About seven years ago, I wrote an article about the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, i.e. North Korea. Despite the fact that my uncle had been in the Korean conflict, I really didn’t know much about the country. After doing research for that article, I became more interested in what was going on in North Korea. I ave watched many documentaries since then and when you talk about human rights, or rather, lack thereof, you cannot ignore North Korea.
North Korea is one of the most reclusive countries in the world. The rest of the world really has no way of knowing much of what is going on there unless we are told by the single party government. However, many around the world view it as more of a totalitarian Stalinist dictatorship. The country has been ruled by the Kim family since 1948, first by Kim Il-sung, then Kim Jong-Il.
The country leaders believe in self-reliance, even to the detriment of its own people. In the 1990s, natural disasters plus governmental mishaps resulted in a famine that killed between 900,000 and 3,500,000 North Koreans. Countries around the world offered aid, but many held back in hopes of strong-arming North Korea into resuming contact with the outside world. In 2002, the North Korean government asked that food no longer be delivered, even though the World Food Programme said that famine conditions were likely to return. After a visit in 2011, former President Jimmy Carter said that about a third of North Korean children were malnourished and suffered from stunted growth. He reported that the government had reduced the daily calorie intake to 700.
North Korea is also the most militarized country in the world, with almost 9.5 million military between active, reserve, and paramilitary personnel. That is almost half of the total population of 24 million.
Sound like some place you’d want to visit? Probably not. Tomorrow, I will tell you more about the human rights issues that plague North Korea and how I am hopeful they might end with the death of Kim Jung-Il.