Dear Leader, by Jang Jin-sung, once Kim Jong-Il's
former Poet Laureate and propagandist who defected because he feared
execution simply for losing a book, lifts the lid on the inner
workings of the world's most closed nation. It follows Blaine
Harden's Escape from Camp 14, the story of Shin Dong-hyuk who was
born in a North Korean gulag, saw his mother and brother executed in
front of him, and spent the first twenty years of his life convinced
that the entire world was a prison camp, Barbara Demick's Nothing to
Envy, Victor Cha's The Impossible State, David Alton and Rob
Chidley's Building Bridges: Is there Hope for North Korea?, and a
number of other excellent works which have helped ensure that the
world is more informed about the horrors of the world's most brutal
regime - and leave us all without excuse.
Yet while all these books are valuable, no
publication is more significant for international policy than the
United Nations' own Commission of Inquiry report, published in
February. We campaigned for several years for the establishment of a
Commission of Inquiry, to investigate North Korea's gross violations
of human rights, and in March 2013 the Human Rights Council opted
unanimously to do just that.
Skilfully chaired by Australian Justice Michael
Kirby, the inquiry took first-hand testimony from more than 320
witnesses, including many survivors of North Korea's prison camps
and leading international experts. Its findings are damning. Justice
Kirby has compared North Korea's human rights record to the
Holocaust, and his inquiry concludes that the North Korean regime is
guilty of "a wide array" of "crimes against humanity". The "gravity,
scale and nature" of North Korea's human rights violations,
according to the UN inquiry, "reveal a State that does not have any
parallel in the contemporary world".
The list of crimes includes "extermination,
murder, enslavement, torture, imprisonment, rape, forced abortions
and other sexual violence," as well as religious persecution and
starvation. The inquiry concludes that there is "almost complete
denial" of freedom of thought, conscience, religion or expression
and association. "The unspeakable atrocities that are being
committed against inmates of the kwanliso political prison camps,"
the report continues, "resemble the horrors that totalitarian States
established during the twentieth century." Until now, no one has
been held accountable. "Impunity reigns," and the North Korean
regime "has for decades pursued policies involving crimes that shock
the conscience of humanity and raises questions about the inadequacy
of the response of the international community".
Of all its recommendations, it is the inquiry's
call for a referral of a case to the International Criminal Court
(ICC) which requires most attention. The report puts the ball firmly
in the international community's court, arguing that it "must accept
its responsibility to protect the people" of North Korea.
In March this year, the Human Rights Council voted
to endorse the report's findings and recommendations, and in April
the Security Council met with the Commission of Inquiry and some of
their witnesses for an informal briefing - the first time North
Korea's human rights record has been considered by the UN's highest
body. These are welcome steps forward. Vocal support offered by the
United Kingdom, the European Union and other countries is
encouraging. At last, North Korea's human rights crisis is on the
international agenda. A long overdue spotlight has been shone on the
darkest corner of the world.
Yet nobody should be satisfied with this. Fine
words are good, attention is appreciated, but what is needed is
action. It is imperative that the Commission of Inquiry's report
serves as a manifesto for international policy, not simply a
harrowing catalogue of horrors or an academic piece of research that
gathers dust on a shelf. Truth-telling is an essential part of
justice, but it is only a part.
So, what next? Sympathetic countries should seize
the initiative and bring the issue to the formal agenda of the
Security Council. Human rights should feature alongside the nuclear
question in every discussion of North Korea. And every effort should
be made to ensure accountability.
Cynics claim that there is no point in even
seeking a referral to the ICC, because China or Russia will veto it
at the Security Council. This is lazy defeatism that overlooks what
energetic action can achieve.
First, the task of our politicians must be to put
the issue to the test, rather than to second-guess China and Russia
and to surrender before even trying to do the right thing.
Inscrutable China and Bear-like Russia are not immune to world
opinion and China, in particular, has surprised us in the past,
abstaining where a veto was predicted, and supporting measures few
expected. Privately, Chinese officials have acknowledged their North
Korea headache, describing the pariah state as "the neighbour from
hell". Although China continues to prop up the Kim regime, they do
so without much enthusiasm and because they fear the alternatives.
Let's put the question to them - and to Russia - and see what
happens.
If an ICC referral is vetoed, China - or Russia -
will have to live exposed for all to see that they prefer to support
a regime that is barbaric in the extreme than to give the mechanisms
of justice a chance. And they will do this knowing that the modern
citizen may be able to take over from the UN Commission by
establishing an informal mechanism to record and judge North Korea
and to do so publicly. There is an increasing number of North Korean
exiles who have escaped the tyranny of their country's regime and
there are very many supporters of their plight in South Korea and
all round the world.
Between them they will find the comparatively
modest funds required and do whatever is necessary. And they will do
so - in parody of UN language: 'taking note of the inactivity of the
great powers' and 'mindful of the duties of the world citizen to
pursue justice for the oppressed'. The internet at our finger tips
makes every aspect of this kind of enterprise inexpensive and easy -
witnesses can be produced to informal tribunals by Skype;
proceedings can be made public worldwide to guarantee visible due
process. The proceedings can probably be infiltrated into North
Korea itself - live or in other electronic formats - something the
UN itself would not dare to enforce. There will be no shortage of
top jurists and judges in retirement willing to give their services
pro bono to such an enterprise. The judgments prepared - as with
other informal tribunal judgments that have filled and are filling
gaps left by underperforming international bodies - are likely to
become authoritative in years to come about the regime and about the
failure of the international community. The veto will have denied
the proper 'official' trial court - the ICC - a chance to provide
such a judgment. Enforcers of the veto will only have themselves to
blame if the authoritative judgment of others turns out not to be to
their liking.
China and Russia - and North Korea itself - know
these things can be done and that they cannot hold back the tide of
judicially assessed world opinion just as they know that the case
for ending impunity of Kim jong Un's murderous regime is
overwhelming and that the international community's responsibility
is clear. The backup option of informal process allows us citizens
to press even harder for the issue to be brought to the Security
Council before October. If successful there, a General Assembly
resolution should include a strong call for the Commission of
Inquiry's recommendations to be implemented and for the Security
Council and the Secretary-General to prioritise this.
For too long, North Korea's human rights tragedy
has been largely ignored, languishing either in the "unknown" basket
or the "too difficult" file. Now, the international community has
been confronted with the shocking truth of the suffering of the
North Korean people, and some concrete proposals for action. No
dictatorship lasts forever, and the time will come when the North
Korean people themselves will look back and discover that the world
knew about their plight after all. And they will ask: "What did you
do about it?" How we answer that question is the test before us
today. And if the international organisations we pay by our taxes to
do this work will not act, then the world's citizens will. Everyone
can play a part.
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