Kim Jong Un Highly "Sensitive" to Int'l Human Rights Pressure: Ex-NK Diplomat

News Summary

According to a former North Korean diplomat, Kim Jong Un is highly "sensitive" to international pressure regarding his country's human rights situation because he understands that suppressing this issue is essential for maintaining his power.

At a forum in Seoul on North Korea's human rights, Ri Il Gyu, a former political affairs counselor at the North Korean Embassy in Cuba who defected to South Korea last year, emphasized this viewpoint.

Ri said, "Kim Jong-un thoroughly reviews and approves the strategy and logic the foreign ministry should use for human rights issues, as well as the extent to which they should respond...The reason is not because he has an interest in improving the situation, but because he knows retaining his dictatorship and the third hereditary power succession would be impossible without suppressing them."

Commentary

As Ri said, Kim Jong Un is fully aware of what threatens his regime the most: international human rights pressure on his country. Kim does not fear the U.S. military or the U.S.-South Korea alliance, as he knows that they cannot initiate an attack on North Korea as long as it has nuclear weapons.

Kim's greatest fear is his people becoming aware of their human rights through outside information and international pressure. He is aware that if his people are awakened, his regime will collapse like other dictatorships in history. This is why he and his regime are aggressively responding to anti-North Korean leaflets and broadcasts from the South.

To solve North Korea issues, South Korea, the U.S., Japan, and the international community should focus on targeting what the Kim regime fears the most: awakening the North Korean people. This is the only way we can achieve lasting peace and freedom in the Korean Peninsula.

It is foolish to spend time on things that have proven ineffective in the past, such as negotiating with Kim for denuclearization. We should heed the lessons of history and avoid repeating the same mistakes.