Testimony by North Korean defectors at UN hearings this week in Seoul has produced chilling accounts of systematic rape, murder and torture - but it’s also a poignant reminder of past, toothless UN efforts to get Pyongyang to better treat its citizens.
What’s new, officials say, is that the United Nations has empowered a formal commission of inquiry to collect evidence of human rights abuses in North Korea and ensure “full accountability” for any crimes against humanity. Recommendations from the commission will be passed on to UN and other international agencies for review - and it’s possible they could trigger consequences for North Korea.
Even if North Korea is punished, it has already shrugged off years of continuous outside pressure, including tough UN and US sanctions directed at its nuclear and missile programs.
Still, the inquiry represents a cranking-up of UN pressure and an acknowledgement of defectors’ frustrations, past UN failures and a desire for stronger international action against Pyongyang.
“You are the only hope to save these people,” Ahn Myung-chul told the three-person commission. He worked as a guard and driver at several political prisoner camps in the 1990s before defecting.
North Korea, which denies the existence of the camps and the abuse described in painstaking detail by defectors this week, has responded neither to an invitation to talk to the commission nor a request for the panel to visit the North.