WASHINGTON - U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback today chaired a Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee hearing examining life inside North Korea. A portion of his comments follow. "Today's hearing will provide a glimpse into what goes on inside the most closed society on earth," Brownback said. "It helps to ensure that North Korea cannot use its bellicose rhetoric to obscure its true nature from the world. As I've said before, North Korea is today's killing field, a place where repression, deprivation, and depression rule the day.

"First, some 200,000 North Koreans languish inside North Korean prison camps. Satellite photos corroborate the testimony of survivors: North Korea's gulag recalls the horrors of the Soviet Union under Stalin.

"Second, the strange and contradictory principles of 'juche' socialism and the near worship of the Kim dynasty place great constraints on North Korean society. It is a world of suspicion where even a perceived slight against the government can mean a prison sentence.

"Finally, millions of North Koreans died of starvation during the severe famines of the 1990s. Those deaths had as much to do with incompetent - and one might easily conclude indifferent - government polices as they did with natural floods. While the nation has recovered from the depths of its famine, millions continue to go hungry.

"Our North Korea policy must not only protect our interests in East Asia but support the cause of freedom across the entire Korean peninsula. In the end, a brighter, fully free and open Korean peninsula is our ultimate national interest," Brownback said.

Those who testified at the hearing included Andrew Natsios, Administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development; Ms. Hae Nam Ji, a survivor of the North Korean prison system who faced unimaginable horrors during her imprisonment; and a number of expert witnesses from various nonprofit organizations.

Brownback is chairman of the Subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs.