Otto Warmbier’s death brings to light the brutality of North Korean dynastic rule
Donald Kirk says with the outside world largely focused on Pyongyang’s nuclear development, within the hermit kingdom unspeakable acts of torture, enslavement and other crimes against humanity remain commonplace
How many of us, however, know about the suffering of the millions who have died in a gulag system that dates to the earliest days of the dynasty, was expanded under Kim Jong-un’s father, Kim Jong-il, and today remains the final repository for more than 100,000 people accused of anti-state crimes?
The arrest, imprisonment and death of US university student Otto Warmbier should cast a spotlight on the North Korean crimes against humanity largely unknown by the public.
Otto Warmbier’s death should end all hope of accepting Kim Jong-un’s regime as legitimate
The fate of North Koreans suspected of opposing the ruling establishment is draconian. The few who have escaped tell of unspeakable acts of torture, of long hours of slave labour, of confinement to tiny cells and, finally, starvation and disease. Executions, in public or in prison, are commonplace.
Nor are those accused of crimes the only victims. Among those held against their will in North Korea are hundreds of South Korean fishermen whose boats were captured in or near North Korean waters. The list also includes the crew and passengers of a Korean Air plane and dozens more, Korean and Japanese, kidnapped off remote beaches.
Fishermen have wound up not in prison but working in coal mines. The pilot and co-pilot of the Korean Air plane that was hijacked on a domestic flight in 1969 have reportedly been training North Korean pilots – though they themselves are not allowed to fly.