‘Crimes Against Humanity:’ DLA Piper’s Report Is the Ultimate Must-Read on North Korean Human Rights

You may recall my recent post on the New York Times Op-Ed by Vaclav Havel, Elie Wiesel, and Kjell Magne Bondevik to treat the North Korean crisis as a human rights issue.   One of the founding beliefs that inspired me to  start OFK is that the issues are inseparable.  Only a regime with so little regard for human life and dignity would allow its people to starve by the millions and divert those resources to weapons of mass murder.  That very decision — the lethal consequences of those warped priorities — does much to tell us why North Korea must be disarmed.  The regime will not reform, and will not cease to threaten and commit mass murder  at any price.  It must be removed from power.  I advocate simultaneiously  undermining the regime’s economy and its political control, up to and including the provision of arms at an appropriate time.   I don’t advocate a strike by outside powers except as an absolute last resort, at the point when  that becomes  less dangerous than any other option, including inaction (of course, I can’t judge when that point comes without knowing more than our own CIA probably knows).   

The option that is starting to gain currency among liberals like Havel and Wiesel is U.N. action.  First, I want to stress the manifold advantages over the prevailing “Three Monkeys” policy.  But I’ve made no secret of the fact that I have little use for the U.N. or its new General Secretary, who built  the latter half of his  career on selling out the North Korean people to their oppressors.   The U.N. can’t define or apply consistent standards, is corrupt, and has an almost interrupted record of failure as executor of its own policies.  Its failures on the issue of North Korean human rights, refugees, and food aid  are some of the best examples that comes to mind.  That’s why although Havel in particular is one of my heroes,  I  reacted to  the op-ed’s  call  for a non-binding resolution with skepticism,  notwithstanding the truth, power, and authority  behind  its words.  Yes, it would bring much-needed attention to the issue, which is an important first step, but nothing more.  Without concrete actions to weaken the regime, empower  the people, and give them a fighting chance in the unilateral war that is being waged against them, the slow-motion massacre will go on in the killing fields of North Hamgyeong.

But these three great men did something else —  they commissioned an extensive report on North Korean human rights.  I’ve now had the chance to read parts of it, and it is exceptionally good.  The U.N. itself should have written this report  a decade ago, but never would.  Its writing is both clear and precise, and it carefully cites  respected scholars, sources, and authorities.  Humanity owes a debt to the law firm of DLA Piper for  allowing a dozen of its lawyers write that report, pro bono.  If nothing else, read it in sections and use it as a reference.  Here is one graf on a particular topic that has gravely concerned me for a few years now — the selective famine.

The North Korean famine is often described as happening in slow motion.  The description emphasizes that the famine could and should have been anticipated by the government. It is equally apt to note that the description implies the government ignored or consciously refused to take steps to prevent the catastrophe, or to end it once it was under way, for instance by rapidly seeking external food supplies. This famine did not result from a sudden natural disaster; it was inflicted by the state on its own people.   

….

While the cutoff in Chinese aid was the immediate trigger for the famine that followed, it did not cause the famine. Before Chinese aid ended, North Korean food production was in a steady decline; the disaster that followed was largely the result of te government’s failure to respond to this decline.  Even the catastrophic flooding that occurred in the second half of 1995 and again in 1996 did not cause the famine. According to WFP estimates, the country was already facing a food deficit at the time the floods hit.  The famine in the mid-1990s was preceded by several years of food shortages. Available data suggests that death rates began to increase in 1993 and 1994, thus marking the famine’s beginning.  In 1994, official North Korean broadcasts admitted that widespread hunger existed, though the government was not forthcoming about the scope of the disaster.  In May 1995, the government finally acknowledged food shortages and requested assistance from Japan.  As Haggard and Noland conclude, the famine cannot be blamed on the floods or on the loss of aid from the Soviet Union and China. Rather, it must be blamed on government actions and inactions [….]

That’s on page 19, and it’s followed by a quote from Marcus Noland and Stephen Haggard.  I edited about a dozen footnotes from this quotation  alone.  It then talks about the regime’s misuse of foreign aid, something that we must not allow to happen again the next time famine strikes (which could be this winter).

“¢ The government refused to allow international organizations, such as the WFP and NGOs, to set up independent, transparent distribution networks that could ensure the nondiscriminatory distribution of food to all parts of the country and to all members of society on a fair basis according to need. Instead, foreign aid organizations were required to use the PDS network controlled by government and party officials, subjecting the aid to pressures to reallocate and redistribute it and to corruption and theft. The opportunities for “leakage” and diversion were significant.

“¢ In addition to hindering the fair distribution of aid, the government refused to allow aid to reach many counties, for reasons that are not yet understood. Even today, aid workers are prohibited from visiting 42 of 203 counties in the country. WFP has been unwilling to provide food aid to those counties without the transparency and monitoring of distribution that it demands of all food aid recipients.

How the government used that savings is no suprise to readers here, but it needs to be repeated until the Human Rights Industry and the U.N. internalize it.

[ ]  Pyongyang took advantage of the foreign aid to divert government revenue away from food assistance and used the savings to fund the government’s other priorities, such as military weapons programs.  As aid began arriving during the famine, North Korea reduced its food imports in amanner disproportionate to the decline in other imports; once the economy was stabilized and began to recover, overall imports began to increase, but Pyongyang kept food imports at their lower levels.  As one illustration, as it was cutting its purchases of food imports in 1999, the North Korean government bought 40 Mig-21 fighters and eight military helicopters from Kazakhstan.  Further, the government continued to pursue its expensive nuclear programs during the famine, using resources that should have been used to feed its people. Simply put, even at the height of the famine, the government demonstrated that it prioritizes its military over the basic survival needs of its population.

Finally, the report goes beyond the NYT op-ed’s call for a non-binding resolution:

Should North Korea fail to comply with a Chapter VI resolution, the Security Council should consider adopting a binding resolution under Chapter VII.

Chapter VII potentially authorizes the use of force.  Now, I have some problems with the “duty to protect” concept,  mainly because it will end up suffering the fate of everything else  entrusted to the U.N.  I also think that effective international action to enforce the “duty to protect” North Koreans is unlikely in the extreme.  I would much prefer  an  approach based on individual rights, such as the right of genocide or democide victims to defend themselves.  Unless someone makes the hard choice to empower the people with knowledge, training, and (after an underground political  movement takes root) arms, we are back to praying for a coup, the consequences of which are no less likely to be civil war and warlordism.

One day, this will be Prosecution Exhibit Number 1 in Kim Jong Il’s trial.