N. Korean defector gives piano recital at State Dept.

By Hwang Doo-hyong
WASHINGTON, Oct. 6 (Yonhap) -- A North Korean defector who has become a renowned pianist held a recital at the U.S. State Department Monday as the Bush administration in its waning months is seeking to increase pressure on North Korea over its human rights record.

"I never thought that I would be able to perform at the U.S. State Department
when I first began learning to play the piano in North Korea," said Kim
Choel-woong, who defected from the communist North in 2001 to find greater
artistic freedom.
The lunchtime event at the Benjamin Franklin Room highlights efforts by the Bush
administration in recent months to focus attention on human rights in North Korea
and comes amid criticism that Washington has been circumventing the thorny issue
so as not to provoke Pyongyang during negotiations over its denuclearization.
Bush has met with North Korean defectors and raised the issue of North Korean
human rights in summit talks with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak and
Chinese President Hu Jintao in August.
"I was subjected to so many restrictions while I was studying the piano in North
Korea, so I decided to escape," Kim told an audience that included Under
Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs Paula J. Dobriansky and
Deputy Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Alexander A.
Arvizu.
Kim, who teaches music at the University of Seoul, expressed hope that his
performance would help Americans understand North Korean people as well as
defectors and the human rights situation they face.
He played a piece by Chopin, another by a North Korean composer who once served
as the country's culture minister and the traditional Korean anthem Arirang,
which is sung in both Koreas.
"I performed Arirang with the hope that it will help promote Korea's national
reunification," Kim said. ""I am also playing Arirang in memory of the North
Korean people suffering from human rights violations."
He cited the New York Philharmonic performance in Pyongyang last year as an
example of the North's gradual opening. "North Koreans were apparently shocked by
the New York Philharmonic playing the U.S. national anthem in Pyongyang," Kim
said.
He added that even the Beatles, whose music was for decades prohibited, is now
being heard in North Korea.
A variety of performances in Pyongyang could help to change North Koreans who are
avid for any kind of music from outside, he said.
Kim thanked the U.S. government for its efforts to improve human rights in North
Korea, including his own invitation to perform at the State Department, which he
described as greatly benefiting the cause of human rights for North Koreans.
The U.S. Congress in late September legislated to finance efforts to help North
Korean defectors settle in the U.S. over the next four years and to promote
democracy in the reclusive communist state.
Sixty-four North Korean defectors have settled in the U.s. since the signing of
the North Korea Human Rights Act in 2004, and in the first case of its kind, the
U.S. recently granted permanent residence to a defector who was admitted in 2006
via Thailand.
More than 10,000 North Koreans have settled in South Korea since the end of the
Korean War in 1953. Most risk deportation and political persecution when passing
through China, which regards North Korean defectors as economic migrants rather
than refugees under a bilateral agreement with Pyongyang that calls for their
immediate repatriation.
hdh@yna.co.kr
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