In the WSJ: What Obama Should Say to North Korea
On the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Melanie Kirkpatrick sees an opportunity for Barack Obama’s “tear down this wall” moment:
In September, as required under 2004 legislation, Mr. Obama named his special envoy for North Korea human rights, Robert King, a former Capitol Hill staffer. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said, “We’re deeply concerned about the situation in North Korea, particularly the plight of North Korean refugees” in China. Human rights, he said, is a “big priority.”
If that’s so, here’s a suggestion: When he’s in Seoul this month, Mr. Obama could meet with refugees and hear their horror stories of life in their homeland. Even better, he could visit the offices of Radio Free Asia, Voice of America or Free North Korea Radio (run by refugees) and broadcast a message of support to the North Korean people themselves.
The argument against speaking out about these things used to be that it would be harmful to our nuclear diplomacy, but more recently, we’ve seen that North Korea is rational enough to negotiate at expedient moments, notwithstanding — maybe even because of — sanctions and outside pressure. None of the bold statements President Bush made during his first term prevented the North Koreans from attending six-party talks, or from signing deals with the Bush Administration in 2005 or 2007 (though for other reasons, the North Koreans never negotiated in good faith, and no quantity of gold stars and cookies will change that).
The fact that President Bush also missed his own “tear down this wall” moment doesn’t get Obama off the hook for not speaking out. Bush hadn’t a fraction of Obama’s gift for oratory. If Obama’s great gift is his power to inspire, and if North Korea is still saying that it will never disarm, wouldn’t this be an ideal moment to put that gift to good use, and even arguably to make a balloon payment on a Nobel Prize that as of today, he obviously hasn’t earned?
Melanie Kirkpatrick’s advice is shared by so many who are tired of the same old policies that haven’t worked – Obama should take her advice if not for trying something new then to empower the defectors who “vote with their feet” for “if the world is silent in the face of your suffering, then it is much harder to endure.â€
This comment from the WSJ particularly impressed me:
“The author touched upon a few crimes against humanity perpetrated by Kim Jong Il, and I want to elaborate on the “prison system” aka concentration camps or “political reeducation camps” as they are known.
North Korea practices the 3 generation rule: anyone speaking out against Kim Jong Il, found attempting to escape to China, or illegally countering the propaganda is sent to a political reeducation camp along with his family, his parents, and his children (the 3 generation rule) or his grandchildren, if his parents are dead.
I quote:
“Most North Koreans are sent there without any judicial process. Many inmates die in the camps unaware of the charges against them. Guilt by association is legal under North Korean law, and up to three generations of a wrongdoer’s family are sometimes imprisoned, following a rule from North Korea’s founding dictator, Kim Il Sung: “Enemies of class, whoever they are, their seed must be eliminated through three generations.”
Those who kill themselves out of despair are sentencing their surviving relatives to longer and more brutal terms of imprisonment. ”
For political crimes, members of the family are tortured and killed, depending on the severity.
I am hugely interested in Obama’s visit to Korea, not only as a Korean-American, but simply as a member of humanity. Will it change anything? Probably not. But, at the very least, the North Korean people will get some exposure to their plight and maybe a few readers will grasp the true horror of the atrocities that are performed in NK, on a daily basis. There is, literally, no place worse than living in NK.”