Reconciling the Human Factor, by Erich Weingartner

[This article, first published on our partner-website 38North on Tuesday, 28 May 2013, is based on presentations given at Glendon College, York University in Toronto in April, and at UCLA, Los Angeles in May. It represents CanKor’s attempt to provide a framework for rational discussion among conflicting policy alternatives aimed at relieving the suffering of North Korean people. CanKor Editor Erich Weingartner has been involved with Korea since 1978, spending half his career working on human rights and the other half dealing with humanitarian assistance. –CanKor]

Understanding the North Korean Human Rights/Humanitarian Divide

Author Erich Weingartner at UCLA conference on Ending the Korean War (Photo by Kil Sang Yoon)

With political leaders and the media perpetually focused on the behavior of a young hereditary leader and his nuclear-armed military, does anybody really care what happens to ordinary people in North Korea? There are two major constituencies internationally that do care: the humanitarian community and the human rights community.

When widespread starvation in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) became evident in the mid to late 1990s, humanitarian agencies launched a massive and largely successful rescue effort to stem the famine. Human rights organizations have meanwhile played a pivotal role in exposing North Korea’s dismal record of abuses, culminating in the recent appointment by the United Nations Human Rights Council of a Commission of Inquiry (CoI).

Since both claim that their objective is to ease the plight of suffering North Koreans, you might think these communities would be natural allies. But sadly, those working on North Korean human rights do not seem to get along very well with those providing humanitarian assistance to the DPRK. Not only do their goals and methods often contradict each other, their practitioners sometimes engage in verbal battles and mutual recrimination. This conflict is likely to intensify now that the three-member CoI has begun its one-year assignment.

Members of UN-mandated probe into human rights abuses in DPR Korea announced

[This announcement was published by the United Nations News Service on 7 May 2013. –CanKor]

President of the Human Rights Council Remigiusz A. Henczel (right) and High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay. (Photo by Violaine Martin)

The President of the United Nations Human Rights Council, Remigiusz A. Henczel, today announced the appointment of the members of the commission of inquiry set up to investigate alleged abuses in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).

The three-member commission will comprise Michael Donald Kirby, a retired judge from Australia; Sonja Biserko, founder and president of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia; and Marzuki Darusman, former Attorney General of Indonesia and the current UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in DPRK.

Victor Hsu: “Separate humanitarian issue from politics”

[CanKor Brain Trust member Prof Victor Hsu was interviewed by The Korea Times correspondent Chung Min-uck on 25 March 2013. –CanKor]

Victor Hsu of Korea Development Institute (Photo by The Korea Times)

Victor Hsu, 63, director of International Aid and Education at the state-run Korea Development Institute (KDI), believes humanitarian aid should be given to North Korea regardless of the political situation.

“Humanitarian aid should be separate from political considerations,” Hsu said in an interview with The Korea Times. “The humanitarian principle suggests that one must give assistance because there is need, and a human being is suffering or ill. So, the humanitarian imperative should be foremost.”

“Coming from the NGO community, I would like to emphasize that very strongly,” he added.

The KDI professor worked for World Vision International from 2005 to 2010, providing humanitarian aid to North Korea.

He was the national director for North Korea, overseeing various types of aid given to the isolated nation. Hsu was also with the U.S. National Council of Churches and the World Council of Churches, and visited the North numerous times during his career, since the 1980s.

North Korea Faces Heightened Human Rights Scrutiny, by Roberta Cohen

[CanKor Brain Trust member Roberta Cohen published an extensive analysis of the latest decision by the UN Human Rights Council regarding the DPRK in our partner-website 38North. For the benefit of CanKor readers we reprint the first part of this article here. For the rest of the paper, including footnotes, please access the 38North website here. –CanKor]

On March 21, 2013 the United Nations Human Rights Council, a body of 47 states, adopted by consensus a resolution to establish a commission of inquiry (COI) into North Korea’s “systematic, widespread and grave violations of human rights.” The commission is to be composed of three experts who will intensively investigate for a period of one year the human rights violations perpetrated by North Korea’s government with a view to ensuring “full accountability, in particular where these violations may amount to crimes against humanity” [emphasis added].

The establishment of the commission reflects long overdue recognition that a human rights ‘emergency’ exists in North Korea. Commissions of inquiry at the United Nations have mainly been directed at situations like Syria, Darfur or Libya where conflicts, atrocities and destruction are clearly visible and in the headlines. Adding North Korea to the list suggests a new look at what a human rights crisis might be. In contrast to other situations, North Korea has always managed to hide its crimes. Most prison camps are in remote mountain areas, access to the country is barred to human rights groups, and rigid internal controls make it impossible for anyone who does manage to visit to talk with North Koreans about human rights. Indeed, the lack of access and the UN’s inability to form an “independent diagnosis” of the situation has long contributed to the reluctance of its senior officials to speak out strongly about North Korea. Even the US State Department’s human rights report for 2011, published in 2012, contained the caveat that no one can “assess fully human rights conditions or confirm reported abuses” in North Korea.

UN Human Rights Council discusses DPRK

Special Rapporteur Marzuki Darusman. (UN Photo by Jean-Marc Ferré)

Chronic food shortages have become the most pressing human rights issue in the DPRK, according to an independent United Nations human rights expert. “I would underscore the importance of meeting the food shortfall by ensuring that an adequate quantity of food of good quality is available through additional imports by the Government, supported by international agencies and bilateral donors,” said Marzuki Darusman, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the DPRK.

On Monday, 12 March 2012, the United Nations Human Rights Council held an “interactive dialogue” with Darusman, whose new report covers the period from September 2011 to January 2012. In that time, according to the report, the situation “continued to deteriorate”. More than six million people urgently required international food assistance.