Nobody with a conscience can ignore the report published last week by the United Nations on the horrendous human rights situation in North Korea. The report states the terrible human rights abuses are driven by “policies established at the highest level of State”, adding that urgent action needs to be taken to address this situation, including referral to the International Criminal Court.
The report was based on first-hand testimony from 320 victims and witnesses and was compiled by the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea). In a statement, the UN said the commission documented in great detail the “unspeakable atrocities” committed in the country.
“The gravity, scale and nature of these violations reveal a State that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world”, the report, chaired by Michael Kirby, a retired judge from Australia, said.
The report lists the crimes committed by the North Korean regime as “extermination, murder, enslavement, torture, imprisonment, rape, forced abortions and other sexual violence, persecution on political, religious, racial and gender grounds, forcible transfer of populations, enforced disappearance and the inhumane act of knowingly causing prolonged starvation”.
Testimonies gathered from defectors included an account of a woman prisoner forced to drown her own baby and of prison camp inmates deliberately starved to death. Their fellow prisoners were then forced to burn their bodies and use the ashes as fertiliser. Other reports reveal that prisoners are so hungry that they sometimes eat rats, snakes and grass to survive. One man was even sent to a prisoner camp because he wiped up a spilt drink with an old newspaper featuring Kim Jong Il.
The commission concluded that hundreds of thousands of people have died at the regime’s hands since the Korean War ended in 1953, including Christians, opponents of the regime (real or perceived) and people who tried to escape from the country, including those who did flee but were repatriated by China. It is estimated that North Korea’s prison camps today hold 200,000 inmates who are kept in the most atrocious, inhumane and degrading conditions.
The report also recommended that the UN Security Council impose targeted sanctions against those most responsible for crimes against humanity, stressing sanctions should not be introduced against the population or the economy as a whole.
While the reports of these terrible human rights abuses come as no surprise, the fact that the United Nations has documented them and is to recommend the referral of North Korea to the International Criminal Court is highly significant.
The commission also wrote a letter to Kim Jong Un, North Korea’s ‘Supreme Leader’ containing a summary of the human rights violations in his country that “entail crimes against humanity”. Such a public rebuke to a serving head of state by a UN inquiry is indeed unprecedented and serves as a warning to other dictators.
The gravity, scale and nature of these violations reveal a State that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world
The letter to Kim Jong Un states that the three-member panel would recommend referral of the situation in North Korea to the International Criminal Court “to render accountable all those, including possibly yourself, who may be responsible for the crimes against humanity referred to in this letter and in the commission’s report”.
It is clear, therefore, that the deliberate policies of all North Korean leaders, namely Kim Jong Un, his late father, Kim Jong Il, and his late grandfather, Kim Il Sung (the founder of North Korea) have been responsible for terrible human rights abuses and a horrendous system of political prisoner concentration camps comparable to what took place in Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union under Stalin. It is not surprising that Judge Kirby said that the North Korean camps reminded him of the Nazi death camps.
Sadly, over the years the world has focused so much on North Korea’s nuclear weapons possession that it has turned a blind eye to the blatant and systematic abuse of human rights in the country. As a result of this report, this will now be harder to do; the international community is fully aware of what is going on in North Korea.
Of course, because of the extreme totalitarian nature of the regime, bringing about change in North Korea is going to be difficult, and yes, the regime’s possession of nuclear weapons certainly complicates matters.
Furthermore, it is almost certain that China, North Korea’s ally, will veto any attempt by the UN Security Council to recommend Kim Jong Un and other members of the regime to face justice at the International Criminal Court.
However, this latest report is bound to embarrass China; how in fact can Beijing continue to support such a hideous regime? True, China fears the collapse of North Korea and the possibility of millions of refugees swarming over its borders; it is also terrified of the reunification of Korea because it believes this will come about under terms favourable to the West. Such fears, however, do not excuse defending and supporting a government comparable to the Nazi regime; and such worries can in any case be addressed by the international community.
Judge Kirby said he expected his report to “galvanise action on the part of the international community”. He added: “These are not the occasional wrongs that can be done by officials everywhere in the world, they are wrongs against humanity; they are wrongs that shock the consciousness of humanity.”
The immediate priority of the global community now is to exert pressure on China to review its support for the Pyongyang regime, which effectively keeps it in power. Judge Kirby told Beijing that it might be “aiding and abetting crimes against humanity” by sending migrants and defectors back to North Korea to face torture or execution. China needs to immediately stop such a policy; it then needs to go further and pressure Pyongyang to close its death camps and improve its human rights situation.
The international community, with or without Chinese support, also needs to introduce targeted sanctions against those responsible for these crimes against humanity. The European Union, which often likes to call itself a ‘Union of values’ should take the lead here.
The EU should also pressure China, an important trading partner of the bloc, to change its policy towards North Korea or face possible consequences.