Does Seoul`s mission in Geneva care about defectors?

A member of a group of South Korean lawmakers who left Switzerland after a six-day campaign to stop China`s forced repatriation of North Korean defectors said Thursday that his impression was that the South Korean mission in Geneva was "uncomfortable" over their visit.

A Dong-A Ilbo reporter also detected signs indicating that the mission felt awkward over the delegation`s visit, including its attitude toward the lawmakers` tussle with North Korean diplomats Monday at a U.N. session on human rights.

If lawmakers representing South Korea get involved in a ruckus, staff at the South Korean mission should try to grasp the situation first. The diplomats might have thought that the lawmakers committed a diplomatic gaffe at an international conference. If the lawmakers are found to have made a gaffe, they can offer an apology. The diplomats at the mission, however, did not even bother to ask the lawmakers about the situation.

Violence committed by a North Korean diplomat is a totally different issue, however. If he or she kicked female lawmakers in the leg and twisted their arms to make them fall to the ground, the South Korean mission should have at least expressed regret.

The mission also remained silent on a U.N. spokesman`s comment that two of the South Korean delegates made "aggressive acts." Could they not have brought up the violence committed by the North Korean diplomats? Perhaps mission staff did not even know that the North Korean diplomats who committed violence against Rep. Lee Eun-jae walked around the conference room laughing loudly a few hours later as if nothing happened.

Rep. Park Sun-young of the minor conservative Liberty Forward Party said, "When I asked the mission to actively deal with the North Korean refugee issue, it cited an instruction from the headquarters of the Foreign Affairs Ministry in Seoul telling the diplomats to refrain from conducting public activities." "When I told U.N. Deputy High Commissioner for Refugees Alexander Aleinikoff about a several-month-old baby and its parents set to be repatriated to North Korea, he immediately showed interest and asked us to give the names of the family," she added, expressing regret that the South Korean mission`s attitude was in stark contrast to Aleinikoff`s.

Rep. Ahn Hyeong-hwan of the ruling Saenuri Party said, "When I asked the mission about where to rent a bus that the lawmakers could ride to go to the Chinese mission to hand over a letter of protest, mission officials said they had no idea."

An American who participated in a rally for North Korean human rights Wednesday said he went to Geneva because he was shocked to hear about the defectors the previous day.

The defectors` plight and North Korea`s human rights abuses are universal and humanitarian problems that can be persuaded regardless of skin color, ideology and religion. Nevertheless, the attitude shown by the South Korean mission in Geneva was the same as that of "progressive" politicians in South Korea, who remain silent on human rights in the North.