Maazel Departs for Pyongyang Amid Controversy

By KATE TAYLOR, Staff Reporter of the Sun
February 7, 2008

On the eve of the New York Philharmonic's departure on an Asian tour that will include a visit to Pyongyang, its music director, Lorin Maazel, suggested that Americans are not in a position to criticize the North Korean regime, because America's own record on human rights is flawed.

"People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw bricks, should they?" Mr. Maazel told the Associated Press. "Is our standing as a country — the United States — is our reputation all that clean when it comes to prisoners and the way they are treated? Have we set an example that should be emulated all over the world? If we can answer that question honestly, I think we can then stop being judgmental about the errors made by others."

Experts on North Korea responded to Mr. Maazel's comment with shock and dismay.

A senior fellow at the Peter G. Peterson Institute for International Economics and the author of "Korea after Kim Jong-il," Marcus Noland, called Mr. Maazel's statement "outrageous."

"North Korea maintains a gulag that has an estimated 200,000 prisoners in it, which includes multigenerational families who are imprisoned because of the offense of one family member," Mr. Noland said. Death rates in the camps are high, he said, and there has been testimony of medical experimentation on prisoners in the camps.

"The North Korean government engages in forced abortion and infanticide for women who are repatriated from China when pregnant and are thought to be carrying binational children," Mr. Noland continued.

"This is about as close to a Nazi regime in terms of its internal practices as exists in the world today," he said. "It's outrageous that the director of the New York Philharmonic would [make such a statement] before this trip. I think you have to at least admit that there are troubling aspects to this regime and [consider] how your activity fits into these. To just dismiss it is outrageous."

A fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of "The End of North Korea," Nicholas Eberstadt, said that Mr. Maazel could not be familiar with "any of the basic facts about the conditions under which North Koreans live."

"I guess I can respect the argument that art is enriching in its own right and art should be just judged for art's sake, but it'd be a little bit harder to make that if the Philharmonic were going to Auschwitz, wouldn't it?" Mr. Eberstadt said.

The Asia advocacy director for Human Rights Watch, Sophie Richardson, also expressed astonishment at Mr. Maazel's comment.

"Yes, it's absolutely true that the U.S. commits human rights abuses both here and abroad, and Human Rights Watch is quite critical of those practices," she said. "At the same time, perhaps he's unaware that the North Korean government still publicly executes people. We continue to characterize it as one of the worst abusers of the full spectrum of rights anywhere in the world."

"I don't think the answer to America's commission of human rights abuses is to ignore even worse ones," she said.

The orchestra is leaving today for a three-week Asian tour, which will include a concert in Pyongyang on February 26. A spokesman for the State Department, which encouraged the Philharmonic to make the visit, declined to respond to Mr. Maazel's comment, noting that he is a private citizen and not a government employee. The spokesman for the Philharmonic, Eric Latzky, did not return a phone call.

Maazel Departs for Pyongyang Amid Controversy

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