As the 2008 Beijing Olympics approach, there is every indication that the Beijing leadership has put a priority of ridding its soil of North Korean refugees.
Tragically, however, it is not doing so by making use of the international agreements and treaties it is signatory to with the UN and UNHCR.
Instead, it is using what I call a blunt “pest removal” mechanism of blocking entrances and exits, and flushing out refugees through bribes to its own citizens, to reveal whereabouts of refugees and activists.
To accomplish this “sanitized, refugee-free” environment, China, to our understanding, has shifted the task of refugee “pest control” from its provincial law enforcement agencies to its federal internal security apparatus (the latter being much like the FBI in the US.)
[Excerpts of a speech by Tim Peters to Joint Session of NGOs and Lawmakers]
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