During his news conference today, President Trump was pressed by reporters on why he hadn’t focused heavily on human rights issues during his summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Trump said this was because the focus was instead on the nuclear issue.
“Because I don’t want to see a nuclear weapon destroy you and your family,” Trump said, adding that he wants to have a good relationship with Kim, and believes avoiding a nuclear war that would kill millions is the priority.
White House officials confirmed that President Trump had brought up human rights issues, but did not elaborate on the details. This is perhaps unsurprising, as going into the summit it was clear that negotiating denuclearization was the goal.
Those who opposed the negotiations with North Korea largely did so on the grounds that the nation’s human rights record made them an inappropriate partner for talks.Continuing to push that narrative looks to be a priority for some, despite clear progress made on denuclearization.
It seems that denuclearization of N.Korea would more likely be achieved if US would let some or a lot of food and medical supplies into the country.
I suspect that the hunger in NK — along with other criminal unpleasantness necessarily endured by any country under siege by the Imperium — is a situation comparable to the million dead (half a million of them children) in Iraq under Bill Clinton’s sanctions regime (wherein import of chlorine for drinking water treatment was disallowed). Was the importation of food for North Koreans impeded by sanctions?
In general, the conditions in NK must be viewed in the context of 65 years of unceasing US belligerence beginning in 1945. First, against “North Korea, the Soviet Russian ally” in the cold war, and then in response to the unthinkable, a Communist “enemy” state that, with the help of yet another aggressive Communist state — both “non-white” to boot, The Yellow Peril — defeated the US in war.
It is easy to sell a poisonous lie to those who are locked away from the truth: universally valid across all cultures and ideologies.
Do not know if N.Koreans are starving because of the imposed sanctions on NK or whether they are being starved because NK spends to much money on defense.
Don’t even know if any of the Koreans loyal to NK as it is now are starving or being starved by own govt and own military echelons.
All i know that US media and govts keep on saying that Koreans are starving or starved, killed, or tortured.
But we know that US does a lot of it! But if Koreans are starving; then, it makes sense and purpose to send them some food starting even today.
DPRK will not destroy its arsenal, though it has already stopped testing. They resumed their nuclear program after Bush’s election because the US reneged on earlier commitments. They’ve made no formal commitments, just stated a vague goal of denuclearization. Since they won’t be testing, it won’t be in the news. They’ll be like Israel. Don’t ask, don’t tell.
More recently, DPRK complaints and much of the hunger have revolved around US military exercises that simulate/practice for an invasion of DPRK. The exercises were timed to interfere with labor requirements for DPRK agriculture — spring planting and fall harvest. Workers called up for the reserve couldn’t participate in agriculture.
So DPRK will now be able to feed its people, and Trump gets a Nobel Prize. Meanwhile, this has drawn our attention away from the continued slaughter in ME and elsewhere. So even while Trump continues the carnage, he will be re-elected as the “peace” candidate.
As others have pointed out- there is NO reason for Trump’s praise of Kim’s “rough” treatment of his own people. That’s absolutely disgusting. And no, doing so doesn’t “prevent nuclear war”. What a moronic contention.
BTW you will never read anything about the unimaginable atrocities in North Korea on this website. Yet just recently there was a full piece just about an incident in Saudi Arabia- the jailing of some female activists. Saudi Arabia is completely terrible, but NK is without a doubt the worst state on the planet in terms of human rights.
But far-be-it for an ‘anti-statist’ website to talk about it in any detail. It’s of a piece with the always-favoring-Putin policy here.
I think I’m done posting here. Good luck to us all with what’s coming.
We only use human rights issues when it fits our objective. Never mind about the Saudis human rights issues either. But for some strange reason we have a major problem with Iran’s which looks like a Jeffersonian democracy compared to North Korea and Saudi Arabia.
Priorities. Not nuking us, or human rights for someone else.
I really do value human rights, but it is not a talisman that justifies large scale death in nuclear war.