N. Korea: We Have No Human Rights Issues, You Slave-Trading Imperialists!

If you haven’t read the full KCNA editorial denouncing the United States for not de-listing the North as a state sponsor of terrorism, the quotes the media I showed you here really don’t do it justice:

Explicitly speaking, there is no “human rights issue” much touted by the U.S. in the DPRK. The Korean people fully enjoy genuine freedom and rights under the socialist system where all people form a big family. It is the consistent popular policy of the DPRK government to fully guarantee the rights of the citizens in a responsible manner. In the DPRK based on the man-centered Juche idea all working people do labor according to their abilities and wishes and lead a genuine life, given ample opportunity of learning. It is absolutely illogical for the U.S. to talk about the “human rights issue” while ignoring such reality.

So, if we try to distill some consistency of principle here, does this mean that nations have no right to criticize each others’ internal affairs?

There is the most serious human rights issue in the U.S. as it is a rogue state that exterminated tens of millions of native Indians and accumulated wealth through slave trade and flesh traffic and a country where the almighty dollar principle and the fin de sickle lifestyle based on the law of the jungle prevail. The impoverishment of Americans in the mental and cultural lives is actively fostered institutionally, driving them into the abyss of corruption, despair and crimes. This is a true picture of the American society today.

Guess not.

The “human rights” piffle made by the U.S. high-ranking officials indicates that they have no stand to recognize and respect the dialogue partner. The U.S. is persisting in the politically motivated provocations as evidenced by the ruckus kicked up over the non-existent “human rights issue” in the DPRK, an indication of its deep-rooted hostility and inveterate enmity toward the DPRK.

Piffle?

This attitude leaves the DPRK and the countries concerned skeptical about the U.S. intention to implement the points of the October 3 agreement. Such provocative acts of the U.S. as slandering and pulling up its dialogue partner can never help the talks make any progress in the positive direction. [KCNA]

The North Koreans are even objecting to the very idea that the United States is entitled to verify North Korea’s disclosure:

North Korea said on Wednesday it saw as “unjust” calls from global powers such as the United States for Pyongyang to verify claims it made in disarmament talks about producing arms-grade plutonium. The North’s KCNA news agency quoted an unnamed spokesman from its Foreign Ministry as also saying that South Korean-U.S. military exercises, which started on Monday, had spoiled the atmosphere for the disarmament discussions.

“This situation compels the DPRK (North Korea) to heighten vigilance against such unjust demands as the ‘verification in line with the international standard’ recently claimed by the U.S. as regards the nuclear issue,” the spokesman said. [Reuters]

Given the U.S. position of withholding that delisting until the North lets us verify its declaration, it certainly seems as if we’re at an impasse, doesn’t it?  The only thing needed to make this complete is for the North Koreans to say, “FOR THE 1,002ND TIME, SECRETARY RICE, WE’RE NOT GIVING UP OUR NUKES”:

North Korea “will increase its war deterrent in every way as long as the U.S. and its followers continue posing military threats to it,” a spokesman for the North’s Foreign Ministry said in comments carried by the country’s official Korean Central News Agency. The remarks came two days after South Korea and the U.S. launched Ulchi Freedom Guardian, an annual computer-simulated war game and follow daily criticisms of the exercises in North Korean media. The exercises come amid a dispute between the U.S. and North Korea over ways to verify the North’s declared nuclear programs under an aid-for disarmament deal. [AP, Kwang-Tae Kim]

In the North Korean vernacular, “war deterrent” means nukes.

SOME ANJU LINKS:

MAYBE I KNEW THIS ONCE AND FORGOT IT, but in any event, it’s not exactly “new”: apparently, North Korea demanded “economic aid” before it would agree to send a representative to Lee Myung Bak’s inauguration. Lee refused to pay, and no doubt a Hankyoreh editorial was conceived.   

WE MUSTN’T POLITICIZE THE OLYMPICS, YOU KNOW: So far, not a single demonstration has been approved at those Olympic “protest zones” in Beijing.

AND IN A SAD AND TERRIBLE WAY, I DON’T DOUBT HER:

While athletes may not be receiving much media coverage at home, they haven’t forgotten their lines. Pak said she owed her weightlifting victory to guess-who. “When I was about to do the third (lift), I kept in my mind that the Dear Leader would be watching,” Pak said after her Aug. 12 win. “That thought was real encouragement to me and that is how I was able to lift the last weight.”

She stopped short of emulating Cha Kum Chol’s celebration at the world weightlifting championships in Thailand in September. Then, the 56-kilogram winner burst into a rendition of “If you didn’t exist, we wouldn’t exist” — a eulogy to Kim Jong Il — at a news conference. “A lot of people give much pleasure to the Dear Leader and I’m happy to be one of them,” Cha said in Chiang Mai. [Bloomberg, Grant Clark and Heejin Koo]

You want to laugh, but it just doesn’t feel right somehow.