The U.N.: Telling Us What We Already Know

I have a post up on NKZone about South Korea’s abstention from the U.N. Resolution. Most of it will be familiar to you, although there’s some new discussion of the U.N. Special Rapporteur’s report. The report itself is nothing special; it tells us many things we already know. In many places, it suffers from a predictable lack of specifics, imprecise language, U.N. gobbledygook, and lame efforts to show the “bright side” of hell on earth.

There is one important exception, however: for the first time, it calls North Korean refugees “refugees” and directly takes on China’s view that they are “economic migrants,” albeit without mentioning China by name. Given that the author is Thai, and that Thailand has historically avoided offending anyone–and especially China–it’s somewhat remarkable to see this lapse of clarity.