ed Rights for N. Koreans

Pyongyang urged to respect universal values

Needless to say, North Korea is one of the world’s most repressive countries. It is infamous for human rights abuses and violations. Nobody can expect the dire situation to get better anytime soon. The new leadership under Kim Jong-un, who has succeeded his late father Kim Jong-il, may suppress basic rights of North Koreans even harder in a desperate bid to tighten his grip on power.

Against this backdrop, the National Human Rights Commission of South Korea last week urged the government to make substantial efforts to help improve conditions in the North. The move is part of the commission’s policy recommendations for 2012-2016. The measures are much bolder than its first recommendations issued in 2006 when the body just called for the protection of North Korean defectors, mostly living in China.

Belatedly but fortunately, the commission has suggested that Seoul do more to protect not only the defectors but also South Korean prisoners of war and abductees still held in the North. It has even urged the government to help ordinary North Koreans avoid rights abuses committed by the brutal military regime.

The Lee Myung-bak administration needs to map out a proactive human rights policy toward the North. In fact, the past liberal governments under Presidents Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun did little to voice their concerns about North Koreans suffering under the yoke of dictatorship. They made dramatic progress in inter-Korean reconciliation by actively engaging with Pyongyang. However, they failed to raise the human rights issue in order to cozy up to the recalcitrant North.

Now, the administration should no longer turn a deaf ear to this matter of great importance. Many Western countries and the international community have already begun to call on Pyongyang to stop its horrendous crimes against its own people. The U.N. General Assembly adopted a resolution against the North for sixth straight year in 2011, denouncing the Stalinist regime’s systematic and widespread violations of civil, political, economic and cultural rights.

It has been no secret that an estimated 200,000 North Koreans are imprisoned in labor camps that are notorious for abysmal living conditions and abuses. Arbitrary arrest and detention, torture and public executions are common. Most people are denied such fundamental rights as freedom of speech, association and religion.

It is no exaggeration that the entire North Korean population lives a miserable life in a gulag. The ruling elite would not change its iron-fisted rule unless countries across the globe put pressure on the reclusive country to respect universal values. The Kim regime should realize that it cannot prolong its rule by trampling on its people. No one is sure that the North is totally immune to a popular revolt resembling the Arab Spring.