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The publishing of a UN report on the human rights abuses by the North Korean state on its own people would be shocking if it wasn't so expected.

Testimony given to the panel from defectors included an account of a woman forced to drown her own baby, children imprisoned from birth and starved, and families tortured for watching a foreign soap opera.

thats just the tip of the iceberg going by some of the interviews that I have listened to today.

North Korea is clearly deeply, deeply broken and it will probably be the next generation's holocaust but what can be done about it? Its a nuclear power so military force would be a really bad idea, diplomacy won't work as it so insular and it has China's backing, its populace is so downtrodden that a rebellion is extremely unlikely. I just can't see a way of resolving this horrible situation.

I find it depressing that such a totalitarian state is allowed to 'thrive' so soon after WWII.

 Palindrome wrote:
I find it depressing that such a totalitarian state is allowed to 'thrive' so soon after WWII.

Thrive isn't the word I'd use to describe NK, it does manage to limp along thanks to the support of the Chinese who use it as a buffer for their border. So to answer your question about what is to be done with NK I believe the short answer is "Nothing", at least until China decides it has grown weary of its neighbour.

Hence the 'thrive'.

I doubt that even China has the power to do much with NK. If china withdrew its support, or more importantly its trade, all that would mean is that the NK populace would suffer even more.

There is nothing "thriving" about N. Korea.

And quiet frankly what can we do about it? That regime will not be removed short of military action, and as someone who spent 4 years training to fight that war... feth that noise. I want no part of it.

And that doesn't even touch what happens afterwards. Even a clean reintegration would still destroy S. Korea. Your talking bringing a nation that wishes it was third world and overnight cojoining it to a first world nation. Millions of people who have less then a kindergarten level education. Folks who have absolutely no workable skills beyond farming whatever meager scratch they've been able to survive on. It would devastate the South, and honestly I feel they really don't want any part of it.

N. Korea is one of those sad chapters of this world that there is really nothing we can do. All we can do is hope that one day its people will be able to stand up and say enough is enough.

Its a safe bet for the UN to release such a report. A coalition won't form to take on this part of the axis of evil and the NK's will just carry on but with even more propaganda to use on the indoctrinated masses.

Nothing will happen and I suspect nothing will be the watchword for quite sometime.

 Palindrome wrote:
Hence the 'thrive'.

I doubt that even China has the power to do much with NK.

China gives a feth ton of food to NK.

The have power over NK.

It's the Chinese that prevent much being done.

 whembly wrote:

The have power over NK.

Yes they do, but not enough to force NK to change its ways.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
It's the Chinese that prevent much being done.

Because it serves their purpose to have a madman with nukes drawing attention away from them.

 Palindrome wrote:

 whembly wrote:

The have power over NK.

Yes they do, but not enough to force NK to change its ways.

They can cut of food and economic support in a heartbeat, remove any political cover on a whim, and it's military is more numerous, better lead, better trained, and better equipped. China has plenty of power over NK. But it is not currently in their interests to do anything about it.

 djones520 wrote:

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
It's the Chinese that prevent much being done.

Because it serves their purpose to have a madman with nukes drawing attention away from them.

^This,

That's the reason why.

China isn't exactly the humanitarian regime as the rest of the world would like them to be... but, they're fething saints compared to NK.

A fair few of my students are South Korean, and it's interesting as hell to talk to them about this. Their main concern is for their families (most are from Seoul) if war breaks out again. You can see them getting a lot more tense each time they consider going home for holidays.

Lovely students, the lot of them. Hard working, thoughtful, helpful and polite.

China wants the secure border that NK represent in its current form from western "influence". NK over time. Going to collapse but in its death throes many countries will be blamed for not "helping" the people.

I could imagine that any direct action against North Korea would see horrific casualties to the downtrodden populace.

China holds the key to setting these people free. They should be pressing harder on the Leadership and Military, but as already pointed out it suits them to have NK on their border and on their side.

If NK collapses of it's own accord I'd expect a lot of it's nuclear materials to be acquired by unfriendly sources.

The fact that a cult of personality was allowed to fester in the North for so long is pretty shameful.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

They can cut of food and economic support in a heartbeat, remove any political cover on a whim, and it's military is more numerous, better lead, better trained, and better equipped.

And what would that actually do other than pile even more suffering on the NK populace? A military 'solution' is anything but as long as NK has a nuclear arsenal.

A change in Chinese attitudes would be very welcome but by itself its not a real solution.

 djones520 wrote:

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
It's the Chinese that prevent much being done.

Because it serves their purpose to have a madman with nukes drawing attention away from them.

They're not fond of NK waving nuclear weapons around. But they see any western involvement as interference as being on their patch, being a neighbouring Asian country. They just don't like it. China isn't so different in some thinking to North Korea, try talking about Tiananmen Square in public and see how well it goes down with police.

I've a feeling China will at the point of total collapse step in and assume the of government and make it like it their "territory" like Puerto Rico, Guam, and some Carribean Islands. Why spend money on shoring up defensive positions on China/NK border while NK southern border with South Korea is shored up with a whole slew of different type of positions and the Injem(?) River in the western corridger.

Sadly i think nothing should be done with them for now. A war would hurt all the countries involved. I feel really bad for the people that live there, hopefully their government digs their own grave quickly.

I was just about to start a post on this topic, and saw that one already existed.

As someone who lived in Korea (the South!) for a few years, continues to travel there, has Korean friends and a great interest and respect for their culture and history, I have to say I find this latest news both heartbreaking but also completely un-surprising.

It's a good question; what is to be done? Sanctions are a waste of time, it is the poor rather than the ruling elite that suffer, and the government will use it to motivate anti-Western sentiment.

Allow it to continue, and hope that a revolution takes place from within NK? A few years ago, my great hope after the death of Kim Jong Il was that the country would have its 'night of the long knives'. A number of key ministers and military heads would disappear (including the 'dear leader'), a group of military heads would take over. Some dialogue would then begin with both China, South Korea and the rest of the world. The door would open just a crack.. that is all it would need, money, ideas and basic freedoms of thought and expression would start to colour the country, a slow improvement would come over many years. Sadly, the night of the long knives has come, but it is the wrong people that stand as victors. Sadly, I find this outcome unlikely for the immediate future, less likely as time goes on.

Military action? I find it incredible (and also horrifying) that this was seriously tabled as a recommendation by senior Hawks in the Bush administration some years ago. It would be insanity. At the very least hundreds of thousands dead, the modern metropolis of Seoul reduced to burning rubble even as the North would (eventually) be conquered. This option would at least give mean that the country would, quite literally, be built up from nothing again. Although, I don't think we would ever be forgiven. Fortunately senior US military dismissed the idea as untenable, although the possibility of an accident as a precursor to war remains.

Would it be possible to destroy the NK senior leadership in a single military strike? I'm sure China has the technology and the means.. but would obviously not do such a thing predicated on human suffering, unless it felt pressured by an increasingly belligerent NK and the threat of nuclear war on the peninsula.

As far as I'm concerned, the only option is for China to take a lead. With the recent death (by artillery) of the chief NK liaison to China, there was a severing of ties for the first time in years, and another delegation of senior diplomats recently travelled to Pyongyang. According to some friends who are in the region, and some SK press, there is the feeling that China is starting to lose a little patience with its wayward neighbour. China is starting to step up as a player in international politics, beyond its role as economic power. Closer trade ties with the West, with Australia, a gradual movement away from controlled economies and towards greater civil liberties. It is a gradual, and slow, process but I think the country is starting to become a more respected (rather than disparaged) member on the world stage. I think perhaps now that it is starting to realise it has some responsibility for the destiny of NK and its people, and I wonder (and also hope) that steps will be taken to try and bring influence to bear on NK.

The alternative, of the continuing human suffering and possibility of war, I find unconscionable. When I see how affluent SK has become, the potential there (when their deranged, archaic despotism of a leadership has been stripped away) is plain to see, and the continued existence of the NK state, in its current form, is most likely one of the greatest crimes against humanity that currently exists.

It's so bizarre, just last night a friend and I watched a documentary by PBS on NK. Showed footage of emaciated children picking things off the ground to eat, and lots of other malnourished people just wandering around listless and aloof. Obviously it was selected footage, but the people were in a marketplace-like area. If this is how it is in some totally public areas, imagine where the really bad areas are, and inside the detention camps. I saw smuggled footage of inside the camps of men standing nude inside thin vats of what are allegedly cells full of tannins for some kind of harsh chemical - no doubt performing some sort of extremely unsafe labor. It must be utter horror and misery inside the camps.

 Palindrome wrote:
And what would that actually do other than pile even more suffering on the NK populace? A military 'solution' is anything but as long as NK has a nuclear arsenal.

A change in Chinese attitudes would be very welcome but by itself its not a real solution.

I'm interested in hearing what you consider to be a real solution to NK on China's part.

If there was only was a report that huge amounts of oil/gas/rare metals or uranium were found in NK then they would ride to the aid of the NK people!

 Palindrome wrote:


And what would that actually do other than pile even more suffering on the NK populace?

In the same way you put down an injured animal to prevent further suffering.

What is better?

A few years of total famine and ruin leading to a few million deaths followed by reorganization and modernization OR hundreds of years of slightly less pain and suffering at the hand of their own leaders?

its a gakky situation all around, so we choose the least gakky solution, which unfortunately will never happen.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:
Thrive isn't the word I'd use to describe NK, it does manage to limp along thanks to the support of the Chinese who use it as a buffer for their border. So to answer your question about what is to be done with NK I believe the short answer is "Nothing", at least until China decides it has grown weary of its neighbour.

China's support of North Korea is not about maintaining a buffer state. It's about alliances having inertia, even when it's been a long time since the ideology that originally underpinned that ideology has long since fallen away. And more than that, it's about the issue that if North Korea collapsed, China would have millions of refugees flooding in to its borders, and that's a problem that China is happy to not have right now. As North Korea's behaviour gets worse, China is increasingly unwilling to just keep kicking the can down the road, leading to China's increasing willingness to take the lead in dealing with North Korea.


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 djones520 wrote:
There is nothing "thriving" about N. Korea.

And quiet frankly what can we do about it? That regime will not be removed short of military action, and as someone who spent 4 years training to fight that war... feth that noise. I want no part of it.

North Korea is dependant on aid. The aid has been given as the world has been unwilling to let people starve, even if it meant it might end up stabilising the regime.

But given the evidence of torture we've now seen, I suspect that reducing or removing that aid entirely is now likely - anything that helps the stability of the regime seems too great a cost now that their daily crimes against humanity are abundantly clear.


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 whembly wrote:
^This,

That's the reason why.

China isn't exactly the humanitarian regime as the rest of the world would like them to be... but, they're fething saints compared to NK.

Nah, as a piece of politics that makes no sense. China is protected from any kind of punishment for its own human rights abuses because they're an essential part of the world economy. Some people being locked up for bs political reasons here and there honesly just don't matter to the rest of the world when there's jobs at stake.

And even if that weren't the case, and somehow highlighting China's human rights abuses were somehow likely to make people disregard the economic implications and start punishing China... then China saying 'no, forget about us, look over there at North Korea (that we are propping up), they're really despicable'... isn't going to change that.


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 Medium of Death wrote:
I could imagine that any direct action against North Korea would see horrific casualties to the downtrodden populace.

China holds the key to setting these people free. They should be pressing harder on the Leadership and Military, but as already pointed out it suits them to have NK on their border and on their side.

North Korea is not a useful ally to China. North Korea is a bit like that kid on your street that used to be okay when you played GI Joe together, but now you're in to girls and he still hasn't figured out personal hygiene and just tries to talk about war and death all the time, and you kind of suspect he's been killing the local wildlife. So you get stuck with a choice to tell this guy you don't want to hang around with him anymore and worry that he might kill your cat, or to just kind of humour him every so often when there's no girls around.

Sometimes when some other kids turn up and have a go at him you feel like you have to defend him, even though you know they're mostly right.


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 Jihadin wrote:
I've a feeling China will at the point of total collapse step in and assume the of government and make it like it their "territory" like Puerto Rico, Guam, and some Carribean Islands. Why spend money on shoring up defensive positions on China/NK border while NK southern border with South Korea is shored up with a whole slew of different type of positions and the Injem(?) River in the western corridger.

That isn't China's decision alone, exactly how willing and able South Korea is to work towards reunion will play a large part. If North Korea did collapse, the talks between South Korea, China, Japan, the USA, the UN and a bunch of other parties about what resources were needed to stabilise the situation and begin a long term recovery effort, and who would be putting in would be fascinating.

 Da Boss wrote:
A fair few of my students are South Korean, and it's interesting as hell to talk to them about this. Their main concern is for their families (most are from Seoul) if war breaks out again. You can see them getting a lot more tense each time they consider going home for holidays.

Lovely students, the lot of them. Hard working, thoughtful, helpful and polite.

Yep, I had South Korean room mates and got into several conversations about this situation. I was living with them when there was an issue with a North Korean submarine being found right on their coast and they got downright pissed. One of my friends told me she'd rather marry a Japanese man before she'd even think of marrying a North Korean.

Much hate for the north.

Sebster....are you saying you think China would want a unify Korea on their border? Think deeper on it. China can pull it off. Prop up a puppet regime and pretty much control North Korea. Hell we're doing it in Afghanistan.

 djones520 wrote:
There is nothing "thriving" about N. Korea.

Smuggling is thriving, I cant seem to find it (im at work and a lot of news sites get blocked)

I remember reading a story from a NK imigrant who came to america, and told his story. He was a fisher man, who would use his boat and connections to get into South Korea, get batteries and food, smuggle it back in and sell em to people who needed em and not even at like a huge mark up. He saved and did this for a few years got enough to come to america, where he was promptly tossed on his ass and became poorer than sin and had to beg for food. Wishing he had never left was something he said he never thought he would have to do.

That's probably the one case where it might have been a downgrade.

But considering the NK authorities would probably have shot him for doing that he at least got screwed on the right side of the fence.

 Grey Templar wrote:
That's probably the one case where it might have been a downgrade.

But considering the NK authorities would probably have shot him for doing that he at least got screwed on the right side of the fence.

again cant find it now, but he was paying off border guards from the NK to let him through. There is wayy less support for this regieme in power than we imagine. Its probably just like being a guardsmen tho, do what you are told or *BLAM*

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

I'm interested in hearing what you consider to be a real solution to NK on China's part.

There isn't one. There is basically nothing that China or anyone else can realistically do, except perhaps assasinate Kim Jung Un and that may well go horribly wrong.


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Kavik_Whitescar wrote:
There is wayy less support for this regieme in power than we imagine. Its probably just like being a guardsmen tho, do what you are told or *BLAM*

I would imagine that there is only enforced public support by NKs populace and very little real affection for their leaders despite decades of brainwashing. There has not been a succesful, or even noticable, rebellion though so the state is obviously very good at suppressing any and all discontent.