generalspeaking

Kim Jong-un On Notice

"We told him that we would find evidence of crimes against humanity on the part of officials in North Korea. We indicated that he should be aware of this, and of the crime of aiding and abetting crimes against humanity, even if he is not himself involved, and that he himself may be responsible and face prosecution."
"It was the duty of other prisoners in the camps to dispose of them."
"At the end of the Second World War, so many people said if only we had known the wrongs that were done. Now the international community does know."
"There was a lot of hope that things would change. He was educated in the West, he loved his iPhones and sports and modern entertainment. There was a lot of hope things would change. That is ashes in our mouth now."
Michael Kirby UN Human Rights Council, Geneva, report on North Korea

It really is unfortunate that the UN Human Rights Council has managed over the years to defame itself by its election to its board representatives of human-rights-abusing countries, by its focus primarily on one tiny state in the Middle East, led by a bloc of mostly Muslim countries hoping to demonize and isolate Israel, to denounce the one democratic nation among a sea of dictatorships, tyrannies, sheikdoms and kingdoms oppressing their people.

Finally, a focus where it is deserved, on the hermit Peoples Republic of North Korea with its arch pretensions of 'democracy', and its hereditary leader of the Kin dynastic order of ruthless dictatorships. The 374-page report is scathing in its documentation of murder, torture, rape, abductions, enslavement, imprisonment and starvation. North Korea is described in the report as a dictatorship "that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world."

For their trouble, the council has been dismissed by the indomitable demi-god Kim Jong-un as "human scum", refusing to cooperate in the enquiry, much less to permit any of the enquiry representatives entry to North Korea. Just as the results of the International Criminal Court finding Sudan's Omar al Bashir guilty of human rights abuses and crimes against humanity in Darfur resulted in no arrest, completely ignored by the Arab and Muslim world as a meaningless trifle.

The commission of enquiry set up almost a year earlier by the council to "investigate the systematic, widespread and grave violations of human rights in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea" concluded that the Pyongyang regime represented "a shock to the conscience of humanity". Taking testimony from over 80 former North Koreans living abroad, including ex-prison guards bearing evidence in hearings in London, Tokyo, Washington and Seoul.

Mr. Kirby well knows the practical and diplomatic hurdles of an attempted international prosecution against Mr. Kim who heads a nuclear-weapons-owning regime, one that can always call upon its mentor China, for political protection. His purpose, said Mr. Kirby, was to "galvanize" the international community in the hopes of preventing foreign leaders ever insisting they had no knowledge of the scale of the abuse as was common after the Nazi concentration camps were revealed.

It is estimated that North Korea's prison camps hold 100,000 people. Bearing, said Mr. Kirby, a "striking" likeness to the horrors inflicted on Jews, Gypsies, political dissidents, homosexuals, during the Third Reich. Accounts of inmates starving to death, then burned and buried by other prisoners had, Mr. Kirby feels, reflections of the Holocaust; the intent and scale obviously much diminished, though horror still abounds.

The UN panel has gone so far as to caution Beijing that it might be seen to be "aiding and abetting crimes against humanity" by returning North Korean migrants and defectors back to North Korea where they face certain torture and execution. Despite knowing that desperate North Korean refugees would face torture if repatriated, China has been known to forward to Pyongyang "information about the contacts and conduct" of North Korean nationals.

"If you have the power to stop it happening, you have to bear a degree of responsibility", said Mr. Kirby. "Hundreds" of other senior officials apart from Mr. Kim whose names were known to the investigators were likely culpable in the crimes committed by Pyongyang's enforcers, the ultimate one representing Kim Jong-un himself.

Labels: Atrocities, China, Human Rights, Justice, North Korea, Social Dysfunction, United Nations

posted by Pieface @ Wednesday, February 19, 2014