Breaking News, World News and Taiwan News.

Updated Saturday, October 31, 2009 12:23 am TWN, By John J. Metzler, Special to The China Post

U.N. report slams North Korea

Importantly the Special Rapporteur stressed that “food aid alone was never adequate, and it had to accompanied by food security.” Plans by the Pyongyang regime to force people to work on farms for a “food battle” with intensive labor, did not insure either production or a sharing in the harvest.

The authorities regularly clamp down on civilians tying to privately grow or sell produce outside the confines of the state sanctioned system.

Despite the DPRK's horrific human rights situation, diplomats for the most part have soft-peddled these charges and evidence so as not to try to antagonize Pyongyang over its sporadic cooperation on the nuclear weapons issues. Thus while the U.N. Security Council has tried to contain Pyongyang's nuclear proliferation, there has been a reserved reticence to tackle the North on its very vulnerable human rights record.

A few years ago, a high profile effort was launched at the U.N., sponsored by the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea and endorsed by former Czech President Vaclav Havel, to bring the issue before the U.N. Security Council. Naturally this strategy while logical, is hindered by the fact that the People's Republic of China has historically supported the DPRK despite disagreements in recent years. Thus the Security Council option could offer a dead end to any serious censure to Pyongyang over humanitarian issues.

While many democracies, including South Korea under its previous government, have politely averted their attention from human rights abuses in the North, the political rationalization was usually based not on sympathy, but on realpolitik in getting Kim Jong Il's regime to offer minimal levels of cooperation on the nuclear issues, to provide some sort of limited openness for the hermetically-closed country, and to encourage Seoul's “Sunshine Policy” of subsidizing the DPRK's tacit cooperation.

Specific charges will be presented at the U.N. Human Rights Council in December. That moment likely can't come soon enough for millions of North Koreans who cannot speak for themselves.

John J. Metzler is a United Nations correspondent covering diplomatic and defense issues. jjmcolumn@att.net

1|2

Share

Print

Email


Sponsors
▪	Buy china wholesale products from reliable chinese wholesalers on DHgate.com!
▪	Save 70% for hotel in Shanghai and 6000 hotels, in Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and all China.
▪	Get the best deals for Guangzhou Hotels or choose from more than 10,000 hotels in 499 Chinese cities.
▪	Find great real time deals on China Flights. Book flights to China or China domestic flights 24/7.