The long-festering issue of North Korea’s human rights violations took center stage at a U.N. Security Council (UNSC) meeting on Wednesday as diplomats, experts and activists called for undiminished attention to the plight of North Koreans and its security implications.

South Korea’s Ambassador to the U.N. Hwang Joon-kook, this month’s rotating UNSC president, presided over the open meeting, which China and Russia, the traditional partners of North Korea, opposed in a procedural vote on the adoption of the human rights agenda.

The UNSC last held a meeting on the issue in August, ending a six-year hiatus, as Seoul, Washington and others brought into focus the reality that Pyongyang has been funneling its scarce resources to its weapons of mass destruction programs under a repressive political climate that stifles public dissent.

“In a nutshell, the DPRK regime wants to keep the people in the dark and try to repulse the outside light with their draconian control and nuclear weapons,” Hwang said, referring to
the North by its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. “However, the dark cannot destroy the light. It only defines it.”

Hwang stressed that North Korea is like a “two-headed chariot” driven by nuclear weapons and human rights violations.

“If human rights violations stop, nuclear weapons development will also stop,” he said. “This is why we need to look at the DPRK human rights situation from the perspective of international peace and security.”

U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield reiterated that she has made it a priority to meet North Korean defectors and elevate the North’s human rights abuses to the “top” of the UNSC agenda, while echoing Hwang’s remarks on the link between the North’s abuses and its security challenges.

“Protecting human rights is not a distraction from safeguarding peace and security. The two are inextricably linked,” she said.

Thomas-Greenfield also expressed her appreciation to Kim Gum-hyok, a young North Korean defector who attended the UNSC s
ession as a civil society representative.

“I know being here and sharing your experience comes with real risk to your personal safety,” she said. “We are grateful for your selflessness, for your courage and for your conviction.”

In a tearful voice, Kim shared his experience of being rudely awakened to the harsh reality of the North Korean regime, which he berated as a “dictatorship.”

“Please stand on the side of North Korean people, not the dictatorship,” he said in an impassioned speech.

“We need to give the same level of importance to North Korean people’s rights as we do to nuclear weapons. We need to make the North Korean authorities more accountable for their policy, which amount to crimes against humanity,” he added.

Kim also delivered a strong message of hope to young people who might be suffering under the North Korean regime.

“The night is darkest and coldest just before dawn. No matter how dar and frightening the night, the sun will rise,” he said.

“The future of North Korea is in our hands.
Freedom and democracy is not a gift that can be delivered by someone else. We have to achieve it for ourselves.”

Russian and Chinese representatives voiced their displeasure over the meeting on the human rights agenda.

“While the whole world looks toward the council with hope, anticipating that it will resolve complicated global issues, it is squandering resources on a discussion of groundless and blatantly politicized matters,” Russian Ambassador to the U.N. Vasily Nebenzya said.

Geng Shuang, China’s deputy representative to the U.N., reiterated Beijing’s position that the UNSC is not the proper place to address human rights issues.

“It should not intervene in country-specific human rights issues,” he said. “We’ve always opposed the politicization of human rights issues or using human rights as a pretext to exert pressure on other countries.”

Source: Yonhap News Agency