Hill Brings Up Human Rights in North Korea
by Richardson ~ March 26th, 2007. Filed under: Democracy, Diplomacy, Economics, Engagement, Human Rights.If the requirement to fully disclose all nuclear programs, including highly enriched uranium (HEU), doesn’t cause North Korea to balk during the remainder of the 60 day deadline to the 13 February agreement, then this might:
The U.S. envoy to the North Korea nuclear talks said Monday that Pyongyang needs to meet international standards, especially in human rights, in order to have relations with Washington. “It’s a price of admission to the international community,” Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill said.
[…]
The U.S. envoy urged Pyongyang to embrace the Feb. 13 deal, with a warning that if North Korea rejects it, there is “another path.”
“I think we have enough on the table to make it clear to the North Koreans that with denuclearization, there will be a good day indeed in their history,” Hill said.
“If they turn down this process, we can try another path.”
The U.S. won’t be alone when it decides to try this other path, said Hill.“We will be with a lot of other countries that have seen that we have done all we can do,” he said.
In the Asia Times article, North Korea is hungry for a deal, Don Kirk writes that:
In fact, analysts in Washington and at the United Nations in New York believe that North Korea by now is no longer interested in flaunting its nuclear strength - one reason it signed on to the deal to give up its nukes. A number of reports from North Korea indicate that it had been planning for some time to discontinue activities at the Yongbyon complex but is keeping it open for purposes of negotiations for food, fertilizer and other forms of aid. (emphasis added)
Until Kim Jong-il is ready to pass on power, I doubt that North Korea is ready to give up its nuclear arsenal or allow any level of genuine engagement; neither the military first policy nor the cult likely would survive that, meaning Kim wouldn’t either.
I am open to the possibility that a post-Kim regime, not in need of the cult for legitimacy, might try to actually open up and finally try Chinese-style economic and social reforms (as OFK notes, North Korea will be short of food by 1 million tons - and the regime doesn’t give a damn). But until Kim Jong-il is out of the picture, lecturing North Korea about human rights, while morally justified and correct, is an exercise in futility.
March 26th, 2007 at 8:41 pm
The North is on the ropes and China and South Korea can’t bear to see a collapse that will unleash 20 million North Korean refuges. Thier only solution will be to find a breakthru that does not require the north to give up its nukes while being able to funnel millions to prop up the Kim regime. Cris Hill is barking up the wrong tree and may have given China and South Korea a way out of sure disaster. The North will have to do nothing for thier own survival except for the weapon of total collapse and its consequences. The regime is and always has been economically and morally bankrupt.
March 27th, 2007 at 4:25 pm
For China I think the concern is less about refugees and more about maintenance of a buffer zone. It could be that China would move in to fill a security vacuum should the regime collapse, which of course be extremely unpopular with South Korea and have both security and economic repercussions.
South Korea is worried more about the financial burden, and secondarily about the threat of Chinese intervention. Unfortunately, many South Korean policy makers live in a fantasy world where North Korea can give up nukes, engage, and will, ultimately embrace their southern brothers, etc.
Hill needs to make such statements in order to be perfectly clear, privately and publicly. Again, I don’t think it will matter much with the Kim regime, but all the planning and agreements, even if reached with deceit in mind by Kim, may be enforceable after he. . . departs.
March 27th, 2007 at 5:44 pm
[…] Via Richardson: The U.S. envoy to the North Korea nuclear talks said Monday that Pyongyang needs to meet international standards, especially in human rights, in order to have relations with Washington. “It’s a price of admission to the international community,” Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill said. [Yonhap] […]