Brussels Update

The Chosun Ilbo reports:

International pressure on North Korea to improve its dismal human rights record increased on Wednesday, when the European Parliament decided to link humanitarian aid to the issue while a conference highlighting abuses in the North opened in the EU capital Brussels. Thursday sees the first hearing on North Korean human rights before the European Parliament.

At the conference, which was led by activist groups from the U.S. and across Europe, Hungarian member of the European Parliament Istvan Szent-Ivany said the bloc has been too passive on the question of human rights in North Korea but is awakening to the seriousness of the issue. Szent-Ivany said he disapproved of providing unconditional aid to the North the way the South Korean government does. He stressed any humanitarian aid from the EU must reach those who need it most, including political prisoners in concentrations camp, and expressed hope that monitoring and control of aid distribution to the North can be tightened.

In a time when Europe sometimes seems to have lost its moral perspective in a socio-pacifist haze, it puts America doubly to shame that Europe says — and does — the right things, while we don’t.  Thanks God some of Europe still has fresh memories of life under dictatorship.