28 March 2010: Lankov on Educating North Korea’s Next Leaders
Must-read: Writing at the Daily NK, Andrei Lankov proposes a hydroponic growth program for a class of intellectual leaders for North Korea:
While it is important to help North Korean elites, however, it is more important to pursue the formation of a new North Korean elite group. Intellectuals who were educated in North Korea know well about the reality of the country, but they face a lot of obstacles in learning modern knowledge. On the contrary, young North Koreans can learn about world class technology and knowledge when educated in South Korea.
But I find a lot of problems when I listen to the experiences of defectors studying in South Korean universities. Most either quit school or are regularly absent. Of course some leave school because of a lack of ability, but for many of them the reason why they do not graduate does not have anything to do with their ability at all.
The best reason to do this is that it may catalyze better thought by North Koreans about North Korea’s future, though the proliferation of intellectuals tends to diffuse the formation of a unifying ideology as much as focus it. The best reason not to do it is that the North Korean regime may not be around long enough for this program to have its intended effect, but we’ve been saying that for decades, and besides, Korea has no time to lose in educating the leaders who will rebuild the North.
The U.N. Human Rights Council passes an EU-sponsored resolution condemning North Korea for grave human rights abuses:
South Korea, Japan and the United States were among 28 states voting in favor, while North Korea’s major ally China and Russia were among five against. Thirteen abstained and one delegation was absent for the vote at the 47-member forum.
The Council deplored “the grave, widespread and systematic human rights abuses in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, in particular the use of torture and labor camps against political prisoners and repatriated citizens of DPRK.” Choe Myong Nam, a North Korean diplomat in Geneva, rejected the resolution as “politically motivated” and “full of distortions and fabrications.”
Vitit Muntarbhorn, U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in North Korea, said in a report this month that human rights violations were “harrowing and horrific” in the country.
These included public executions, a pervasive spying system, and a distorted food distribution favoring the elite. [Reuters]
______________________
USFK Commander warns of potential instability in North Korea:
“We would also be mindful of the potential for instability in North Korea,” he said. “Combined with the country’s disastrous centralized economy, dilapidated industrial sector, insufficient agricultural base, malnourished military and populace, and developing nuclear programs, the possibility of a sudden leadership change in the North could be destabilizing and unpredictable.”
______________________
Not just executed … vaporized.
North Korean exiles are evolving beyond leaflets, to DVD’s:
A total of 400 DVDs have been floated from South Korea on three occasions since last month, said Lee Min-Bok, who leads a group of Christian defectors campaigning to topple the communist regime.
“This is a revolution in ways to wake up brainwashed North Koreans,” Lee told AFP. “Videos are a much more powerful way than writing to convince an audience.”
The DVDs contain documentary footage about World War II and the Korean War and footage of South Korea’s dramatic economic development. Lee said they also air witnesses’ accounts of Kim’s “luxurious and decadent” lifestyle, including his affair with Sung Hye-Rim.
It should be interesting to see what effects those DVD’s have, and how quickly they circulate. How many North Koreans would risk their lives to see what their government hides from them?