A Korean identity problem

I heard most of this report about this woman's search for identity. She doesn't know who she is? She now seems free to be whoever she wants, so what's the big deal? Typical NPR crap. But this morning they had a great report about Korea by Rob Gifford.

Mrs. KIM YONG SUL: (Through Translator) It's simple. People in the south do not want reunification because it will impinge on their prosperity.

GIFFORD: This accusation is common among North Koreans who've fled here. In addition, they, and NGO workers who help them, say the current South Korean government in its attempts to engage with North Korea and avoid military conflict seems to ignore the horrific human rights abuses in the north. Tim Peters is founder of Helping Hands/Korea, the Christian organization that assists escaping North Koreans to resettle in the south.

Mr. TIM PETERS (Founder, Helping Hands/Korea): The people are starving, the people are utterly bereft of human rights, the right of free speech, the right of assembly. There are disturbing cases of human experimentation, of chemical weapons in the prison system. It's a situation that needs desperate international attention, and it needs it now.

GIFFORD: Peters is extremely critical of the South Korean government's approach. He says while South Korean donations of food and cash to the north have increased, North Korea has conceded nothing. And has not improved the treatment of its people. Activists are especially angry because this South Korean government is made up of many of the progressive activists who fought so hard for democracy and human rights for South Korea when it was run by a military dictatorship in the '70s and '80s. The issue of North Korean human rights has now become a political football in the highly partisan atmosphere of South Korean domestic politics. Each side uses it to score points against the other. The helpless North Koreans sometimes fall between the cracks. So Do Hune(ph) of the South Korean Unification Ministry says its less confrontational approach toward the north is the only way, though it could take time to see results.