If you’ve got a strong constitution (i.e. you could sit through The Passion or the first 30 minutes of Saving Private Ryan), you might wish to check out OhMyNew’s latest contribution from Cheong Wook-sik, chairman of the Civil Network for a Peaceful Korea. Anyway, he discusses the “external factors” (read: evil Yanks and Japs) in North Korea’s human rights tragedy. Here’s just a sample of what you’ll find:
While North’s unique political philosophy, dubbed “our own socialism,” can mainly be blamed for the collapse of its economy and a series of manmade disasters, the effects of the U.S-led economic sanctions and hostile relations with South Korea, Japan and the U.S. have led to counterproductive diplomatic friction.
However, these two kinds of human rights issues are not separate. A nation faced with external threats and severe economic crisis tends to tighten its internal control. This tendency is aptly illustrated by what happened in the U.S. after the September 11 attack. Once a proud defender of human rights, the U.S. placed restrictions on its citizens and foreigners, all in the name of the “war on terrorism.”
Therefore, the ongoing resolution of the UN Human Rights Commission and the U.S. Congress bill exhibit fundamental flaws, despite some of the reasonable observations and recommendations they make on human rights conditions in North Korea. It must be pointed out that they have completely ignored the “external” factors that have contributed to the North’s deterioration.
To counter this crucial omission in world opinion, recommendations should be made to the international community, and especially the U.S., to lift economic sanctions, increase humanitarian aid and give security assurances. Recommendations should also be directed at North Korea in order for human rights conditions to improve there. The UN Human Rights Commission and the U.S. Congress have yet to comment on this issue.
At this time of heightened tension on the Korean Peninsula, there is a danger that the measures taken by the UN Commission and the U.S. Congress may be hijacked by the Bush administration for its own purposes. It was only one year ago that the Bush administration ignored widespread condemnation by the international community and invaded Iraq on the pretext of severing the link between and the Hussein regime and terrorism, ridding Iraq of weapons of mass destruction and finally, to liberate the Iraqi people from the shackles of dictatorship.
“Measures taken by the UN Commission and the U.S. Congress may be hijacked by the Bush administration for its own purposes?” Of course, the North Koreans would never hijack the lifting of sanctions, increases in humanitarian assistance, or the giving of security assurances to build nuclear weapons, feed their army, or buy military hardware, now would they?
I also need not point out that this focus on “external factors” comes from people who condemned the way in which South Korean military dictators used the very real North Korean threat to justify the curtailing of freedom south of the DMZ for much of the 60s, 70s and 80s.
You know, they’d sound a lot more convincing if they’d just come out and say something like, hey, even if the UN and the U.S. Congress take measures, it probably won’t help the human rights situation any, and we don’t want to risk pissing North Korea off, so let’s hold off on the resolutions and/or acts. But to actually attempt to pass off the blame for North Korea’s human rights situation onto the United States and Japan is, quite frankly, repugnant.
6 Comments
All this talk of the poor Norkers leads me to offer to buy Kim Jong Il a steak dinner at the Mansion in Dallas (as long as he can keep it under $1000.00) if only he’ll agree to Uni on my terms…
1. The Nork Army to be reduced to the size necessary for a National Police Force.
2. All Communist literature to be “retired” (ok, incinerated).
3. All current leaders in the DPRK to be exiled to LA and break off all ties with TBD future leaders.
4. No Kimchi to be served at dinner.
Just in case I wasn’t clear enough, I meant Louisiana, not Los Angeles… Los Angeles is too dangerous and Lousisiana has better Korean restaurants…
Since we’re already in fantasyland merely by engaging with Korean “progressives”, I’m willing to concede a point to Cheong on Japan and North Korea’s human rights situation:
(Imperial) Japan must be faulted for not killing Kim Il-sung before he was able to start a family, let alone a country.
This Cheong Won-sik essay is a classic example of the clash between eastern and western ways. Westerners evaluate by reference to standards; easterners divide between us and them. It doesn’t matter if we agree that A is bad and B is good, because your opinion is doing us harm. If we start acting as if we accept your evaluation, then we’ll no longer be us, but them.
I wish they would understand that we don’t care if they have a different way of living, as long as they don’t try to starve people, invade others, sell missiles and drugs, or encourage illegal activities worldwide. If they would submit to democratic scrutiny by their own people, we would be even more reassured.
Marmot,
I like the following “Bingo” statement:
“I also need not point out that this focus on “external factors” comes from people who condemned the way in which South Korean military dictators used the very real North Korean threat to justify the curtailing of freedom south of the DMZ for much of the 60s, 70s and 80s.
You know, they’d sound a lot more convincing if they’d just come out and say something like, hey, even if the UN and the U.S. Congress take measures, it probably won’t help the human rights situation any, and we don’t want to risk pissing North Korea off, so let’s hold off on the resolutions and/or acts.”
Ain’t it funny how stuff like that never happens? Even in the US too…
Also, I don’t think the world talks much any more about how one of the key elements of the North’s current shithole situation has been the loss of the blank check it was getting from the Soviet Union and China until the early 1990s.
This is important to recognize now, because it seems the apologists for NK (both in the US and SK who either want to prentend NK isn’t so bad or who want to undermine a “hard-line” US policy as part of a tendancy to want to undermine US (republican) foreign policy in general) are better able to make it seem that NK simply had a string of bad luck in the 1990s that led them to the situation —- that the floods coupled with the antagonistic relationship with the US brought them to their present condition.
On the other side, you have more of a contemporary look at what NK is actually doing which faces off with the opposition’s short sighted view of why things got that way.
The anti-NK side should do more to point out how NK’s claims of self-reliance have always been one big huge fraud —- that they had been sucking the tit of Russia and China dry, and when the flow was severely cut down, they started to starve.
I think that helps us get to the heart of the pitiful nature of the North Korean state as a whole……which we should recognize.
Usinkorea, the North didn’t suck only China and USSR, but several European nations as well.
Last autumn a couple of DPRK diplomats visited Helsinki as guests of a research institute, and I also got invited to a lunch with them. So one of them said, as if to point out the good relations between the countries, that the paper mill that was delivered to them sometime in the 70s is working well. Perhaps it is, or perhaps it isn’t. But I didn’t have the heart or guts to ask them why don’t they pay for it then if it works.
Yes, talk about more credit to DPRK.