapon against his own people.

It is not surprising that after years of talks with the administrations of both former Presidents Clinton and Bush, ten years of the Sunshine policy of DJ Kim and Roh, that Kim Jong-il has continued his nuclear program. And during these periods millions of North Koreans have died.

With the information that has poured out from those who have escaped North Korea, the free world knows for certain that the human rights conditions are the worst in the world.

Because North Korea is also the most closed society in the world, we must find creative ways in order to reach out to them -- and balloon launches are an important way to try to get information to them as well as food and money to be able to support their starving, malnourished families.
If Kim Jong-il had allowed humanitarian aid to be properly distributed, if he had allowed people the freedom of movement, millions of North Koreans would not have died tragic, needless, and painful deaths from starvation.

We pray and hope that these balloons will carry messages of truth and money into the hands of North Koreans so that they may know that we stand with them and are fighting for their freedom, human rights and dignity.

Furthermore, we hope that the money being sent will provide assistance that will enable those who receive it to purchase food and also have the added effect of helping to pump up the private markets that have become a critical means of survival as Kim Jong-il’s public distribution system has completely failed.

Many times in history cruel dictatorships have killed their own people and slaughtered the innocent. We should not stand idly by and let Kim Jong-il continue his mass murder against the North Korean people without trying to help them.

When the communists seized power in East Germany, they tried to isolate and starve to death the people of Berlin. Yet, the free world reacted with the Berlin airlift sending in food and assistance by air so the people could survive. I hope that efforts like this balloon launch will continue so that we can not only let the North Koreans know true history and true conditions, but also have humanitarian assistance to feed their families, and perhaps most importantly, know that they are not forgotten by those of us who live in freedom.

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