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North Korea's Inconvenient Truth

by Eric Chen

Mordern Asia Perspectives

Singapore American School

Welcome to the North Korea human rights issues page, have a look around, and check out the you tube video.

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Background

According to Amnesty International and the United Nations, North Korea has been considered the country with the worst human rights. North Korea has received the lowest ratings for both civil and political rights. Under dictator Kim Jong-il’s leadership, North Koreans have suffered. The Communist government spends over five billion US dollars on military and cares less about their people. They have spent one-forth of their nominal GDP on military goods and left the people to suffer.

North Koreans have no freedom of expression. They are not allowed to freely speak their minds. Everyone has to follow the Juche ideology that was created by Kim II-Sung. Juche ideology’s principle is "man is the master of everything and decides everything.” This means that the leader will decides everything even if others disagrees with it. Anyone who remonstrates the Juche ideology will be send to political prison camps, and will be tortured severely. Amnesty International estimated that there are approximately 150,000 to 200,000 inmates today.

North Korea has the most restrictive government comparing to the rest of the world. People have no freedom of religion, movement and press. Juche is the only belief that is allowed in the country; therefore, most of the people followed it. North Koreans are not allowed to move or travel from place to place, and only the political elite has the right to own a vehicle, so there aren’t many vehicles in street. The only people that are allowed to live in Pyongyang are the healthiest and the most reliable people. Living in the capital city guarantee a better place than the countryside. Urban places normally appeared to have shortage of food and bad medical cares; therefore, every North Koreans tries to live in the capital city.

It is really hard to determine the real living conditions in North Korea due to the Communist government control; however, many facts and evidence still provides us a basic idea. The major famine that happened in the mid 1990’s (95-99) proved that they have been treated poorly. An estimate from 200,000 to 3.5 million was killed during the famine. In the end, it was with the US, Japan and China’s aid that solved the famine. When it comes to the people, the North Korean government can barely help them.

"North Korea is a totalitarian dictatorship and one of the most restrictive countries in the world. Every aspect of social, political, and economic life is tightly controlled by the state. The regime denies North Koreans all basic rights, subjects tens of thousands of political prisoners to brutal conditions, and maintains a largely isolationist foreign policy." – Freedom house.

Solution

North Korea’s human rights issues have shocked the world. Many people didn’t notice their living conditions because of the strict and secretive North Korean government. Their government has tried to prevent others from knowing about their country; however, over the years, North Korea’s human rights issues have drag attention to others.

After the 1996 North Korea famine that killed more than 2.8 million people, the world became aware of this issue. Their government has spent more than 5 billion US per year on nuclear weapons, and letting the people to starve. Japan and the United States awarded this issue, so they decided to offer their government a deal. The deal was that they would provide energy and food aid if they agreed to stop the nuclear weaponry development. The North Korean government eventually agreed the offer and got all the aid to solve the starvation in the mid 1990’s. South Korea and Japan thought the North Korea’s nuclear era was over; however, they started again in 1997. World leaders criticized Kim Jung-il for breaking the agreement, and denounced him the “evilest man on earth.”

Although the US knew that the North Korean government are not trustworthy after they broke up the agreement in 1996, they feared that the nuclear development will be a threat. In 2002, the US's worst nightmare appeared, the North Korean government announced that they are capable of making nuclear missiles that can launched to Tokyo, Japan and Seoul, South Korea in lest than an hour. US president George W. Bush worried that this can be serious, so he wants to settle down this issue peacefully. The US offered North Korea a deal in which they would provide food, money and energy aid if they will destroy those nuclear missiles. Once again, they took the offer and promised that they would no longer continue on the developing of nuclear weapons. Sadly, three months after the agreement, the US government found out from satellite pictures that they have secretly been building a nuclear missile launching site near the boarder line with China. The US were really upset at North Korea, but they would not want to go to war with them. They knew that it would be dangerous due to the misterious amount of nuclear missiles they have.

Over and over again, the North Korean government has upset many others. Some says that Kim Jung-il is a clever person; he uses these missiles as a threat for food and money aid. Others finds it exhausted from hearing the same news over and over again. According to VOA News, the North Korean government had just announced that they are ready to work on disabling facilities capable of generating material for nuclear weapons. Recently on October 24th, 2007, they said "We expect the actual disablement process to start in early November," he said. "The North has also committed itself to providing a complete and correct declaration of all its nuclear programs within this year." North Korea has much to gain from the United States, Japan and South Korea for economic aid. Although they clearly addresed that they would fully abandoned its nuclear weapon, some still consists that they just wanted to get more economic aid to support its people. Due to the its background, its possible that they would break the agreement once more time.

North Korea's government used these nuclear weapons as a threat to the world especially Japan, South Korea and the US for economic aid. They have offered them many deals from 1996 to today; however, it is still not clear whether or not the North Korean government would fully abandoned those nuclear weapon developments. They spent over US$ 5 billion a year on these development projects, yet they should have used these money on their people. They should provide its people with basic daily needs instead of threatening others for help.

If you are interested in donating money to support North Koreans, please visit here.

Click here to listen to the latest report on North Korea's nuclear abandoning project.

Bibliography

1. DeMargerie, Jean-Pierre. "Food Security: Overview." World Food Programme. 15/8/2007. World Food Programme. 2 Oct 2007 <http://www.wfp.org/country_brief/indexcountry.asp?country=408#top>.

2. Coliver, Sandra. Secrecy and Liberty: National Security, Freedom of Expression . first. Martinus Nijhoff , 1999.

3. "Human Rights in North Korea." Wikipedia . 12/6/07. Wikipedia. 2 Oct 2007

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_North_Korea>.

4. "North Korea." Amnesty International . Amnesty International . Dec 2004

<http://web.amnesty.org/report2005/prk-summary-eng>.

5. Starvation and Regime Survival North Korea Holocaust Now Youtube

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKAcpnUDtms>

6.Liberty in North Korea, Youtube

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBzHCVv5GeQ>

7. Achin, Kurt. "S. Korea Says North Will Start Dismantling Nuclear Programs Next Month." News Voa . 24/10/07. News Voa. 25 Oct 2007

<http://voanews.com/english/2007-10-24-voa8.cfm>.0

8. Broad, William J. "Conservatives slam Rice on North Korea." San Jose Mercury News. San Jose Mercury News. 25 Oct 2007