By Andy Jackson
There was an interesting, if indirect public exchange between two officials in the Bush administration recently regarding the ongoing six-party talks regarding North Korea's nuclear weapons program.
It started with Jay Lefkowitz, the American special envoy for human rights in North Korea, stating something that is becoming obvious, that the North Korean nuclear issue will outlive another American administration.
During a speech at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, he told the audience, ``It is increasingly clear that North Korea will remain in its present nuclear status when the administration leaves office in one year."
He went on to say that the six-party talks have degenerated into a ``bilateral negotiation between the U.S. and North Korea" and that the Chinese and South Korean governments were not doing enough to pressure Pyongyang into abandoning its nuclear weapons.
Within that context, he called into question the logic of separating the issues of human rights for North Koreans from security issues. He called for constructive engagement with North Korea in which the link between human rights and other issues is ``specific and non-severable."
Lefkowitz's would like to see American relations with North Korea evolve into something along the lines of the ``Helsinki process," which linked progress on human rights issues to dealings between Western governments and the Soviet Union starting in the late 1970s.
He also expressed a hope that cultural exchanges between the U.S. and North Korea would increase.
Under his approach, economic aid would be possible, but it would be tied to ``tangible, verifiable progress" on human rights and other issues of concern. In his preference for results rather than more unimplemented agreements, Lefkowitz's position is not far from that of incoming South Korean President Lee Myung-bak.
His words drew a quick response. The next day, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack acknowledged that Lefkowitz is a dedicated public servant, but went on to say, ``He is not, however, somebody who speaks authoritatively about the six-party talks. His comments certainly don't represent the views of the administration."
The criticism of Lefkowitz was at least partially justified. In his critique of the structure and content of the six-party talks, he was speaking on matters well beyond his pay grade. He should have expected as much for trying to break out of the ghetto where the Bush administration and the State Department have placed his portfolio.
As if to emphasize that Lefkowitz had gone off the reservation with his speech, the State Department went as far as deleting a transcript of it from the department's Web site.
You would think that would be the end of the matter, but six days after Lefkowitz's speech and five days after the State Department's ``clarification," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice felt the need to pile on.
When asked by a reporter if Lefkowitz's statements confused China and Russia about American policy toward North Korea, Rice could have simply said ``no."
However, she chose to go well beyond that, saying ``Since Jay Lefkowitz has nothing to do with the six-party talks and I would doubt very seriously that they would recognize the name, no, I don't think they're confused."
She was not even content to leave it at that. ``He's the human rights envoy. That's what he knows. That's what he does … He doesn't know what's going on in the six-party talks and he certainly has no say in what American policy will be in the six-party talks," she continued.
In her statements, Rice seemed oblivious to that fact that she was demonstrating precisely the decoupling of human rights issues from America's dealings with North Korea that Lefkowitz's said was part of the problem.
The venom of Rice's criticism of Lefkowitz is understandable since his speech underscores an increasing understanding that the six-party talks are not proceeding as advertised.
We now know that the North Koreans were not lying when they said they had presented their nuclear declaration to American officials in November.
However, when the officials realized how woefully deficient the declaration was, they chose not to acknowledge it rather than risk stalling the denuclearization talks over a minor detail like North Korea's unwillingness to denuclearize.
It increasingly looks like the Bush administration will do the same thing the Clinton administration did; reach for any agreement that they can get even if nobody expects it to be kept, declare the process (rather than the results) a success, and punt the problem to the next administration.
In the meantime, this issue of human rights for North Koreans will continue to be an afterthought.
Ironically, during the same press briefing at which she castigated Lefkowitz for trying to inject human rights into talks with North Korea, Rice herself injected it into a discussion on U.S. relations with Pakistan.
After stating that the administration would continue to push for elections there, Rice asked ``Should one be obsessed with the rights of human beings to live in freedom?" and then answered, "Maybe so."
Maybe so.
Andy Jackson teaches American government in the Lakeland College bridge program at Ansan College, Gyeonggi Province. He can be reached at andyinrok@lycos.com