The North Korean human rights issue is at the center of controversy once again after the recent United Nations General Assembly. President Park Geun-hye delivered a keynote speech at the 69th UN General Assembly on September 24 and urged the international community to step forward to improve the human rights situation and denuclearize North Korea. This is her first time to raise the North Korean human rights issue at an international stage, where she proclaimed, “The human rights situation in the DPRK is the subject of profound interest and concern for the international community,” and also called attention to victims of sexual violence during armed conflicts. Following the general assembly, she met with heads of various New York-based think tanks and acclaimed the COI (the UN Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in North Korea) for playing a significant role in raising awareness of North Korea’s human rights issues. Previously, ROK foreign minister Yoon Byung-se suggested inter-Korean dialogue on North Korean human rights.
North Korea strongly condemned the South Korean president’s and foreign minister’s remarks about its human rights situation. The North Korean website Uriminzokkiri denounced the proposal for inter-Korean human rights dialogue as “brazen and absurd,” and the Rodong Sinmun’s September 28 editorial chastised President Park’s speech: “If the South Korean puppet forces persist in the moves for escalating the confrontation with the DPRK with the backing of foreign forces, it will only entail miserable consequences precipitating their self-destruction.” In particular, US-led high-level meeting to discuss North Korean’s human rights conditions was held on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly and while North Korea wanted to take part in this meeting, its request was rejected by other participants in the meeting. North Korea responded, deprecating the meeting as an international scheme to topple its regime by using North Korean human rights issue as a political plot.
Since President Park’s inauguration in February 2013, her North Korea policy has focused mainly on the denuclearization of North Korea, improving inter-Korean relations, and economic cooperation. President Park’s inauguration speech and Liberation Day speeches (of 2013 and 2014) permit a glimpse into the government’s policy direction toward the North, but they included no mention of North Korean human rights. Instead, her speeches mainly highlighted “trust-building on the Korean Peninsula,” “unification is a jackpot,” and the “Dresden Declaration” as well as inter-Korean mutual prosperity and resolution of humanitarian issues including integration between North and South Korean people and resolving the issue of separated families. It certainly looked more like an appeasement policy compared to her predecessor Lee Myung-bak’s policy. While the Park administration remains consistent on the North Korean nuclear issue, this is the first time it has brought up the issue of human rights. Following her keynote speech at the UN General Assembly, which strongly condemned the human rights situation in North Korea, we are likely to see a shift in her North Korea policy, one that will underscore the human rights issue as an important agenda in the future.
Certainly, the current government’s effort to resolve the human rights issue persisted both at the domestic and international levels, where the enactment of the North Korean Human Rights Act is currently being pursued and North Korean human rights abuses have been brought forward to the international community. However, President Park’s speech calling international attention to this issue at the UN General Assembly and the foreign minister’s proposal for inter-Korean human rights dialogue is unprecedented. There are two possible interpretations for this occurrence. The first is that this is a result of a hardline conservative North Korea policy. The identity of the Park government's North Korea policy was always under considerable controversy as the administration tried to differentiate its policy from its predecessor; recently, however, there is a noticeable increase in frequency and intensity of resolving the nuclear issue as the premise for improving inter-Korean relations and the recent focus on North Korean human rights appears to signal a return to the Lee administration’s hard-line policy line. This point is illustrated by the breakdown of negotiations for North Korea’s cheering squad at the Incheon Asian Games or for high-level talks. This is also in line with the recent conservative swing in domestic politics following the ruling party winning a parliamentary majority in special elections in the wake of the Sewol ferry disaster.
Another analysis could be South Korea’s reaction toward North Korea’s recent aggressive turn in its foreign policy with the sending of key personnel to the United States and Europe. Since Kim Jong Un assumed power, the North Korean regime’s main concern was stability and improving the people’s living; but recently, it is shifting to a strengthening of its foreign policy, beginning with improving relations with Japan, which was initiated by moves to resolve the abduction issue. On the other hand, relations between South Korea and Japan continue to be tense and South Korea must tackle many unresolved issues with the United States, including joining the US missile defense system. In such a situation, this may be interpreted as South Korea’s attempt to restore international cooperation through North Korean human rights and put a break on the accelerating North Korean foreign policy.
The main concern is that the recent controversy surrounding human rights can exacerbate inter-Korean relations even further. Human rights has always been a sensitive issue for North Korea; but Pyongyang’s demonstrated willingness to participate in the “high-level talks for North Korean human rights” so as to actively respond to their human rights problems is a concern, as it could aggravate North Korea’s resistance even further. In fact, the North Korean human rights issue is not a new thing, and if the government had even the faintest understanding of North Korean issues, proposing bilateral human rights dialogue is hardly convincing and can be easily misconstrued as “propaganda.”
No one will deny the urgency and the importance of resolving the North Korean human rights issue. Thus, it is even more critical to find a realistic and effective solution. Furthermore, South Korean government must first lay the foundation of “sincerity” that it has asked repeatedly of its North Korean counterpart to ensure both domestic and international support. This should be the driving force behind our North Korea policy. For the current appeasement policy that the government is pursuing to be fruitful—including permitting NGOs to visit North Korea to participate in international humanitarian assistance to the North—it is crucial to recap what the current government’s North Korea policy is and what it’s goals are. Accordingly, the North Korean human rights issue must be approached from the larger framework of North Korean policy.