Berkley Center

This semester, I have had the pleasure of working with two NGOs based in Seoul: Justice4NK and RCNKR (The Report Center for North Korean Refugees), founded by North Korean defector Han Byeol Lee. Through my involvement with the two organizations, I have had the opportunity to learn more about the North Korean regime, but most importantly, the plight of its people. In the United States, dialogue about North Korea is dialogue about Kim Jong-un. Jokes are frequently made regarding his weight, his intelligence, and his peculiar relationship with Dennis Rodman. But Kim Jong-un is no joke. Since his rise to power in 2011, Kim has ordered the murder of about 70 senior officials, including his own uncle. Moreover, Kim is the ruler of over 24 million people and his actions affect their well-being. The human rights violations in North Korea are no joke and no one who has experienced life in the corrupt regime is laughing.

On March 2, 2016, the UN Security Council enacted resolution 2270. The UN sanction bans North Korea from exporting minerals such as gold, titanium, and vanadium. Together, these minerals constitute over half of North Korea's exports. In addition to crippling North Korea’s export industry, Seoul closed the Kaesong Industrial Zone, a joint industrial project which employs about 50,000 North Korean workers. The resolution introduced some of the strongest sanctions to date, but the sanctions are ill placed. When the North Korean economy falters, Kim Jong-un remains untouched, passing the hardship onto his people. Kim Jong-un’s net worth is estimated to be about $5 billion. In comparison, the estimated average yearly salary for a North Korean is a little over $1,500.

When westerners express interest in visiting the North Korean regime, South Koreans are appalled—and rightfully so. On March 13, 2016, University of Virginia student Otto Warmbier was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor for “hostile acts” against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. North Korea should not be considered a tourist site, but for some reason, in the same way people are obsessed with taking pictures next to drugged wild animals, people want to step foot in North Korea to satisfy their fancy. Of course, people will not see the real North Korea in the same way people will not see the true ferocity of a mistreated wild animal when drugs are introduced to its blood stream. People will see what the company—or in this case, the regime—wants them to see. People pay to witness a repressed version of reality, enough to feel a thrill without a threat. However, the imprisonment of various visitors of the regime indicates North Korea offers more than a dull thrill. Now Wrambler is serving 15 years of hard labor because a grainy terribly lit film shows a shadowy figure taking a propaganda poster off the wall and gently placing it on the floor.

What exactly does his sentence of hard labor entail? Amnesty International describes the North Korean practice as a “combination of hazardous forced labor, inadequate food, beatings, totally inadequate medical care, and unhygienic living conditions.” According to Amnesty International’s latest report, North Koreans continue to suffer mass human rights violations. After speaking to and attending speeches by North Korean defectors living in Seoul, the narratives are abhorrently similar. The major themes include mass propaganda, brainwashing through fanatical education, the corruption of the regime, and accounts of starvation and torture. In North Korea, people can be detained merely for being related to an individual the state deems threatening. The state determines who is guilty and who is innocent—and the state is merely a representation of Kim Jong-un.

The international community must remember that the people are not the problem. The problem is a regime led by a man bred to believe the world truly revolves around him. What use are sanctions if the international community ignores the needs of North Korean refugees? If the sanctions are meant to also punish the regimes mass human rights abuses, why does China continue to ignore non-refoulement obligations, a principle in international law that forbids the return of a victim of persecution to his or her persecutor? China continuously repatriates North Korean defectors leading to their imprisonment and subsequent torture by the regime. The international community is pressuring China to enforce the UN sanctions, but failing to coerce China’s adherence of international law. North Korea’s nuclear weapons and ballistic-missile programs must be stopped, but the international community cannot ignore the suffering of the North Korean people along the way.