Seoul announces more activity for human rights in the north, which is closing its borders
Seoul (AsiaNews) - The South Korean government "will be more active than before on the question of human rights in the north of the peninsula", and it will no longer permit "a foreign policy conducted with eyes closed". This was asserted yesterday by Seoul's deputy foreign minister at the UN Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva. Immediately after these declarations, Pyongyang ordered the closure of the borders against South Korean humanitarian workers.
During the meeting of the council, Park In-kook - appointed by the new conservative president Lee Myung-bak - said: "We are against the policy adopted by the previous South Korean governments [editor's note: those of Roh Moo-hyun and Kim Dae-jung, both liberals and supporters of the "sunshine policy"]. We want the international community to know that we are no longer willing to give ground on human rights in North Korea".
The reference is to the five votes on this question at the United Nations, which Seoul has always boycotted, remaining silent, or has voted against. Thanks to this attitude, Park denounces, "we have sent to Pyongyang political prisoners, humanitarian aid, and medical workers without receiving anything in exchange. Now, president Lee wants to tell North Korea what it needs to hear, confronting each question from the point of view of international human rights".
Pyongyang has responded to the declarations by closing its borders to South Korean humanitarian workers. A statement from the tourism office of the Stalinist regime has, in fact, demanded from Seoul's Unification Ministry "the immediate interruption of all visits to the regions of Mount Kumgang and Kaesong", the demilitarized zones where the two nations meet together for assistance or industrial purposes. Moreover, an editorial that appeared in Chosun Shinbo - the newspaper for North Koreans living abroad, published by the Workers' Party of Pyongyang - branded the policy of Lee Myung-bak as "unrealistic" and "outdated". But according to some analysts, these attacks are "a symptom of the nervousness of the regime, which knows that it is dependent upon the benevolence of Seoul and Beijing".
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