North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s promise of a “Christmas gift” for the US if Washington didn’t cave to his demands to lift economic sanctions by year’s end was little more than false bravado from a man whose word cannot be trusted. Kim thrives on conflict with the outside world, especially the US, which the hermit kingdom’s state-run media likes to call the “savage enemy.”
President Donald Trump’s willingness to meet with Kim (three times since June 2018) is clearly key to his administration’s worthy goal of a denuclearised North Korea. But, given that Kim’s regime – and in turn the North Korean people – believe that the communist state’s very existence is reliant upon its nuclear arsenal, attaining a nuclear weapon-free Korean peninsula is highly unlikely.
Kim has proved that he has no interest in allowing inspectors into his country to verify any agreement that might be reached on arms reductions. One now knows that he has used a self-imposed moratorium on advanced-missile testing to concentrate on building powerful new weapons and more advanced solid-fuelled missiles that can be launched from submarines or other sites with little warning.
Sadly, this was predictable when Trump first agreed to meet with Kim, which gave the 35-year-old leader the stature and legitimacy on the world stage he craved and reinforced his “supreme leader” standing at home.
Even worse, this failed detente has come at the expense of US leadership on human rights in North Korea. According to Human Rights Watch, “Under the rule of Kim Jong-un, North Korea remains among the world’s most repressive countries.
In 2014, a UN Commission of Inquiry found that Kim’s regime was guilty of gross and systematic human rights abuses, including “extermination, murder, enslavement, torture, imprisonment, rape, forced abortions, persecution on political, religious, racial and gender grounds, the forcible transfer of populations, the enforced disappearance of persons and the inhumane act of knowingly causing prolonged starvation.”
Trump has failed to call out North Korea on human rights even as he’s joked that he and Kim have exchanged “love letters” and “fell in love.” This not only diminishes the United States’ standing as a defender of human rights, it’s a disservice and injustice to the 25mn North Koreans suffering under Kim’s murderous regime.
Last month the Trump administration even went so far as to block, for the second year in a row, an attempt by the UN Security Council to censure North Korea on Human Rights Day.
Trump should follow former US president Ronald Reagan’s lead when, during arms negotiations with the Soviets, he never failed to press the “Evil Empire” on its systematic repression and abysmal human-rights record. “Respect for human rights is not social work,” Reagan rightly pointed out in a 1986 speech before the UN General Assembly. “It is not merely an act of compassion. It is the first obligation of government and the source of its legitimacy. Countries based on the consent of the governed, countries that recognise the unalienable rights of the individual, do not make war on each other. Peace is more than just the absence of war. True peace is justice, true peace is freedom. And true peace dictates the recognition of human rights.”
If ever such a voice – and such a vision – was needed, it’s needed again now. – Tribune News Service
