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N. Korea Could Face Prosecution For 'Crimes Against Humanity'
An anonymous reader writes with this news from The Telegraph: "North Korea's leader, Kim Jong-un, has been warned that he could face prosecution for crimes against humanity after a United Nations inquiry accused him of some of the worst human rights abuses since the Second World War. In some of the harshest criticism ever unleashed by the international community against the Pyongyang regime, a UN panel branded it 'a shock to the conscience of humanity.' Michael Kirby, a retired Australian judge who has spent nearly a year taking testimony from victims of the regime, said much of it reminded him of atrocities perpetrated by Nazi Germany and Pol Pot's Cambodia. Yesterday his team published a 374-page report detailing allegations of murder, torture, rape, abductions, enslavement, and starvation, describing North Korea as a dictatorship 'that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world.' In a bid to put pressure on Kim Jong-un, 31, Mr Kirby has taken the unusual step of writing to the North Korean leader to warn him that both he and hundreds of his henchmen could one day face prosecution."
More at the BBC, including a cache of the report.
da!
factor 966971: 966971
Issue a sternly worded warning.
That'll teach him.
And how will they bring him to justice?
I always find it interesting that a regime we like has "officials" and a regime we don't like has "henchmen." I don't mean to imply that North Korea has a good government, just that the use of language itself is supposed to sway you, like the facts are not enough.
We know this has been going on.....why is the UN bothering now and what could they possibly do that they're not doing now?
Good karma sticks to me like velcro on a piece of plexiglass.
Move along, citizen.
These atrocities have been known for a long time, and there are already several good books on the subject (which hopefully some Slashdotters with more time can link). What I don't understand is why this report came out know? Is there some political timing involved in it coming out now as opposed to a decade ago?
North Korea's leader, Kim Jong-un, has been warned that he could face prosecution for crimes against humanity after a United Nations inquiry accused him of some of the worst human rights abuses since the Second World War.
Not as long as China protects him he won't. For various reasons I don't entirely understand China has elected to keep this family in power. (I know they want a buffer from South Korea but there has to be more to it than that) They don't even seem concerned about North Korea possessing nuclear weapons.
If China decides to withdraw support, the North Korean regime will be gone pretty quick most likely. Until then, nothing will happen unless a war starts between North and South Korea.
I don't deny SK doing all that, but what about Guantanamo Bay Summer Camp? ;)
It goes to show how irrelevant and inept the UN is. Since it has no Army or Navy, it can't enforce anything and expects member nations to toe the line. Sure, we all know the PRK is a repressive regime and the leadership is corrupt and brutal but they have a powerful ally with a permanent seat on the Security Council, meaning that nothing will ultimately come of trying to rein in Pyongyang or force the regime to collapse. This is a nation that has no problems starving its own people and putting them unwavering cruelty to make their dreams come true. Do you think they care what the UN says?
If you want to bring about change to the PRK, embargo all trade with the PRK. This means China will have to stop trading and propping them up. Stop their arms trading business by seizing cargo wherever possible. Sanction any trading partners who still continue to do business with them.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
From their point of view, people are nothing but cogs in their machinery of state to be used and abused as necessary to keep the machinery turning. A person has no more value to them than a horse or a cow...maybe even less. Moreover, this is not new. The North Koreans were doing the same thing to pows during the Korean War, many of who never returned. They invented 'brainwashing' which was basically continuous torture until the target was mentally broken. They are still holding the USS Pueblo that they illegally seized from the US Navy in 1968. The captain of the Pueblo provided graphic descriptions of the torture he witnessed while held in captivity. President Bush termed them part of the 'Axis of Evil.' They recently threatened us with thermonuclear devastation and have repeatedly launched missiles over international waters. The UN is still technically at war with the North Koreans. The latest UN report on atrocities is just another in a mountain of paper describing how wicked people do wicked things.
We're going to go after Kim Jong A**hole just like the world is going after Bashar Al Assad (another a**hole)... it's not going to happen. Brutal dictators would rather see their whole ship sink (the country) rather then let power slip from their fingers and conversly the world would rather see these attrocities then risk a large scale war. It's a really pathetic lowest common denominator.
Wait Wait!!! Isreal is going to go to war with North Korea to stop these attrocities because the jews know the awful consequences of the holocaust right? I thought the Jewish state was never going let another holocaust happen.
When will be US turn? Basically stripping the entire mankind of a basic human right according with the UN should worth something. Droning thousands of people in a lot of countries, including schools, weddings, funerals, rescuers or just being close enough to the wrong phone should be pretty bad too. And kidnapping, jailing, and torturing people (even minors) in Guantanamo is worth mentioning too. And i bet that that don't even qualifies as the tip of the iceberg.
This is the same organization that took 10 friggin years to define the term "genocide" as it applied to the Rwandan massacres that took place unimpeded for a decade.
So...which nations will ante up to remove KJ-u from NK to stand trial?
Sig Follows: "Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself." -- Mark Twain
Are they also going to be prosecuted for all their drone killings and spying and guantanamos? I'm just wondering...
My grandma was more threatening than the United Nations. This is nothing more than a joke.
we could just wait for good old usofa to go there and democratize the hell out of them...
Z
I'm trying to get modded "Interesting Flamebait Informative and Insightful Redundant Troll" *-* Please Help *-*
Let the country without sin cast the first stone. US? Can you spell Guantanamo, napalm? UK? Ask Gandhi. Etc.
I'm sure Kim Jong-un is just quivering in his boots at this "strongly worded condemnation" by the UN. After all, the UN has such a strong record of following up such condemnations with action...
What's pathetic about this is such UN declarations just serve to reinforce what an absolute joke the whole organization is. The UN has no power whatsoever to do anything to North Korea and Dear Leader knows this.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Because they'll rank the countries in the world from total psychos to decent governments and find that the decent government pool is unsurprisingly empty.
I'm not denying that America hasn't been a total asshat about a lot of things. Only an idiot would deny that the US hasn't fucked up a lot in its history. But, Americans are more middle of the road fuck ups when you stack us against most other respected countries. Americans look like saints when you stack us up against countries like North Korea.
If only they had huge oil reserves, then those poor people would have a chance of being rescued.
Weapons of mass destruction like Iraq supposedly had? - check.
Brutal dictator like Iraq? - check.
Oil? - Nope.
from such an horrific Wrist-Slapping!
The UN has no sovereign rights over North Korea. International prosecution is made possible by treaty and cannot be retroactive. Some of the staff at the UN need a lesson on their legal status. Give them a short version, "its a talking shop...that has limited control granted through treaties with members". Anything outside of that is just a protection racket by a consortium of mafias from veto wielding nations in the Security Council.
Strongly condemning their vile behavior!
It's been a while since North Korea invaded anyone though, and they haven't used chemical weapons against large segments of their population (because their control is tight enough they haven't had to).
And it's been worse under Pol Pot in his country than under the current leader in NK.
Ergo, nothing to see!
Of course, to those who the above arguments are "killer arguments" against USA being a bad guy or for climate change being unproven, the above "arguments" do not hold against a regime that is anti-USA and not capitalist.
Other places are worse, and if you don't live there, you have no right to complain (and, as a lovely little fork, if you DO live there, then you shouldn't complain, you should leave) only work in defending The Land Of The Free.
At least NK doesn't claim to be the leader of the free world.
IMO the path to taking down North Korea is via China.
North Korea only exists due to the largesse of China.
If the world really cared, China would be publicly shamed everywhere on the planet - Pictures of starving Koreans in front of every embassy, consulate and trade mission. Protests in front of the offices of every state-run businesses - Huawei, Lenovo, the lot.
Basically deeply embarrass China into realizing propping up this criminal state isn't worth it - Babies are being drowned? China's fault. If / when they let NK go, it will tumble down like a house of cards.
It is not hard to understand. It is not that China "wants to keep DPRK in power". Rather, it is China's view that it is no one's business outside the DPRK how the DPRK conducts it's affairs. This is not new or unique, it is how basically all of China's foreign-policy doctrine - keep your nose out of other countrie's business.
China never wants to be involved in other countries' problems nor do they seek to impose their will on other countries - you don't see China out trying to spread their own unique brand of communist/capitalism elsewhere do you? That's because they don't - China keeps to themselves, for good or bad.
It is hard for people in the West to believe this because in the West foreign policy is essentially *ALL ABOUT* spreading your influence and trying to spread democracy. China has no interest in any of this.
Their words are backed by the power of Nuclear Weapons!
Another day, another crude piece of Team Obama propaganda promoted by the owners of Slashdot.
The BBC promoted the use of torture, day-and-night, on every type of program. after 9/11. The upper management of the BBC was working with Alan Dershowitz, prominent American zionist extremist, who used he free access to the New York Times and Murdoch's outlets, to demand the same. The BBC and Alan Dershowitz got their wish, and the USA moved to openly use torture all across the Earth.
Why does Slashdot and the BBC attack Korea? Well, firstly, lets disregard the work of the bent, extremist Australian 'judge'. There's a good reason Team Obama used an Australian for their propaganda. Australian military forces have been responsible for the worst atrocities seen since WW2 in all the various Asian conflicts they have involved themselves in. Australian Special Forces are known to be responsible for some of the worst acts of rape, torture and mass murder in Tony Blair's battlegrounds of Iraq and Afghanistan. The official Australian treatment of the original population of Australia, well into the second half of the 20th Century (and continuing today) would make the original Nazis blush.
The British use of bent judges to sell propaganda in their 'reports' has been happening for more than one century. Every atrocity carried out by the British army in Northern Ireland during the 'troubles', for instance, was declared to have not happened in enquires held by British judges (the truth only came out when peace was finally made between the IRA and the British government). When Israel carried out (yet another) Holocaust in Gaza, Blair appointed a Jewish South African judge, who not surprisingly said in his report that no crime is every committed when Jews mass murder 'sub-Humans'.
So, what is the real deal with North Korea? Not what you think. The West is engaging in a desperate attempt to prevent North and South Korea from reunifying. The removal of US forces from the South would have the same effect as the removal of Soviet support for East Germany. In the 20th Century, the same vile propagandists that attack North Korea told you betas that East and West Germany would never reunify, and even if the process started, it would take decades. They lied to you with the EXACT same forms of propaganda used to attack North Korea, and you bought the lies. And the reason re-unification mustn't happen? Japan. Japan will not tolerate Korea becoming more powerful that itself, and Japan would immediately declare war on a re-unifying Korea, before the South had chance to exploit the military technologies of the North.
PS where is Slashdot's coverage of Obama's Middle East allies all introducing recent laws describing any and all pro-democracy or pro-Human Rights activity as 'TERRORISM'? A woman who drives a car in Saudi Arabia can now be arrested and tried as a 'terrorist'. But Israel and its Siamese-twin Saudi Arabia, are the closest of partners with the USA, and that means the owners of Slashdot will only act to lionise these two depraved, evil states, and work to propagate whatever agendas they are currently engaged in.
Oh c'mon, go along with the "oil" troll. Because the US is obviously rolling in Iraqi and Afghanistan oil.
How about prosecuting the past few and current US administrations sorry "regimes"?
shut it
North Korea is a shithole, to be certain, but it seems strange to me to only now but any consideration into whether or not they are committing crimes against humanity. They've been doing this shit for decades and absolutely nothing has been done to them, so if any government would only now consider war with them for crimes against humanity, I would be under the assumption that there is a lot more to the story. Maybe former Dear Leader was providing someone in power with something valuable but now that he's gone all bets are off. Or maybe Kim Jong Un fucked with the wrong person. Or maybe North Korea is really up to some horrible shit unlike we've seen before but isn't yet widely announced. Who knows.
Short and to the point, what was the huge delay here? You don't just let torture, murder, rape, starvation, and worse, go on for decades and pretend it's OK, then suddenly decide "Hey, that's wrong and we're going to come at you, bro!"
it iz!
Yea, and somehow we stayed out of Venezuela which has/had lots of oil and was in our neck of the woods.. If the goal *was* oil, why did we give Kuwait, and Iraq back their countries? Oh wait... Yea it was Bush exacting revenge for threatening his papa...
Tired, old arguments from people who have preconceived notions they need to prove. They will just Keep drinking the blue kool-aid, and it's a waste of time to argue.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
China has indicated it will block the world court from initiating a case. Even if it goes though, and various actors are found guitly in absentia, there's nothing they can do but send a stern letter to the NK ambassador asking for these people to be turned over. Since those are the people running the country and its military, we all know that's not going to happen. Unfortunately, the UN really has no teeth in cases like this.
For the past few decades they were Ill-educated and now they are Un-educated.
Isn't this kind of like warning a serial killer to not kill again because he might be prosecuted if he does? Seriously, why would KimCo be willing to believe that by not committing any more crimes they'd be safe from prosecution? Warning them to try and minimize future crimes is fine, just don't expect it to work on them. Other Kim wannabees might possibly pay attention to it, however. But even that would work a lot better if KimCo were actually prosecuted.
This is not news. Everyone knows North Korea is the most oppressive regime in the world and that there have been families locked in concentration camps for generations. The only thing is no country wants to do anything about it for fear of pissing of China and Russia and starting World War 3.
..an education in a tolerance driven, international school in Switzerland. Nazis. Just kidding.
Except for a goodly chunk of central Africa. #FTFY
Pot Kettle Black.
End of story.
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
Kim Jong-un screwed over the Chinese for being Protectionist, and The Dictator of Korth Korea threw his uncle to the wolfs(Dogs)
Not that I necessarily agree with the argument that the two Iraq wars were fought over oil, but...
America is not interested in the countries; they are interested in the oil. Imperialism is expensive; running a country is costly in men and money. The locals dislike being under a foreign regime, and your own people stand out as targets.
Better to allow the locals to rule themselves, but set up the situation so their only real option is to sell you the local resources. That way you get the benefit of harvesting the valuables without the vast expenditures necessary to hold a hostile people. Better still, your own people are less exposed, as they are not the only target of local aggression (that's why let the locals rule themselves; nobody likes a politician, even if he is a neighbor).
Just because America allowed the Iraqis (and Kuwaitis) self-rule in no way proves that their aggressions in the Persian Gulf were /not/ about ensuring itself a continued supply of petrochemicals.
It seems to me that the effect of the warning is to prevent any sort of change from taking place. I mean, if people warn you that you will be prosecuted for crimes against humanity, you are going to clamp down harder on dissidents to keep that from happening, wouldn't you? You wouldn't go down without a fight.
Just because America allowed the Iraqis (and Kuwaitis) self-rule in no way proves that their aggressions in the Persian Gulf were /not/ about ensuring itself a continued supply of petrochemicals.
But the fact that when the government of Iraq asked us to leave, we did, does indicate that access to oil isn't the primary goal. It is at least secondary if not lower on the list or you just continue to occupy the country.
The USA has a LONG history of not wanting to be an imperial power. We could have been. Lord knows we conquered enough territory to control more than half of the world if that was our goal. The same with oil. We've captured and returned to it's previous owners much of the world's oil supply. If our primary goal was to obtain oil, we are pretty stupid to give it back all the time.
But it does seem that the USA tends to get involved in conflict that surrounds the world's supply of Oil more often than other areas. A tendency that I can only explain by agreeing that oil is a consideration, as is the free flow of it around the world. But I would argue that this has accrued to the overall benefit for all of the world. We could have just taken it and hauled it home, but over and over we haven't.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
An international court has about just as much legitimacy as a courtroom role-play done by high-school students. You see, there is this little thing called sovereignty. Until you send an army in to conquer the land, then you don't have jurisdiction.
Why not call the Ruwandans and see how that UN thing worked out for them?
So many people here obviously haven't learned anything new about the NK situation in the last 10 yeears, or even the last 5.
Basically any real "stability" in the country died with Kim Jong-il. It probably collapsed much earlier, though that gets harder to pin down the further you go back. The key point, though, is what once was a more-or-less unified group of fanatics has slowly come to realize that there's another world out there, and the reality of what their leaders are has become harder and harder to ignore.
Doubt this? Think there's still some kind of politics or ideology at work here, making NK the same "annoyance" they were 10 - or even 5 - years ago? Then watch this brave NK woman publicly confront a soldier, shame him, and chase him off .
A handful of years ago that would have been suicidal - or worse.
Oh, and China? The politics of the past doesn't matter. What they know now is that there are a VERY large number of people - mostly decent people, most likely - that have lived their whole lives in what was, more or less, a cult. And they know that there is a very real risk that those "[sometimes former] cult members" could become "starving refugees" almost overnight.
Even if they wanted to, that's a crisis on a scale not even China can sweep under a rug. They are facing the possiblity of being neighbors to a country with a small number of fanatics/old-guard that no longer have real power (enough to be a problem, though), a MASSIVE numbre of people who really need some sort of deprogramming/cult-exit-councelor, and some unknown mix of economic assistance, knowledge assistance/guidance, etc. If they end up with an incredible amount of luck, the people of NK might just be able to so they can bootstrap their country into something aproaching sustainable.
I suspect that China, more than anything, wishes they could simply get rid of this mess.
Ce n'est pas une signature automatique.
No, it's China's view that the DPRK's internal affairs are none of its business until China feels that the DPRK is no longer worth propping up. China is out for China's interest, and they are more than happy to interfere when it's in their national interest, no different than any other major global power. They may not currently have the force projection capabilities that other nations had, but just the sheer number of weapons they've shipped during the PRC's short history to pro-Chinese insurgencies and governments shows that they are not above this game. Perhaps the most blatant was the punitive campaign they launched against Vietnam in 1979, leaving tens of thousands of people dead and "scorched earth" in the northern half of Vietnam, all because the Vietnamese had the audacity to stop the massacres of the pro-PRC Khmer Rouge.
Yet for now, as much of a headache that the DPRK is for China, they put up with them because all of the other options are much less desirable for China (anarchy from regime collapse, war on its frontier, millions of refugees).
Apparently he is still the president of norks: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
In this day and age, there is no need to go to war with an entire nation to remove in inhumane and oppressive regime. ... whatever it takes. Just take them down quietly, one at a time, no press statements, warnings or threats.
Go to war with the leaders and only the leaders. The U.N. needs a tactical and surgical response. Use intelligence, snipers, spies, drones, DNA biological agents, laser-equipped frogs,
They'll eventually lose their nerve.
i know Michael Kirby in real life and let me tell you his pockets got bigger #hint hint#
never trust a gay guy.
That's the primary reason N. Korea has been allowed to remain the despotic little regime. I don't know what they think has changed.
I have no doubt that the North Korean government is repressive, murderous and generally not nice guys. However, whenever someone uses the phrase "crime against humanity," I wonder exactly how many humans are in a humanity. Do the Russian and Chinese governments manage to come in just under the limit, while North Korea goes over? That seems extremely unlikely, given the relative populations of those countries. Maybe it's defined by a fraction: a government can repress up to half of its citizens and just be seen as somewhat evil, but 51% becomes a crime against humanity?
Please tell me the browser cache is screwing with me. Please tell me that my wife wants to have sex more often ( ok that isn't going to happen, I have a 12 and 15 year old) Do we really have Slashdot.org back?
Very interesting post, and I wholeheartedly agree with the China part, but I have to say the instability of the regime is significantly overplayed. The whole video thing is being used to construct a Western fairy tale.
Somehow it is being made as a sign of rebellion, of cracks in the system, imminent collapse. True, the 'army first' ideology is a very strong pillar of the DPRK regime, and of course it is uncommon to see people being uncooperative with army officials. But that is just ideology. Merely the means to keep the masses compliant with authority.
But authority has many forms. As in every corrupt regime the currency of North Korea is loyalty. Every North Korean has a pin on their chest; of Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il, or Kim Jong-un. Sometimes a combination of them. These pins have to be earned, they are passed within the family, and they are very clear signs of allegiance. Shiny new pins means a well-connected person enjoying political favour. Whoever this woman is she has a vehicle, whereas most people use bicycles or ox-carts (without oxen, unfortunately). She has fuel to run it. We take these trivial things for granted, but in North Korea this means a lot. She definitely has the right combination of pins on her chest.
The army uniform shows no pins, they are their own faction. Ordinarily the army uses no vehicles, of course, because they have no fuel to spare. The DPRK army is proud of their wood-fueled trucks. Its like a steam locomotive, but stupider. Party officials drive around the wide Pyongyang boulevards in Mercedes-Benz though. Their relatives can have trucks. And can impose the authority of the ruling elite on hapless schmucks like the soldier on the video.
So, nothing really new to see there, just the firm grasp of the ruling elite on the rest of North Korean society. There must be some fanatics, but regular people don't believe all that ideology crap anymore, if they ever did. There is too much information coming in from the South. Still, everyone knows they are expected to act as if they did believe it. And for the sake of their family and future prospects, they do. They remain under control, and things stay exactly the same as 5, 10, 50 years ago. A less attractive story, but truth usually is.
How long until a similar letter is sent to GWB? Maybe make it a form letter, more efficient that way.
The time to have done something about North Korea was before they acquired nuclear weaponry. Now they're exploiting their nuclear impunity to extort forgien aid to keep their teetering at the edge regieme going.
To go to war with N.Korea would immediately result in war with China, essentially starting another world war and creating additional trade barriers and prices through the roof and would eventually result in a global financial Crisis. Is it worth it?
China should usurp them. It would only take about a week.
it's not about oil per se, but ensuring the trade of oil in us dollars... ala petrodollar
lose the petrodollar and you lose reserve currency status and you get massive inflation as the rest of the world buys up anything and everything in the usa and floods the country with paper that is no longer required for reserves to trade oil
I think there's a slight misscommunication here (probably on my part).
The instability in NK isn't only from a change in attitude, though that HAS been significant in recent years. The instability comes from the fact that it's getting harder and harder to ignore the *starving population* and *rapidly failing "industry"*. Even the strongest True Believer in the Kim family regime has to be doing an increasinly absurd amount of justification. The fact that some (still VERY small, but growing) portion of the population has started to look outside that carefully controlled box is a byproduct of this decay. There are many parts of NK that are really only holding together by the thinest of threads, and that imbalance is harder to support when you run out of natural resources and productiivty to pillage.
Hence the problem for China: if NK went full rebellion, tthat would sugest there's a certain critical mass of people within NK that could handle stuff like rebuilding their infrastructure, at least in principle. After the dust settles, go in with some UN people to offer a bit of financial or industrial help while they bootstarp. As bad as revolutions are, that situation at least has a "reasonable" chance at a stable, not-horribly-expensive-for-China outcome.
Unfortunately, as you note, there ISN'T enough support for a traditional rebellion. It's a big change in attitude for NK, but you can't erase that much indoctroination overnight. They likely will need a nation's worht of "deprogrammers"/exit-councelers or somesuch, which is *not* something China (or anybody) really wants to be suck providing.
Ce n'est pas une signature automatique.
To be fair, British leaders had seen World War 1 and really wanted to appease Hitler; (politicians who are former soldiers are the best diplomats, which explains the 'non-service' of George W. Bush and his 'Bring it on" statements, followed by the other side 'bringing it on' while George was safe behind the White House walls). The politicians would accept Hitlers new goalposts and try to settle on that, and Hitler would keep moving them more and more in his favour. With this, the Fat Kid(tm) has a clear idea of what people outside his country think of what he is doing inside his country. I think the Fat Kid(tm) has a posse just like Justin Bieber, and never hears the truth. His 'yes men' coddle and cuddle and never say no. His uncle (China's guy in the hermit kingdom) said 'NO', and found himself disowned, airbrushed out of photos, and 'accidentally killed' after being hit with about 24500 rounds of ammunition. That the UN is calling a spade a spade spells out exactly how we feel about the DPRK, puts China on notice about their southern neighbour (China is the only country that backstops the hermit kingdom, although the Fat Kid(tm) 'accidentally killed' their guy). Its more a matter of 'saving face' that China still supports the Fat Kid(tm). They wanted (via their guy) to influence the Fat Kid(tm) to start reforms (at least economic reforms, more food for people, less 2 million man army). The Fat Kid(tm) gave a reply (the 'accidental killing' of his uncle, China's guy).
maybe another "red line" to cross so our weak prez can back down again