Present Situation of Korean Peninsula and North Korean Human Rights

Kim Dong Su(Ph.D)

Former North Korean Diplomat

Recently, the unification environment is rapidly changing in the Korean peninsula.

The current North Korean regime can be summarized as four characteristics: extreme nuclear advancement, extreme economic difficulties, resulting in public sentiment disruption and social unrest, and strengthening of the people's control and oppression system.

As most of the national budget is spent on the development of weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear and missile development, the people's livelihood economy is falling into ruin.

Moreover, as the so-called "triple difficulties" such as sanctions against North Korea, COVID-19, and natural disasters over the past few years has added to the shortages of food supplies and there have been a series of starvation in recent years.

As the result, social unrest is increasing, with public sentiment being alienated, while the 'South Korean Wind' is spreading widely throughout North Korean society.

Therefore, the Kim Jong-un regime has been under extreme pressure, strengthening its surveillance of its residents and mercilessly abuses the human rights of North Korean people, enacting various evil laws, including the "Reactionary Ideological and Cultural Disorder Law" and the "Youth Education Act".

Over the past decade, many international organizations and countries, including the North Korean Human Rights Investigation Committee(COI), the United Nations, the United States, Japan, and Europe, have interested in North Korean human rights and many NGO groups at home and abroad have carried out strong activities for North Korean human rights.

As the result, various human rights abuses, such as, public shootings in North Korea's political prison camps, labor camps, and violations of women's rights, child abuse and child forced labor were investigated and known at home and abroad.

In particular, as North Korean defectors have more opportunities to testify about North Korean human rights in the international community, the global interest about North Korean human rights has increased, and North Korea's human rights diplomacy has shrunk considerably.

Meanwhile, the Kim Jong-un regime continues to purge and execute in North Korea, and measures to block the inflow of foreign information have been more intensified.

From now on, we must develop a strong psychological warfare against North Korea that blows the wind of freedom and truth into the North Korean regime, which stands on the sand castle of the worst fiction and manipulation on the planet.

All-round psychological warfare against the highly closed North Korean regime will be a more powerful weapon than the nuclear weapons.

We have to notify the international community about the world's worst human rights situation in North Korea, while taking various measures to make North Korean people aware of the dignity of freedom, democracy and human rights so that they can resist the tyrannical regime.

I think that, in the future, the Yoon Suk Yeol's government should emphasize the protection of North Koreans' human rights and the improvement of their right to live as the top priority of its policies.

North Koreans, who are our people under our Constitution, are actually dying day by day as the slave of the Kim Jong Un's family.

Therefore, at this time, any issues of unification, exchange, cooperation, or peace cannot take precedence over the North Korean people's right to live and their human rights.

In other words, the policy towards North Korea of turning the blind eyes to the suffering of North Korean people is bound to be hypocrisy whatever it is.

If North Korean people are neglected, any related act, and even unification itself, is bound to be hypocritical.

This is because the ultimate purpose of the policy towards North Korea or the unification policy is not only to maintain the peace or secure power, but to liberate North Korean people from slavery, first of all.

If not, then there is no reason to face by the North Korean people, and there is no need for unification, and you just have to protect yourself.

The experience of the past half century and recent times have made it clear that the Kim dynasty can never be changed.

In particular, it is also clear that the Kim Dynasty is the source of all evil related to division, including nuclear and missile issues, human rights issues, security instability issues, and inter-South Korean conflicts.

In this context, I think that it is necessary to set the basic direction of international cooperation for the promotion of human rights policies towards North Korea as follows.

First, it is necessary to raise the North Korean human rights issues more actively through the United Nations.

Second, it is important to establish a new regional human rights system at the regional level or to discuss human rights issues with North Korea in earnest within the framework of economic and security cooperation.

Third, it is very important to establish a cooperative body with international human rights NGOs and actively support the formation of a network of human rights NGOs, especially North Korean defectors' human rights NGOs.

How to deal with North Korean human rights issues at this time is the most important issue that can cause North Koreans to change their consciousness, change their ideology, and even change their system.

In order to link North Korea's serious human rights issues to regime change, it is more necessary, than ever before, to target the leadership of North Korea, the middle class who are forced to blindly loyalty, and the lower class who are Kim Jong-un's outsiders.

To realize these purposes,

We need to bring news and information from South Korea and the international community to North Korea through broadcasting, print, movies, records, and MP3s, as well as information and data on freedom, human rights, democracy, reform and openness.

Therefore, they should recognize the anti-people’s nature of Kim Jong-un's dictatorship and influence themselves to become the main agents of liberal democratic unification leading reform and opening up of the North Korean society.