"Kim Jong-un Regards Human Rights Improvement Demands as a Confrontation to Preserve the Regime"

Kim Jong-un, Chairman of the State Affairs Commission of North Korea, perceives the international community's demands for human rights improvements in North Korea as a 'confrontation' to defend the regime and has reportedly issued specific response guidelines to overseas diplomatic missions through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

This policy was revealed in documents disclosed by Lee Il-gyu, a former North Korean embassy counselor in Cuba who defected to South Korea in November last year. The documents include instructions to socially marginalize defectors who have testified about North Korea's human rights atrocities and to provoke solidarity by agitating developing countries under human rights pressure.

Kim Jong-un, Chairman of the National Defense Commission of North Korea. [Photo by Yonhap News]

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On the 28th (local time), Lee Il-gyu unveiled 12 North Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs cables he obtained at the '2024 North Korea Human Rights International Dialogue' event held at a hotel in Geneva, Switzerland, organized by the Ministry of Unification and the NGO Human Asia, proposing their use to address North Korean human rights issues.

These documents were sent by the North Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs to overseas missions responsible for the United Nations in New York and Geneva from January 2016 to September last year.

According to the documents, Chairman Kim paid close attention to the demands for North Korean human rights improvements raised mainly by the West and personally issued diplomatic guidelines.

Among the 'pochi' documents, which refer to directives issued by Kim through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the one dated January 11, 2017, states, "The human rights confrontation is the frontline battlefield of the struggle against the enemy to defend the Party, ideology, and system." This indicates that the international pressure for North Korean human rights improvement is recognized as a top-priority confrontation phase.

There is extreme vigilance toward the activities of defectors who testify about the reality of human rights in North Korea.

The pochi documents state, "Conduct strong public opinion operations to socially and politically bury defectors, and if human rights organizations utilize defectors' testimonies, spread the perception that dialogue with North Korea is absolutely impossible."

There are also instructions to highlight human rights issues in the West.

Through the document dated January 15, 2016, the North Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs instructed diplomats to publicize issues such as the 'Japanese military sexual slavery problem' and the 'European refugee crisis.'

There is also a directive not to bring the annual UN resolution on North Korean human rights to a vote at UN meetings. Even if voted on, since it would inevitably be adopted, so-called 'adoption without a vote' is interpreted as protecting the dignity of the Kim Jong-un regime and easing the burden on allied countries.

The document dated November 2, 2016, contains instructions that at the 71st UN General Assembly Third Committee meeting, when the North Korean human rights resolution is adopted, "a position rejecting the resolution entirely will be announced before walking out."

There is also an order to seek cooperation with other developing countries under human rights pressure.

The document dated February 22, 2019, instructs North Korean diplomats ahead of the 2019 UN Universal Periodic Review (UPR) to "request similar supportive statements from countries such as China, Cuba, Syria, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Myanmar, which made friendly remarks during the last UPR, and report the results."

The document dated February 11, 2020, argues that singling out the human rights situations of certain countries is anachronistic and that it should not be overlooked that these countries are all developing countries, stating that developing countries must unite to eradicate such systems.

At the event, Lee Il-gyu said, "North Korea finds defections of diplomats burdensome," adding, "This is because they fear the exposure of the few strategies devised to conceal the regime's vulnerabilities and human rights situation."

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