Calling
for Action on North Korean Crimes
A new
international initiative will create one of the broadest human rights movements
ever.
By BENEDICT
ROGERS
For too long, North Korea has suffered from two
evils: the regime's brutality and the international community's apathy. It is
staggering that one of the world's worst human rights crises is also one of the
most overlooked.
An estimated 200,000 people are trapped in a
brutal system of political prison camps akin to Hitler's concentration camps
and Stalin's gulag. Slave labor, horrific torture and bestial living conditions
are now well-documented in numerous reports by human rights organizations,
through the testimonies of survivors of these camps who have escaped. Although
there is still a shroud of mystery surrounding North Korea, the world can no
longer claim ignorance as an excuse.
A growing number of North Korean defectors have
shared their stories. Lee Sung Ae told the British Parliament about how when
she was jailed, all her finger-nails were pulled out, all her lower teeth
destroyed, and prison guards poured water, mixed with chillies, up her nose.
Jung Guang Il was subjected to "pigeon torture," with his hands
cuffed and tied behind his back in an excruciating position. He said he felt as
though his bones were breaking through his chest. All his teeth were broken
during beatings and his weight fell from 75kg to 38kg.
Kim Hye Sook spent 28 years in the gulag and was
first jailed at the age of 13 because her grandfather had gone to South Korea.
Her family was not told the reason for their imprisonment. She was forced to
work in coal mines, even as a child, and witnessed public executions. Shin Dong
Hyuk was born in Camp No.14 in 1982 and saw his mother and brother executed. He
himself was hung on meat hooks over a fire and left to roast, and one of his
fingers was chopped off as a punishment. Neither Kim nor Shin were in the gulag
for any misdemeanor of their own. They were victims of North Korea's
"guilt-by-association" policy, which results in the punishment of
family members up to three generations for the "crime" of a relative.
This week, more than 30 human rights
organizations came together in Tokyo to break the silence. Human rights
organizations have had little success in awakening the world's conscience to
North Korea's plight, in part because of poor coordination. Despite the
publication of some key reports, including David Hawk's "The Hidden
Gulag," Christian Solidarity Worldwide's "North Korea: A Case to
Answer, A Call to Act," and two reports by the international law firm DLA
Piper commissioned by former Czech president Vaclav Havel, former Norwegian
prime minister Kjell Magne Bondevik and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, North
Korea's human rights record has rarely featured on the U.N.'s agenda.
A new initiative,
however, aims to change that. The International Coalition to Stop Crimes
Against Humanity in North Korea brings together for the first time key actors
on North Korean human rights and one of the broadest global movements ever. The
three largest human rights organizations, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty
International and the International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH), plus
organizations from countries including Bangladesh, Brazil, Indonesia, Peru,
Belgium and Canada, are uniting to campaign for a U.N. Commission of Inquiry on
crimes against humanity in North Korea.
One of the first acts of the new Coalition is a
letter to Kim Jong Il calling for access for international monitors,
particularly the U.N. Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in North Korea and
the International Committee of the Red Cross, and the dismantling of North
Korea's prison camps. The Coalition will work across all continents to build
support for a Commission of Inquiry.
North Korea's human rights situation must be
treated as an issue of international concern, just as nuclear and security
questions have been. It is not in anyone's interest to separate human rights
from security, or to ignore Kim Jong Il's crimes. Earlier this year, President
Obama issued a Presidential Directive on Mass Atrocities, declaring that
preventing such crimes is "a core national security interest and a core
moral responsibility." He is right. Freedom and peace, justice and
security, are inseparable.
Skeptics will say that Pyongyang will never
co-operate with such an inquiry, and that access to the country will be
impossible. That is very likely, but does not mean an inquiry cannot or should
not be held. With tens of thousands of North Korean refugees outside the
country—22,000 in South Korea alone—there is an enormous amount of first-hand
evidence ready to be tapped. It simply requires the will, resources and
credibility of the U.N. to gather and assess that evidence.
The European Parliament called for a Commission
of Inquiry on North Korea last year. The former U.N. Special Rapporteur Vitit
Muntarbhorn called on the international community to "mobilize the
totality of the U.N. to promote and protect human rights in the country."
He also said North Korea's case is sui generis—in a category of its own. It is
time that the recommendation of the U.N.'s own expert is taken up, and the
modern-day gulags brought to an end.
Mr. Rogers is East Asia Team Leader at Christian Solidarity
Worldwide and co-founder of the International Coalition to Stop Crimes Against
Humanity in North Korea.
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DO
Development on Darfur might be instructive. The U.N. SG established the Darfur Commission, basically, with a fact-finding mandate. The Commission reported to the U.N. Subsequently, the U.S. Security Council weighed in on the Darfur situation. The Commission was instrumental.
I would like to see the same thing happen in DPRK through this initiative.
