In a bizarre act of barbaric execution, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un has purged one of his country’s top generals for an unauthorized activity — having a drink. For his punishment, the vice minister of the North Korean Army Gen. Kim Chol, has been executed by mortar round. This extremely cruel act to obliterate any remains of Chol happened because he was not perceived as being sufficiently sad during the mandatory period of mourning of the death of the late communist dictator Kim Jong Il.
Whatever the real reason for Chol’s execution, it serves as an example of communism’s complete failure to convince the world of its legitimacy, authenticity and power. When an individual or government resorts to such bombastic tactics to make an example of one who do not agree with them, it is a demonstration of weakness caused by the lack of truth.
For all of the bluff of Kim Jong Un’s sword rattling, he is incapable of keeping his own military in line and must resort to terrorism against his own officers in a cowardly act devoid of logic and reason. So why all the drama? This was done solely to instill fear in those unable to escape the horrors of communism. By making an example of some; those remaining are more easily controlled. This, of course includes the civilian sector and for that matter, one might suppose that he hoped the whole world would sit up and take notice of his false bravado. Everyone seems to have noticed and the act revealed Kim Jong Un for what he is — an impulsive, uncivilized tyrant unworthy to be dealt with as the legitimate leader of a country.
North Korea persists in maintaining a Soviet-style gulag for those in need of “re-education.” How else can communism conquer the hearts and souls of its people? Sound arguments have never worked, nor have the non-existent heroic self-abnegated virtues of its leaders.
The most notorious of these concentration camps is Camp 22. It is the worst offender in the country’s abysmal human rights record. Many details of the ongoing horrors are documented in the book Escape from Camp 14, written by former Washington Post correspondent Blaine Harden, which profiles Shin Dong-hyuk who was born in the prison.
Nazi-style torture and human experimentation are conducted in Camp 22, using human beings as guinea pigs for the development of chemical warfare. This was first documented in a nine-part series by the BBC, titled “Access To Evil” in 2004.1 One must wonder why there is no media uproar exposing these human rights violations and other atrocities.
What is most troubling is the complicity South Korea has with communist North Korea. According to a Unification Minister from the South, “North Korea is stable and is under control of the leadership, so it is best for us to negotiate with North Korean leadership to resolve things.”2 Are a failed economy, a starving population and concentration camps using prisoners as guinea pigs, considered stable?
The world’s twelfth largest economy does not want the tide of 22 million destitute country cousins coming to stay. It prefers a more comfortable financial stability to a fight based on principles against a tyrant. South Korea has preferred to send substantial sums of financial aid, legally and illegally, directly to the North’s communist leader to maintain the status quo for both sides. The South wants stable pleasure through economic success by paying the North to stably maintain its people in misery.
It does not seem to matter to the officials in the South that they are keeping their Northern cousins in abject poverty and subject to unspeakable atrocities imposed by communism. It appears the only ones interested in a serious change of regime of the North are the defectors. One wonders what hope they have in any real assistance from this world; because with friends like South Korea, who needs enemies?