Raw Story and AFP report on an eyewitness who saw guard dogs tear children apart in North Korean prison camps.
“They killed three of the children right away. The two other children were barely breathing and the guards buried them alive,” he said, speaking on the sidelines of a Geneva conference for human rights activists.
The next day, instead of putting down the murderous dogs, the guards pet them and fed them special food “as some kind of award,” he added with disgust.
“People in the camps are not treated as human beings… They are like flies that can be crushed,” said Ahn, his sad eyes framed by steel-rimmed glasses.
War is not an option; war should never be an option except as a last resort. But the least we can do is shelter people who have had enough. When we were first founded as a country, we made ourselves a refuge for people fleeing from political and religious persecution. But since then, we have strayed too many times from that ideal in the name of nativism or Jim Crow. Now, we have to come back to that ideal.
We have a moral obligation to shelter as many refugees from countries like North Korea or find places for them to live and work. We have to make it clear to the North Koreans that they cannot reasonably expect to do business with the rest of the world until they begin to follow basic human rights standards. And we have to make it clear that the ultimate solution of North Korea's fate lies in the hands of their people.
As long as the world continues to be silent about these acts of moral turpitude, dictators will continue to act with impunity. That is why we need to identify, name, and shame companies which continue to flout UN sanctions and continue to do business with North Korea. The US government can and should identify sources of proliferation and put a stop to it as much as possible. And the US should engage actively with China, which is one of North Korea's few links with the outside world.
While China remains an ally of North Korea, their patience is running out, as evidenced by their agreement to new UN resolutions. The US should convince China by deeds, not just by words, that they are not interested in surrounding them with missiles but are simply interested in protecting allies in the region and in promoting human rights.