The North Korean leadership was swift in its denunciation of the latest UN report on its gross abuses of human rights."It's all a US plot to discredit us!" they bleated, but few believe them. The evidence is simply too strong, and comes from too many reliable sources. I for one was particularly affected by the words of its lead author, Michael Kirby, who pointed out that when the atrocities committed in Nazi Germany were revealed, many people said words to the effect of: "if only we'd known". Now, he said, we already know what's going on in North Korea, and it's time for the world community to act. Now.
Quick summary: North Korea: a state more like the ones envisaged by Orwell in 1984 than perhaps anywhere else in the world, a land ruled by terror where everyone lives in fear of the knock on the door. States like these are unstable by their very nature, but don't hold your breath for a glimpse of freedom any time soon. They have a very powerful friend, who will veto even the mildest censure of their methods at the UN. Despite the fact that the diplomatic exchanges revealed by wikileaks show them to be sometimes exasperated by their little neighbour, in practice they won't be in any hurry to condemn it themselves, because a not dissimilar situation obtains in their own country. And its leaders are far too preoccupied amassing billions to promote even a semblance of democratic freedom in their own land.
No, North Korea will remain one of the poorest countries in the world, where the secret police are in total control, lording it over a country isolating itself from the wider world like nowhere else. The people there are too afraid to protest, but we can! Down with the autocrats of North Korea! Long live the people!
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