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The North Korean people will continue to pay the price, suffering heinous abuses at the hands of a paranoid totalitarian regime

UN Security Council Debates North Korean Human Rights Abuses



In what was probably the last significant United Nations Security Council meeting of the year, Security Council members heard on December 22nd a horrific accounting of flagrant, systematic and widespread human rights abuses committed by the totalitarian Communist regime of North Korea (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea or DPRK). The regime’s crimes against humanity were detailed in a report issued in February 2014 by the UN Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the DPRK, which recommended that these crimes be referred to the International Criminal Court for possible prosecution. The UN General Assembly voted earlier this month, by a wide margin, to recommend that the Security Council take up the human rights issue as documented in the Commission of Inquiry report, in addition to the nuclear non-proliferation concerns it normally addresses in dealing with North Korea.
The Commission of Inquiry, which the DPRK regime barred from actually visiting the country, conducted more than two hundred confidential interviews with victims, eyewitnesses, and former officials, and held public hearings in which more than eighty witnesses gave testimony. Satellite imagery confirmed the locations of prison camps. “Rarely has such an extensive charge-sheet of international crimes been brought to this Council’s attention,” Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights Ivan Šimonović told the Council, which decided in an 11-2-2 procedural vote to put the issue on its provisional agenda. “Comprehensive human rights violations by the DPRK have had a significant impact on regional peace and security, from international abductions and enforced disappearances to trafficking and the outflow of desperate refugees,” he continued. “If we are to reduce tension in the region, there must be movement towards real respect for human rights in the DPRK. The people of the DPRK have endured decades of suffering and cruelty. They need your protection. And the cause of justice, peace and security in the region requires your leadership.” China and Russia voted against the Security Council taking jurisdiction to discuss North Korea’s human rights record, as opposed to what they considered to be separate and unrelated peace and security issues, including the need for de-nuclearizing the Korean Peninsula. Most Council members, however, agreed with Mr. Šimonović’s assessment, maintaining that North Korea’s dismal human rights record directly affects international peace and security. Despite their opposition to the Security Council’s assumption of jurisdiction, China and Russia could not use their vetoes on the procedural vote. However, they are able to use their veto power to prevent the Security Council from referring North Korea’s human rights case to the International Criminal Court or taking any other enforcement action against North Korea.

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Mr. Šimonović ticked off the litany of North Korea’s pervasive crimes against humanity documented by the Commission of Inquiry. They included murder, extermination, abductions, torture, enslavement and rape, forced abortions and other sexual violence, with victims targeted on political, religious, racial and gender grounds. Mr. Šimonović also noted the Commission’s description of the country’s ghastly prison camp system, where, it estimated, hundreds of thousands had perished and some 100,000 were currently being held. In her statement to the Security Council, U.S. Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power put a more human face on the victims of North Korea’s atrocities with this horrifying story gleaned from the Commission of Inquiry’s report:
“Ahn Myong Chul, a former guard at Prison Camp 22, spoke of guards routinely raping prisoners. In one case in which a victim became pregnant and gave birth, the former guard reported that prison officials cooked her baby and fed it to their dogs. This sounds unbelievable and unthinkable; yet this is what a former guard told the Commission of Inquiry at a public hearing. His account fits a pattern across witnesses’ testimonies of sadistic punishments meted out to prisoners whose ‘crime’ was being raped by officials.”
As it happens, South Korea’s two-year term on the Security Council is coming to an end. Its UN Ambassador Oh Joon noted that South Korea’s term had begun and was concluding with meetings focused on its hostile neighbor to the north. “When we look back on what we did today I hope we'll be able to say we did the right thing for North Korea,” he added, while also expressing deep sorrow for the people trapped in North Korea who are cut off from any communication with their family members living in South Korea. The North Korean regime remains defiant. Already threatening retaliation in the wake of accusations that it perpetrated the hacking of Sony’s computer systems, it denounced the Security Council meeting and refused to participate. It has called the people who fled North Korea and provided accounts of the suffering they left behind to the Commission of Inquiry “human scum.” North Korea's National Defense Commission, which is chaired by North Korea’s dictator Kim Jong-un, claimed that the country is "fully ready to stand in confrontation with the US in all war spaces including cyber warfare space." The Security Council may well decide to hold successive meetings next year to continue shining a light on North Korea’s atrocious human rights record. It is likely to continue urging North Korea to engage with the international community, including permitting access by international human rights observers into the country to see the conditions for themselves. But shaming and entreaties are all to no avail. Likely Chinese and/or Russian vetoes of any targeted sanctions against North Korea on account of its human rights abuses or of the referral of North Korea to the International Criminal Court will prevent any concrete Security Council enforcement actions from taking place. The North Korean people will continue to pay the price, suffering heinous abuses at the hands of a paranoid totalitarian regime.


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Joseph A. Klein, CFP United Nations Columnist -- Bio and Archives

Joseph A. Klein is the author of Global Deception: The UN’s Stealth Assault on America’s Freedom.


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