The picture says it all. A night photo of the Korean peninsula
from space is worth a thousand words. South Korea teems with light;
it is awash with fluorescence. But the light abruptly stops at the
demilitarized zone. Then utter blackness. North Korea is an abyss
of darkness. It is a desperate veritable black hell.
Draconian would be too kind a word to characterize the regime
currently in power. In North Korea, capital punishment is
stipulated for listening to foreign broadcasts and for committing
slander against the state.
Kim Jong Il, known as the “dear leader,” has led
North Korea to near implosion since assuming power in 1994.
Kim’s nickname, however, belies the true nature of his
vicious rule, just as the “Democratic People’s Republic
of Korea” could hardly be less of a democracy.
When historians look back on the 20th century, the reigns of Kim
Jong Il and his father Kim Il Sung will surely be among its darkest
periods. A salient combination of extreme repression, forced labor
camps, pursuit of nuclear weapons, and utter demolition of human
rights has induced unimaginable suffering in the Korean peninsula.
The stories of survivors and escapees are absolutely
bone-chilling.
First, there is the notorious mass starvation. Literally
millions died in North Korea throughout the 1990s and until today
due to neglectful and cruel policies. Meanwhile, the regime
enriches itself with gluttonous disregard. Each year, Kim Jong Il
spends approximately $700,000 on cognac.
Emaciated survivors are a testament to the corrupt and vile
ruling regime.
Soviet-style gulags scatter North Korea, enslaving hundreds of
thousands. Prisoners are experimented on, tortured, and literally
worked to death. Even those not confined to the camps are slaves.
They have no private rights and are treated as property of the
state.
In the end, North Koreans, like everyone else, vote with their
feet. Courageous men women and children fight tooth and nail to
escape the horrors to which they are confined. They embark on
treacherous journeys to whatever places will take them in.
Though packaged in platitudes about destabilization, it is in
large part a lack of empathy that allows China and some surrounding
countries to refuse these North Korean refugees asylum. Little
humanitarian concern is shown toward their beleaguered neighbors.
The United States, as well, should be aiding North Korean refugees
with every available resource.
As it stands today, North Korea is a far worse humanitarian
crisis than almost anywhere in the world. Sadly, it receives only a
fraction of the attention. Anyone who favored President Bill
Clinton’s dethroning of Slobodan Milosevic in Yugoslavia must
favor regime change in North Korea as well. Milosevic, as it
happens, only killed a fraction of the number of people murdered
under Kim Jong Il.
The primary question must be how best to achieve regime change.
Diplomacy has so far had little success. North Korea’s
belligerency is growing, and its brutality is unceasing.
Invasion is a most harrowing option, as untold numbers may die,
and Seoul almost certainly would be destroyed. It is in part
because of the Clinton administration’s naivete in
negotiating the 1994 agreed framework, that North Korea is now
armed with nuclear weapons.
The United States essentially took the word of a hermit
dictatorship, and has been paying the price ever since. North Korea
secretly cheated on the agreement and today they purportedly have
several nuclear weapons.
Perhaps next time we should think twice about signing a flawed
nuclear agreement with a maniacal, diabolical dictator. At the very
least, up-front dismantling of a nuclear program must be a
mandatory first step, instead of an illusive final step in an
ill-fated and counter-productive sham of a process.
Today, no option ““ even the military option ““ should
be taken off the table. That said, anything and everything must be
done to prevent armed conflict.
Pressuring China to cease providing material support to North
Korea may be the last available diplomatic stick. Similarly, South
Korea and Japan will play key roles in the eventual overthrow of
Kim Jong Il.
With any luck, regime change in North Korea will come about
peacefully and by North Koreans themselves. This long-overdue
liberation cannot come about a moment too soon.
It is essential that the impediments to peace, such as
China’s regional policies, fundamentally change. When they
do, and North Korea finally falls, the world’s worst slave
state will be no more.
Keyes is a third-year Middle Eastern studies student. E-mail
him at dkeyes@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to
viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.