North Korea remains veiled in a murky shadow as their laconic leader, Kim Jong il, has taken ill after supposedly suffering a stroke. No one has seen him since and he was conspicuously absent at a September 9 parade marking the country's foundering.
No more fan fare, no more god awful spectacles filling stadiums teeming with flag waving worshipers while starvation ravages the countryside. A country enslaved both physically and psychologically. When his father was born birds apparently sang his praise….in Korean. Myth is a powerful tool in forging identity. But let's take a closer look.
This satellite photo is a fitting metaphor to a man who shrouds his country in oblivion, secrecy, and outright oppression.
How does one confront and deal with human rights issues in a country where access is both restricted and tightly controlled? And perhaps more to point, why has the world shied away from North Korea? This link in the “axis of evil” has slipped away from Mr Bush's rhetoric.
“The international community has far too long neglected the human rights situation in North Korea because of the nuclear threat,” former Norwegian Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik, former Czech President Vaclav Havel and Nobel Peace laureate Elie Wiesel said in the report released last week.
The report “Failure to Protect: The Ongoing Challenge of North Korea” is urging the UN Security Council to intervene in accordance to the “responsibility to protect” doctrine. We have the moral responsibility and duty as humans to protect and defend people from any wretched regime. This doctrine was first introduced in 2005.
The last official statement by the United Nations over North Korea's human rights violations was in May 2006. The statement makes reference to a scheduled execution of a young man charged with treason. He was tortured and then executed. Without trial and without, no surprise here, any regard to procedural safeguards required by international law.
The Human Rights Council addressed North Korea and sent out several press releases earlier this year. Human rights violations range from “widespread and systematic practice of torture; inhuman conditions of detention; the absence of due process of law; the imposition of the death penalty for political and religious reasons; and the situation of refugees and asylum-seekers expelled or returned to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the harsh punishment of those who left or tried to leave the country without permission.” The press release also condemns the sale of children for slavery and prostitution.
The international community must be proactive in its response to stop the human rights abuses in North Korea. No amount of diplomacy will keep this megalomaniac and his regime from abusing its people.
