Young reflects on his international service

North Korea is jailing and starving its innocents, China is still largely stifling religious freedom, but Sudan's political/religious turmoil is calming.

University of Utah President Michael K. Young reflected this week on his three terms — two as chairman — serving on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist on Tuesday announced the appointment of Richard D. Land of Nashville to replace Young, whose third term has come to an end. Land previously served on the commission from 2001 to 2004.

"I indicated to Sen. Frist that I can't accept a fourth term," Young told the Deseret Morning News. "I told him that I thought Richard would be a spectacular replacement."

Young, a former stake president with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, called Land one of the most prominent spokesmen for the Southern Baptists.

Young said the highlight for a commission he helped form while at George Washington University was its work in sparking peace negotiations during the civil war in Sudan, where Islamists in the north were trying to overthrow black Christians in the south.

Young credits the commission with greasing the political wheels on legislation that would have targeted countries like Canada that helped Sudan exploit its oil resources. Young said the impact was a threat that helped bring an end to a war that displaced 15 million and left between 2 million and 3 million dead.

China has been an elephant the commission can't quite get a fork into.

In 2000, Young and commission cofounder David Saperstein gave a written testimony to the Congressional Human Rights Caucus saying, "Chinese authorities have no more authority to select reincarnated lamas than they do to select Catholic bishops."

Young and Saperstein said then that China was appointing its own Catholic bishops to replace those loyal to the Vatican and that one priest loyal to the Vatican had been recently jailed — and was killed following his release. Still, the Chinese have released a few political and religious prisoners here and there around the time U.S. senior officials are about to visit the country.

"We said it, we meant it and they're still doing it," Young said of China's continued violations of religious freedom. "With the Chinese, it's two steps forward, one and three quarters steps back."

North Korea is also still a moving target for the commission, which has been interviewing refugees while painting a systematic picture of what's going on there.

"It's every bit as bad as it's reputed to be," Young said. "This is clearly one of the worst regimes imaginable."