UN to indict Pyongyang’s crimes against humanity

A United Nations human rights office that will take charge of surveying and documenting North Korea’s brutal human right violations, and identifying those who are responsible for crimes against humanity will open in Seoul on Tuesday. The U.N. is thus deploying staff permanently at the frontier site where it could easily figure out human rights violations committed by the North Korean regime and gather related evidence from North Korean defectors and other sources. The U.N. Human Rights Council adopted in March last year a report by the North Korean Commission of Inquiry that clarified that the responsibility for human rights violation in North Korea lies in the North Korean regime, which inherited power for three generations, and recommended referring of those responsible to the International Court of Justice.

The opening of the human rights office is also a result of the Human Rights Council’s recommendation to establish an onsite-based organization that will probe and identify those who are responsible for crimes against humanity. The chief negotiators of South Korea, the U.S., and Japan met in Seoul last month and agreed to strengthen pressure on the North for its human rights violation. The measure is taken as a strategy to use the North’s human rights violation as leverage to resolve the North’s nuclear issue.

However, whenever the South Korean government has raised issue with the North’s human rights, North Korea has violently resisted, stalled inter-Korean relations, and worsened the livelihoods of North Koreans. Pyongyang again informed Monday the South of its boycott of the Summer Universiade Games, which will take place in Gwangju next month, at the excuse of the opening of the U.N. human rights office. Chances are high that the North took the measure due to concern over possible MERS transmission in the North, which lacks quarantine capacity, but Pyongyang naturally would feel strong resistance towards the U.N. human rights organization engaged in activities in a close proximity.

President Park Geun-hye said in September last year, “South Korea should not be passive about the North’s nuclear development and human rights issues due to fears over the North’s resistance.” Dialogue and improved relations that are given in return for the South turning a blind eye to the North Korean dictatorial regime’s violation of human rights is merely fabricated peace like a balloon that is poised to blow up. For South Korea to neglect miserable life of North Koreans and abuse of their human rights is no different from aiding and abetting the Pyongyang regime’s human rights crimes. In order to ensure North Koreans’ humane life, the South should establish a clear principle that could survive replacement of governments within the South and thereby pressure the Kim Jong Un regime. The rival parties in the South should be ashamed of their failure to enact a North Korean human rights act for more than 10 years to the U.N. and the international community. Taking actions to help improve North Koreans’ human rights is a task that is essential for the South to prepare for actual unification.