To Disarm North Korea, Hit Hard on Human Rights

by Gordon G. Chang • March 12, 2019 at 5:00 am

American leaders have been wrong. The best way to get what we want from North Korea, whether it be "denuclearization" or anything else, is to reverse decades of Washington thinking and raise the issue of human rights loudly and incessantly. The same is true with regard to North Korea's sponsor and only formal ally, the People's Republic of China.
Kim Jong Un knows how inhumane his rule is -- he has, after all, had hundreds of people executed -- so if we do not talk forcefully about, say, Otto Warmbier, Kim will think we are afraid of him. If he thinks we are afraid of him, he will see no reason to be accommodating. It is unfortunate, but outsiders cannot be polite or friendly.
It is time to let Kim know that America no longer cares about how he feels or even about maintaining a friendly relationship with him. That posture, a radical departure from Washington thinking, is both more consistent with American ideals and a step toward a policy that Kim will respect.

U.S. President Donald Trump believes he faces a dilemma: that his efforts on behalf of the parents of Otto Warmbier -- the University of Virginia student whom North Korean authorities detained, brutalized and killed -- undermine his ability to take away nuclear weapons from Kim Jong Un. Pictured: Fred and Cindy Warmbier, Otto's parents, are acknowledged during President Trump's State of the Union address on January 30, 2018. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

"I'm in such a horrible position, because in one way I have to negotiate," U.S. President Donald Trump said at CPAC on March 2, while talking about efforts to disarm North Korea. "In the other way, I love Mr. and Mrs. Warmbier, and I love Otto."

Trump believes he faces a dilemma: that his efforts on behalf of the parents of Otto Warmbier -- the University of Virginia student whom North Korean authorities detained, brutalized and killed -- undermine his ability to take away nuclear weapons from Kim Jong Un, the leader of that horrific regime.

The president at CPAC summed up his perceived predicament this way: "It's a very, very delicate balance."

But is there really a "delicate balance"? Trump and predecessors have thought they should not vigorously raise human rights concerns while negotiating on various matters with the ruling Kim dynasty of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).

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Ukraine: To Die in Mariupol
An On-Site Report

by Leni Friedman Valenta and Jiri Valenta • March 12, 2019 at 4:00 am

Although Russian President Vladimir Putin has not articulated the final objective of his proxy war in eastern Ukraine, his actions seem to indicate that he is determined to create a land bridge from Mariupol to Odessa -- two major seaports vitally important to Ukraine's economy. Putin's overall strategy in Ukraine, also not publicly stated, seems to be to strangle it economically by disrupting shipping between the Odessa and Azov Sea ports, with the aim of eventually subjugating Ukraine to Russia.
"If Putin wants to do something about Mariupol," a Ukrainian sailor said, "he has only a short time in which to do it. We have a small navy. We hope your country [America] will give us more ships to defend the port."
"This time," said a Ukrainian army platoon leader at the front, "if the Russians come, we are not going to let them through. We would rather die."

On November 25, 2018, the Russian Navy attacked three Ukrainian ships in the Sea of Azov that were heading in the direction of the Ukrainian city of Mariupol. Pictured: Ukrainian Border Security Force soldiers patrol the coast of the Sea of Azov near the Port of Mariupol, on November 29, 2018. (Photo by Martyn Aim/Getty Images)

On April 3, 2018, Russian President Vladimir Putin -- upon winning the war Syria while protecting his beleaguered client, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, from a rebel uprising supported by the U.S. and Sunni Gulf states -- had some more good news. US President Donald J. Trump had given instructions to the American military to begin planning for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria. Although the official decision was announced only on December 21, the Kremlin evidently gambled that Trump might be serious about the withdrawal.

It was only on November 25, 2018 that the West awakened to a new and potentially unsettling threat to world peace, this time in the Sea of Azov. Putin, who had largely frozen his war there in 2015, was now defrosting it. There had been no serious response from the West.

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