March 30, 2005

South Koreans Hide Truth

A sad tale reflecting the current political environment in South Korea is found in yesterday's Christian Science Monitor. Despite being broadcast on Japanese TV three times, rare video footage of summary executions in North Korea – a practice considered routine there but never captured on film before – is being quashed in South Korea, because of heavy and indirect pressure by the ruling Uri Party. As the article in the Christian Science Monitor states:

It also raises anew questions about a five-year policy in Seoul of studiously avoiding acts that might upset Pyongyang, for fear of harming fragile North-South relations. South Korea's ambivalence about a get-tough policy with North Korea may also factor into the mechanics of the six-party talks over the North's recently declared nuclear program.

Seoul's effort to avoid broadcasts of negative images or facts about North Korea is part of a larger strategy dating to the Sunshine policy and Korean summit of 2000. In this view, unification of North and South can’t be achieved if the South criticizes or acts in a manner that the North deems hostile.

While the MSM has covered the Japanese broadcast of these videos, the blogosphere has failed to widely disseminate them – a failure on our part, because their wide dissemination is bound to mean increased pressure by the State Department and Congress to force China and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to end the forced repatriation of thousands of North Koreans escaping into China to avoid starvation and the cruelty of Kim Jong-il. While not necessarily a surprise, this video is the first instance showing the summary execution of North Korean citizens – without trial, without an attorney, without any appeal. This is the regime that the United States is supposed to bargain with? The video of the executions can be downloaded here.

— Brent Tantillo

| Mar. 30, 2005 | 3:08 PM