Crimes Against Humanity Found in North Korea

By Kevin M. Mathewson
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

GENEVA – United Nations investigators say North Korea has committed crimes against humanity in an effort to sustain its political system and will call for an international criminal investigation.

The North’s leaders are frequent targets of angry protests in the South. (Photo courtesy of BBC News)

A report to be released Monday draws on testimony of survivors and those who escaped the country. It is the most authoritative account yet of rights violations by North Korean authorities. The report details how North Koreans have been summarily executed, subjected to rape, forced abortions and enslavement, and have suffered persecution on political, religious, racial and gender grounds. There is even evidence of a widespread campaign of abductions of individuals in South Korea and Japan.

While the report does not examine individual responsibility for the crimes, it recommends steps towards accountability.

Michael Kirby, a retired Australian judge and chairman of the independent Commission of Inquiry, said the report “calls for attention from the international community”.

“At the end of the Second World War so many people said ‘if only we had known… if only we had known the wrongs that were done in the countries of the hostile forces'”, he said.

“Well, now the international community does know… There will be no excusing the failure of action because we didn’t know,” he said at a news conference at UN headquarters in Geneva.

The three-member commission, led by Kirby, was set up by the U.N.’s top human rights body last March in an attempt to probe evidence of systematic rights violations in the authoritarian state notorious for its political prisons camps, and repression and famine that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives in the 1990s.

The commission, which was never allowed into North Korea to conduct public hearings, recommends that the U.N. Security Council refer its findings to the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Yet, there are several procedural hurdles. For example, permanent council members that have veto power, such as Chine, are unlikely to support any referral to the court. Another obstacle is that the court’s jurisdiction does not extend to crimes committed before July 2002.

When the Human Rights Council authorized the commission last March, the North denounced it as politically motivated by “hostile forces” trying to discredit it and change its socialist system.

A spokesman for North Korea’s U.N. Mission in New York who refused to give his name told the AP, “We totally reject the unfounded findings of the Commission of Inquiry regarding crimes against humanity. We will never accept that.”

For more information, please see:

BBC News – World must act on North Korea rights abuse, says UN report – 17 February 2014

CNN – ‘Abundant evidence’ of crimes against humanity in North Korea, panel says – 17 February 2014

The New York Times – U.N. Panel Finds Crimes Against Humanity in North Korea – 15 February 2014

The Associated Press – Crimes against humanity in NKorea, UN panel finds – 14 February 2014

 

Venezuela Anti-Government Protests Ends in Deadly Violence

By Ellis Cortez
Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

CARACAS, Venezuela – At least three people were shot dead as violence erupted during anti-government protests in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, on February 12.

Opposition demonstrators throw stones against riot police during a protest against President Nicolas Maduro's government in Caracas February 15, 2014. REUTERS-Carlos Garcia Rawlins
Opposition demonstrators throw stones against riot police during a protest against President Nicolas Maduro’s government in Caracas on February 15, 2014. (Photo Courtesy of Reuters/Carlos Garcia Rawlins)

A crowd of demonstrators, many of them students, marched to the federal prosecutor’s office to demand the release of 13 protesters who they say were illegally detained in previous marches. The demonstration was the latest in a series of mass protests against the policies of President Nicolas Maduro.

A small group of protesters stayed behind after the end of the main march and clashed with security forces. It was at that time that a number of armed men on motorcycles shot at the crowd, triggering a stampede. Two people died after the gunmen opened fire and a third died in later clashes.

Authorities on Thursday issued an arrest warrant for Leopoldo Lopez, head of the Venezuelan opposition party, Popular Will, on charges including conspiracy and murder in connection with the recent clashes. President Nicolas Maduro accused Lopez of instigating violence that led to the death of three people during the protests on February 12. Lopez, who has maintained his innocence, said he only called for peaceful protests. Military officials visited Lopez’s house in Caracas, and the residence of his parents, yesterday and showed a warrant that included the charge of intentional homicide.

Lopez said he’ll lead a march on February 18 to the Interior Ministry in Caracas where he’ll enter alone and present four petitions that declare the government responsible for the February 12 violence, ask for the release of students currently being held, and ask for the disarmament of pro-government groups known as collectives.

Young Venezuelans clashed again Friday where police used teargas and water cannon to clear some 1,000 protesters from Altamira Square in eastern Caracas, where some of them had lit trash bonfires and blocked streets. On Saturday, supporters of the opposition gathered again to sing and chant slogans in the square. Many then set off to block a major highway.

President Nicolas Maduro condemned the incidents, which he blamed on a “neo-fascist upsurge”. The president called for peace, but stressed that those who engaged in violence would not go unpunished. Maduro said state and senior military officials will work together to reduce violence.

Venezuela’s state prosecutor said 25 of 99 people arrested in connection with this week’s violence had been freed pending trial.

Maduro insists he is facing a slow-motion coup. “I want to alert the world. We are facing a developing coup plan against the democracy and the government that I preside over, orchestrated by a small group of irresponsible leaders, violent, full of hatred and personal ambitions,” he said Wednesday.

The U.S. State Department expressed concerns about the state of affairs in Venezuela. “We are deeply concerned by rising tensions, by the violence surrounding this February 12 protest and by the issuing of a warrant for the arrest of the opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez,” said spokeswoman Marie Harf. “We join the secretary general of OAS (Organization of American States) in condemning the violence and calling on authorities to investigate and bring to justice those responsible for the death of peaceful protesters.”

Students are fed up with the lack of security and the poor state of Venezuela’s economy. Venezuela has one of the highest murder rates in the world and is deeply politically polarized, with the opposition blaming the government for the country’s economic troubles and for shortages of basic products in stores. Inflation, at 56.2%, is the highest in the world. Amid stringent price and exchange controls, Venezuela is running out of hard currency to pay foreign suppliers of goods and services.

Maduro’s critics say he is ruining the economy by sticking with failed Chavez-era policies such as currency and price controls, which many local economists blame for the shortages.

For more information please see:

Fox News Latino – Venezuela Anti-Government Protests: Security Forces Search For Opposition Leader – 16 February 2014

Bloomberg News – Venezuela Opposition’s Lopez Says He’s Willing to Face Arrest – 16 February 2014

Reuters – ‘Chavistas’ march in Venezuela, opposition protests continue – 15 February 2014

CNN – Protests, violence continue in Venezuela – 14 February 2014

BBC – Venezuela student protest ends in deadly violence – 13 February 2014