North Korea’s Lawfare Strategy

North Korea’s Lawfare Strategy^[1]

By Robert Collins

Edited by Greg Scarlatoiu

October 30, 2024

 

The weakening of totalitarian regimes results in the worsening of human rights denial. North Korea is no exception. The Kim regime's latest indicator of this weakness is its recent "lawfare" strategy of extreme punishment for cultural violations, as demonstrated by 2021-2023 legislation designed to stop the infiltration of South Korean culture into the North.

South Korean culture continues to permeate into North Korean society slowly but surely, particularly among the younger generations of the North. Hallyu, the “Korean Wave,” or South Korean culture, entertainment, and information, has proven to be so attractive to younger North Koreans that they are willing to risk their lives and future to enjoy the likes of K-pop, South Korean movies and anything else they can gain access to electronically.

As a response to this infiltration of South Korean culture into North Korea, the Kim regime has taken to the concept of threatening punishment for anyone caught watching or listening to South Korean culture and information. This punishment goes beyond the previous historical approaches to state violence. According to the Database Center for North Korean Human Rights (NKDB), there has been a 40-fold increase in human rights violations by the Kim regime against the citizens of North Korea.^[2]

The Kim regime has expanded its cultural control to its own version of “lawfare.” While the concept of “lawfare” has been in use for a while, it has recently gained added significance in the United States. The term refers to one political party employing legal challenges and court decisions to attack another political party for the purpose of discrediting the other party and/or its representatives.

In the last four years, the Kim regime has compelled the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea Supreme People’s Assembly to pass laws designed to restrict North Korean citizens from learning of what the world is like outside the borders of North Korea, especially what life is like for their fellow ethnic Koreans in the South. Consequently, the Kim regime compelled North Korea’s Supreme People’s Assembly to promulgate the Law on Rejecting Reactionary Ideology and Culture in 2020, the Youth Education Guarantee Law in 2021 and the Law on Protecting Pyongyang Cultural Language in 2023.

The Law on Rejecting Reactionary Ideology and Culture (반동사상문화배격법) was amended in August 2022 and supplemented by Order No. 1028 of the Presidium of the Supreme People’s Assembly. It is made up of four chapters and 41 articles. Articles 1-7 define and list the aims of the anti-reactionary thought law. Articles 8-14 address the responsibilities of the local officials to enforce the law. Articles 15-26 target the media violators of the law access and use. Articles 27-40 describe the punishments to be applied to violators of the law.^[3]

The Youth Education Guarantee Act (청소년 교육 보장법) of 2021 is designed to eliminate among the youth “anti-socialist and non-socialist thought” and ideologically educate young people how to be totally loyal to orders from the party and Kim Jong Un. The law has five chapters and 45 articles. The law states what young people “must not do during efforts to establish a socialist lifestyle,” and lists other institutional and individual violations. It also states that violators must “take legal responsibility” for their wrongdoing. Punishments range from years of forced labor to death sentences.^[4]

The Pyongyang Cultural Language Protection Act (조선민주주의인민공화국 평양문화어보호법) was implemented by the Standing Committee of the Supreme People's Assembly’s Order No. 1028 on August 19, 2022. This act has 4 chapters and 41 articles.^[5]

North Koreans are punished for using ‘anti-socialist’ words picked up from smuggled South Korean dramas. Those youths who are found guilty of violating these laws – listening to K-pop, watching South Korean movies, illegally importing South Korean media technology – are arrested in front of captive youth audiences to emphasize the Kim regime’s staunch attitude against South Korean cultural infiltration into the North. It should be understood that violations of the party’s Ten Great Principles of Monolithic Ideology (TPMI) and not violations of the criminal code are the reason most people are sent to political prison camps. The Kim regime’s lawfare is designed to support these ideological principles.

Under the Kim regime, party influence is pervasive in both criminal and political cases. In criminal cases, the government assigns lawyers to the defense. Defense lawyers are not considered advocates for the defendant so much as independent parties to help persuade the accused to admit his/her guilt, although they apparently present facts to mitigate punishment.^[6] "With the influx of external culture and information such as South Korean soap operas and K-pop, many North Koreans are consuming Juche culture by day, South Korean culture by night," Unification Minister Kim Yung-ho said in his keynote speech at the 2024 International Dialogue on North Korean Human Rights held in Washington.

Regardless, one can be sentenced to prison and heavy labor by organizations other than a court. The Ministry of State Security (the secret police), peer trials and locally based Socialist Life Guidance Committees all can sentence a person without going through the established legal system. Peer trials are particularly political and focus on non-support of the TPMI; failing to study or criticism/distortion of the teachings of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il and party policy; and minor economic crimes.  

North Koreans are punished for using ‘anti-socialist’ words picked up from smuggled South Korean dramas. Yet, there are reports that even the lead initiator of these laws, Kim Jong-un, has been watching some of these South Korean movies, as evidenced by the language he has been using in his public addresses to the North Korean people. When addressing older flood victims recently, though normally referring to them as “comrades”, he referred to them as “citizens.” Rather than referring to older victims as “senior,” he called them “elders.” He called television “TV” rather than the normal North Korean term “terebi.” Lastly, Kim referred to the flood situation as “navigating rough terrain,” a change from the more normal North Korean term of “difficult and tiring situation.”^[7]

Recommendations to pass legislation to change conditions in North Korea historically ignore the actual political power system of the Kim Regime which is party-based and not state-based.  Demands should focus on changing party policies because all state agencies strictly follow party guidelines.  Each state agency or department, regardless of size or level, follows the decisions of the embedded KWP committee in that organization.  An example is asking for changes in the criminal code that presumably would be enforced by the courts and police agencies.  However, all court representatives, including judges, and police take orders from the party, not the state, and legal decisions are made based on political consequences and requirements.^[8]

South Korea's cultural wave is fiercely battling the cultural indoctrination of the Kim Jong-un regime to win the hearts and minds of North Koreans. When human rights demand begins to effectively pressure human rights denial, ruling regimes such as that of North Korea’s Kim double their efforts at suppression through new policies and legislation.

^[1] This paper is a version of a recent conference presentation in Seoul, South Korea.

^[2] 북한인권정보센터, The Database Center for North Korean Human Rights (NKDB). 2024년 북한인권백서, White Paper on North Korean Human Rights. October 8, 2024. Pages141 and 356. https://nkdb.org/publication/?bmode=view&idx=121771392. 

^[3] Seulkee Jang, “Daily NK acquires full text of the anti-reactionary thought law,” dailynk.com, March 21, 2023. URL: https://www.dailynk.com/english/daily-nk-acquires-full-text-of-the-anti-reactionary-thought-law/.

^[4] Mun Dong Hui, “North Korean young people stupefied by strong punishments in “Youth Education Guarantee Act”, dailynk.com, February 17, 2022. URL: https://www.dailynk.com/english/north-korean-young-people-stupefied-strong-punishments-youth-education-guarantee-act/.

^[5] DailyNK, “The Pyongyang Cultural Language Protection Act of The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea,” dailynk.com, January 2023. URL: https://www.dailynk.com/english/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/Pyongyang-Cultural-Language-Protection-Act_English-and-Korean-Versions_Daily-NK.pdf 

^[6] Kyu Chang Lee, Gwang Jin Chung, “The North Korean Criminal Trial System: Characteristics and Actual Practice,” KINU Research Abstract 11-05. URL: www.kinu.or.kr.

^[7] Ahn Chang Gyu and Park Jaewoo, “Kim Jong Un shocks listeners by using South Korean terms in speech,” rfa.org, August 16, 2024. URL: https://www.rfa.org/english/news/korea/north-korea-south-korea-korean-wave-language-dialects-kim-jong-un-speech-yalu-river-flood-08162024111909.html/ampRFA.

^[8] Andrea Matles Savada, “Country Study – North Korea,” Federal Research Division
Library of Congress, 1993. URL: http://www.country-data.com/cgi-bin/query/r-9648.html.

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Testimony before the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF)

Testimony before the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF)
September 26, 2024
10:30 am – 12:00 pm
Via Zoom
Greg Scarlatoiu
Executive Director
Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK)

Abstract: This testimony will address religious oppression in North Korea, which USCIRF classifies as a “country of particular concern” (CPC). North Korea has persecuted Christianity and other religions with extreme prejudice, although the capital city of Pyongyang was once known as the “Jerusalem of the East.” The witness will highlight the importance of a “human rights upfront approach” and reenergized information campaigns to empower the people of North Korea through information from the outside world, in order to promote human rights, in particular religious freedom. The testimony calls for a transformation of the UN ECOSOC NGO Committee, in order to open access to genuine pro-religious freedom, pro-human rights organizations, and enhance their influence at UN fora.

Since the end of the Cold War, U.S. North Korea policy has been rightfully focused on doing away with the production and proliferation of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. However, according to the February 2014 report of the UN Commission of Inquiry on human rights in the DPRK and to countless reports by human rights CSOs, the Kim family regime has been committing crimes against humanity, often involving persecution of people of faith, primarily Christians. There is a need to elevate North Korean human rights, in particular freedom of religion, to bring the issue on par with the other critical issues, including the political, security, and military conundrum surrounding North Korea.

Religious Oppression in North Korea

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has designated North Korea as a "country of particular concern" (CPC). The United States continues to stand for both national security and values we share with trusted friends, partners, and allies such as South Korea. South Korea is home to Asia’s second largest percentage of Christians, second only to the Philippines. South Korea’s most prevalent religion is Christianity (19.7 percent Protestant, 7.9 percent Catholic). Respect for human rights, in particular respect for religious freedom, lies at the very heart of the fundamental values we share with our South Korean friends. And faith can provide an avenue of communication with our South Korean allies. 

In North Korea, the Kim regime has continued to oppress human rights, in particular religious freedom, for nearly eight decades. A quarter century after the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, the Kim regime has not only managed to survive, but also to accomplish two hereditary transmissions of power, from grandfather Kim Il-sung to son Kim Jong-il in July 1994, and from son Kim Jong-il to grandson Kim Jong-un in December 2011. One possible explanation for the longevity of the Kim regime is that it is the result of the fusion of four totalitarian political systems. All North Koreans have known for the past six centuries has been totalitarianism: five hundred years of the feudal Chosun dynasty; forty years of Japanese imperial occupation from 1905 to 1945; Stalinist communism; and the Kim family regime’s kleptocratic tyranny.

As the tragedy of Korean separation continues, one remembers that the northern half of the Korean peninsula was once the cradle of the Korean Presbyterian Church. Prior to the communist takeover, the capital city of Pyongyang used to be known as the “Jerusalem of the East.” However, in 1946, the North Korean People’s Committee forced the closure of churches with congregations that did not meet a certain predetermined number of attendees. The Committee began to forbid Protestant and Catholic in-house assemblies and made Sunday a workday and Monday a rest day. Under the pretext that the sound of religious songs disturbed public life, the same Committee asked churches to relocate. Communist party agitators were inserted into Christian communities and church assemblies. They began criticizing the sermons as being “unprogressive.”

In North Korea, religious freedom went from restriction to suppression to violent obliteration. In a 1962 speech before the People’s Safety Agency, the North Korean secret political police, Kim Il-sung said:

“We cannot move towards a communist society with religious people. That is why we had to put on trial and punish those who hold positions of deacons or higher in Protestant or Catholic churches. Other undesirables among the religious people were also put on trial. Believers were given the choice to give up religion so they can get away with labor work. Those who did not were sent to prison camps.”

Soon after the establishment of the DPRK in 1948, according to the 1950 North Korean statistical yearbook, 22.2 percent of North Koreans were religious. In the second national human rights report submitted by the North Korean delegation to the UN Human Rights Council for review in July 2001, the delegation said that there was a total of about 38,000 religious believers in North Korea, including 10,000 Protestants, 3,000 Catholics, 10,000 Buddhists, and 15,000 Chondoists, a total of 0.2 percent of the population. It is estimated that there are about five Russian Orthodox churches as well. The cataclysmic drop from 22.2 to 0.2 percent happened swiftly. Over just a few years, in the late 1940s and early 1950s, North Korean Christians were imprisoned, executed, driven into exile, and Christianity almost went extinct. Violent repression of suspected underground Christians continues today. Even 0.2 percent official Christians is likely doctored data. In truth, Christianity has only survived underground, despite grave danger. The Kim regime tries to appear before the international community as tolerating religion and guaranteeing religious freedom, while in reality it suppresses religion internally. Through this duplicitous policy, the Kim regime aims to deflect international criticism and seek economic aid. Such aid comes in particular from well-meaning Christian groups that often fail to understand the true nature of the Kim regime and its policy of human rights denial.

Freedom of religion does not exist in North Korea, although Article 68 of the DPRK Constitution allows it on paper. The people of North Korea are not allowed the opportunity to read their own constitution. They do not have access to international human rights treaties that protect freedom of religion, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which North Korea acceded to in 1981.

Like other communist leaders before him, Kim Il-sung rejected religion as “the opium of the people.” Religious persecution was a common thread in the atheist ideology of Feuerbach, Marx, Engels, and in the policies of Lenin and Mao. But it is the Kim family regime that has taken religious persecution to a level practically unprecedented in the modern world.

In deceitful displays of “Potemkinism,” foreign visitors and residents of North Korea will be taken to so-called “Protestant” churches whose doors are chained on Easter Sunday and so-called “Catholic” Mass devoid of Holy Communion, holy water, or Catholic prayer. Regime agents will masquerade as ministers, priests, and parishioners, saying so-called “prayers” for Kim Jong-un and his regime and blasting American “imperialism.”

In North Korea, anyone suspected of being a Christian, of having a Christian family member, of associating with Christians, or having been exposed to the Christian faith is harshly punished. When North Korean escapees are arrested in China and forcibly repatriated to North Korea, in direct violation of China’s obligations under the 1951 UN Refugee Convention and 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, they are aggressively interrogated, beaten, and tortured. North Korea’s Ministry of State Security and Ministry of Social Security ask them two questions: “Did you come across any Christian missionaries while outside the country? Did you come across any South Koreans along the road of defection?”

Religious repression is embedded in the fundamental ideology of the North Korean regime. Kim Il-sung said: "Religion is a form of superstition. Whether you believe in Jesus or Buddhism, you are by nature a superstitious person." [‘종교는 일종의 미신입니다. 예수를 믿든, 불교를 믿든 그것은 본질상 by nature다 미신을 믿는것입니다’].

Why does the Kim regime fear and resent Christianity so much? The answer lies in the nature of the regime. Kim Jong-un sits at the top of a post-communist, post-industrial, kleptocratic dynasty. The Kim family regime is a criminal organization masquerading as a sovereign state. This is a regime that holds absolute monopoly on political power through oppression unparalleled in the contemporary world: indoctrination, information control, a policy of human rights denial, and prioritizing its apocalyptic weapons programs over the human rights, welfare and human security of its citizens. 

Any religious belief and Christianity in particular as well as free, democratic, prosperous South Korea constitute the only challenges to the Kim regime’s absolute monopoly on power. Christianity offers an alternative way of life that delegitimizes tyranny and transcends oppression. Despite mortal danger and overwhelming coercion, control, surveillance, and punishment, underground churches have been growing in North Korea, with the help of outside missionaries and churches. The underground church provides a venue for the free exchange of ideas. Its members desperately endeavor to escape the overwhelming control of North Korea’s three internal security agencies, their 270,000 agents, and their omnipresent informer networks. Underground North Korean Christians are now in the range of tens, if not hundreds of thousands. This is a small number for a population of 25 million, but Christianity and other religions are still surviving tyranny.

Public discourse and advocacy on North Korea have been focusing on markets and information. And those are true agents of transformation, slowly but surely eroding the regime’s grip on power. Yet, there is one more agent of change, and that is the growing underground church of North Korea. Under the tyranny of the Kim Jong-un regime, there is no civil society, and no hope for a nascent civil society, in the absence of dramatic change. Underground Christian churches provide the only hope for the advent of civil society in North Korea, perhaps playing a similar role to that of Solidarnośc in Poland in the 1980s. Sending in information from the outside world and supporting the underground church of North Korea will be the best international civil society and like-minded democracies can do to empower the people of North Korea and enact peaceful transformation from within.

A Human Rights Upfront Approach, Including Religious Freedom

In order to promote religious freedom in North Korea, an approach to North Korean policy featuring human rights issues more prominently will be needed, in addition to highlighting other critical issues, such as North Korea’s nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, and its exportation of instability and violence to the Middle East and the Ukrainian front, through arms and ammunition sales to Iran and its proxies as well as Russia.

To procure the hard currency needed to develop its nuclear and missile programs, the North Korean regime oppresses and exploits its people at home and abroad. The very nature of a regime armed with nuclear weapons, that commits crimes against humanity is a threat to regional and international peace and security. There is a direct connection between North Korea’s human rights violations and the threats it poses to international peace and security, and thus the human rights-security nexus must be emphasized.

A Human Rights Upfront Strategy, Including Promoting Religious Freedom

A strategy promoting human rights in North Korea must involve: the ROK and US governments and the governments of like-minded democratic UN member states; the private sector, in particular IT and AI companies; and international civil society, including ROK, US, Japanese, and EU civil society organizations (CSOs) that can generate content, information, and analysis critical to understanding and influencing North Korea’s human rights and information environment. Moreover, efforts should be directed towards enlisting UN member states in the Global South to engage in pro-active measures addressing the North Korean human rights crisis.

 

The Need for a Reenergized Information Campaign

Moving forward, information campaigns targeting North Korea will have to tell its people five fundamental stories: the story of their own human rights, especially their lack of religious freedom, which the Kim family regime has abused for decades; the story of the corruption of the regime elites, especially the inner core of the Kim family; the story of the outside world, especially free, democratic, prosperous economic power house South Korea; the need for Korean unification as a matter of destiny, and not of choice, for all Koreans, who lived under the same political system, sharing the same language, culture, history, and civilization for one thousand years prior to the 1945 division; and the North Korean people’s right to self-determination. Religion, especially Christianity, has been a distinctive feature of the idea of Korean nationalism, especially during the tragic times of Japanese imperial occupation (1905-1945). North Koreans must be reminded that history did not begin with Kim Il-sung. Koreans have a rich shared 5,000 year history, religion has been an important part of that history, and Christianity a critical part of Korean identity for two centuries.

 

Strengthening International Civil Society Participation, Including NGOs Advocating International Religious Freedom, in the UN Process

In order to effectively address the need for religious freedom and human rights compliance in North Korea, international civil society needs UN access. UN action on North Korean human rights has been centered on the Human Rights Council, the General Assembly and the UN Security Council. The Committee on NGOs of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), gatekeeper of civil society access to the UN, has not received the deserved and much needed attention. Dominated by anti-human rights undemocratic regimes, the NGO Committee strives to refuse UN ECOSOC consultative status to real human rights defenders, including NGOs advocating international religious freedom. On occasion, through the valiant and diligent efforts of the United States, Canada, the European Union, the United Kingdom, the Republic of Korea and other like-minded ECOSOC members, the NGO Committee’s rigged decision to reject human rights defenders including North Korean human rights NGOs was overturned. HRNK, PSCORE, NKDB and Christian Solidarity Worldwide have obtained consultative status. But these are isolated success stories, the exception rather than the rule. In the world of North Korean human rights NGOs, dealing with a regime responsible for crimes against humanity, consultative status should be the rule, rather than the exception. In order to open wide the gates of ECOSOC consultative status access to human rights organizations, including religious rights defenders, a move that would surely displease revisionist powers Russia and China and their allies, a patient, steady, sustainable approach to NGO Committee membership change is needed. For example, while China’s and perhaps India’s membership may be inevitable, it is highly desirable that fellow democracies Republic of Korea and Japan seek membership. This endeavor will take more than just international cooperation among the like-minded. It will take internal inter-agency prioritization of bidding for the NGO Committee, and the respective allocation of government resources in the Republic of Korea and Japan. Despite inherent cultural, bureaucratic, and institutional biases, this approach could be conducive to the slow, but steady creation of an international civil society platform capable of creating the pressure needed to promote religious freedom and induce overall human rights change in North Korea.

 

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A 10 Point Promise to the North Korean People

A 10 Point Promise to the North Korean People

 September 4, 2024

North Korea’s well documented record of human rights abuses is probably the worst in modern history. The United Nations Report of the Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea^[1] is arguably the gold standard among the many reports that have extensively documented the Kim Regime’s systematic abuse of its own people. There is general consensus among the North Korea-focused “Community of Interest” on the need to push more information to the people in North Korea. As part of this effort the Republic of Korea (ROK)—United States (US) Alliance should take a more aggressive stance by bypassing the Kim regime and engaging in a direct, public conversation with the people in North Korea. The first step would be to publish an official version of this paper’s 10 point promise to the North Korean people as the means to demonstrate the sincerity of the outside world and counter what has been the foundation for decades of indoctrination by the Kim regime: The Ten Principles of Monolithic Ideology(TPMI).

 

The TPMI are, as Robert Collins has written in his book, Pyongyang Republic^[2],:

 “the primary creed of the Kim regime. In practice, the Ten Principles have a greater impact on the daily lives of every North Korean than the KWP Charter, the constitution, or civil law. North Korea’s own political dictionary describes the principles as ‘the ideological system by which the whole Party and people is firmly armed with the revolutionary ideology of the Suryeong [Suryong] and united solidly around him, carrying out the revolutionary battle and construction battle under the sole leadership of the Suryeong,’…All North Koreans are required to memorize and strictly comply with the Ten Principles. Failure to do so is seen as treason, and results in severe punishment, incarceration, or banishment to political prison camps.” 

 

The people of North Korea need an alternative to this ideological indoctrination.  This 10-point promise is designed to give them a framework for better understanding the contrast between what the outside world offers and the way the Kim regime forces them to live. In doing so, these promises undermine the core narrative of the Kim regime and replace the TPMI with a credible lens through which they can process what they see and hear from the outside in a way that provides hope for a better future without Kim. These promises should be used as the core for all outside information efforts. The leaders of the ROK, the US, and prominent figures in the international community who focus on North Korean human rights should publicly embrace this promise and do what they can to put in place policies and practices to make them real.

 

The 10 Point Promise

The increasingly irresponsible and dangerous behavior of Kim Jong Un is of great concern to the Republic of Korea (ROK), the United States (US) and the other free countries of the world. His aggressive pursuit of nuclear weapons and long-range missiles is a grave threat to the entire world. Contrary to what you are told, the ROK-US Alliance has no intention of invading North Korea. We could easily have destroyed your country many times but have chosen not to because we do not hate you.  For proof of this simply compare the wealth and technology you have witnessed in foreign videos to how the Kim regime forces you to live. Who do you think has the real power? If we had truly wanted to destroy North Korea we surely would have already done so. Instead, we seek peace.

 

Freedom has allowed the ROK to develop a strong economy with a high standard of living while the Kim family, in glorifying itself, has repressed you and maintained a hostile attitude to the outside world to justify this repression. As a result of these hostile policies and the behavior of Kim Jong Un, North Korea is a pariah state, looked upon with worry and contempt.

 

Why do you need nuclear weapons? Can you or your children eat them? Do they keep you warm or treat your illnesses? These are basic human rights that governments the world over are supposed to provide for their people. Why not you? Instead, Kim tells you he needs these weapons to protect the system that represses you—ask yourself if it is worth protecting?

 

Until now, North Korea has been a relatively minor threat confined to the Korea Peninsula because it could not do real harm to the world. The nuclear weapons Kim tells you he needs change the game. The ROK—US alliance is extremely concerned by Kim Jong Un’s irresponsible and dangerous threats to use nuclear weapons. We DO NOT seek war but are concerned that his foolish actions and threats will start one. IF this happens, we know that Kim’s weapons could do great damage and kill millions of our people. To prevent this, we will be forced to use our full might to remove the threat to the world. This means you and your families will probably die.

 

To avoid this we ask you, the North Korean people, party officials and military commanders to consider the fate of your families and if Kim is so foolish as to start a war with the world, do not follow him. In choosing to abandon Kim, YOU, the people in North Korea—common folk and elites at all levels—will gain a brighter future in a peaceful North Korea free from Kim Jong Un. We are NOT calling for you to get rid of him now. We would prefer that he simply focus on improving how you live and stop threatening us but if he is foolish enough to start a war, that will be when you will have to decide to act to secure the safety and future of your families and not follow him into death. If war happens, do not engage in acts of violence or obey his orders—instead, look after your families and survive.

 

As a sign of commitment to peace we make this 10-point pledge to the rights of the North Korean people. If a war happens avoid violence, survive and we guarantee you a better future.

 

1.     You and your families will not be killed, abused or taken advantage of. Despite what you have been told, we do not seek to subjugate, abuse, harm or kill you or your children. We will seek to establish a safe and peaceful environment for you to live and prosper. If our soldiers commit crimes against you, they will be punished. Your personal property rights will be respected. We will establish the rule of law in accordance with accepted international legal norms and you will have legal rights that will be respected.

 

2.     Freedom from malnutrition. In the event of war, ROK-US alliance, with the support of the International Community, is prepared to provide immediate assistance—to the extent that this is desired and useful. As soon as it is safe to do so, we will bring in rice, meat, vegetables and other nutrition to include baby food—a diet normally available to infants and young children all over the world.  If areas of North Korea are damaged in fighting, we will bring food and support to your homes.

 

3.     Modern health care. As soon as conditions permit, Alliance forces will bring in equipment, medicine, and trained medical personnel to assist North Korean doctors in treating diseases and improving the health of the North Korean people.  You will not have to bribe or otherwise pay for this treatment.

 

4.     Shelter. You are guaranteed a warm, dry place to live with modern necessities like power and running water. Although this will not be instantaneous or easy, once a safe and peaceful environment can be established, the ROK-US Alliance, with the help of the international community, will repair existing housing, electric power and water systems—and build new modern ones where required to meet the needs of the North Korean people.

 

5.     Freedom from the control of the Korean Workers Party (KWP) and ideological suppression. The Korean Workers Party will be abolished and replaced by a government that serves you, with leaders you will choose and who respect your basic rights. Systems of political control will be abolished. The ten principles of monolithic ideology will be discarded, and mandatory political indoctrination will cease. This means political crimes will be abolished, political prisoners will be released, and mandatory weekly self-criticism sessions will end. The political power of the Inminban will be removed and people will no longer be required to report on each other.

 

6.     Opportunity, education, and freedom to seek employment you want. The government will no longer dictate which jobs you may do. Although it will take time to rebuild—such is that damage that Kim Jong Un has done to North Korea’s economy—the ROK-US Alliance, supported by investment from the outside world will develop the economy. This will provide rewarding jobs and opportunity for you and your children. 

 

a.     Jobs & salary guarantee: As peace and stability are established, we want you to remain in place and be industrious in helping rebuild a reunited Korea. With minor exceptions, you will be asked to continue to do the job you currently have but will start being paid a real salary in your current job to enable to you buy food, clothes and other items.

b.     Education guarantee: North Korea’s well-established school system will continue to educate your children, but political indoctrination will stop, and classes will focus on real learning—such as science, math, language, art, and music in order to prepare your children with the skills and knowledge to be successful in the modern world.

 

7.     Freedom to travel: As peace and stability are established, you will be allowed to travel freely without government interference throughout the Korean Peninsula and to foreign countries.

 

8.     The rule of law and an end to corruption. As peace and stability are established, the rule of reasonable law—centered on the principle of freedom and fairness which is the norm across the democratic world—will be instituted. Your property rights will be established, your property will be respected and won’t be seized arbitrarily. You will no longer be required to pay bribes to police, government officials and others.

 

9.     Transitional justice: For the past 76 years, the Kim family has abused and mistreated you. To do so, it has put in place a horrible system of policing and repression. Most of you have suffered under it even as some of your fellow Koreans were forced to participate in and enforce this system. However, some have even profited from this system. A transparent, publicly accessible system of transitional justice will be put in place to facilitate accountability, forgiveness and redemption of former KWP officials complicit in the crimes against the Korean people perpetrated by the Kim regime.

 

10.  Full citizenship in a unified and free Korean Peninsula. The North Korean people will take their place in a free, democratic and economically vibrant unified Korea supported by free, equal, and secret elections as well as constitutional conditions that ensure freedom and the protection of basic human rights. The “Songbun” system will be immediately eliminated, and you will no longer live under the restrictions it imposes.

 

Kim Jong Un and the terrible, unjust system he has put in place is the cause of your current suffering. You live in conditions that are among the worst in the world while just a few kilometers to the south 55 million of your fellow Koreans live in freedoom and prosperity. His arrogance, greed and selfishness are the reasons you suffer in cold misery.  It is because of his hostility and irresponsible pursuit of nuclear weapons that we believe he has become a true threat to world peace. We fear his misguided policies will lead to war and destruction which we seek to avoid for both of our peoples.  We recognize that no one wins in a war with nuclear weapons where millions will die and so we make you this offer.

 

If Kim’s foolish behavior leads you to war, find ways to avoid fighting Alliance forces. Our technology and firepower are overwhelming. If this happens you will have to choose under conditions of great uncertainty to trust that people you have never met are not as bad as the man you know Kim Jong Un to be. Do not follow his orders to employ weapons of mass destruction. Do not kill civilians or prisoners. Instead, help end the evil rule of the Kim family, do what you can to lessen the violence and destruction and help your fellow North Koreans to survive. Military soldiers and the officers that control them will be rewarded for weapons, ammunition and missiles and other dangerous items that are turned over unused. Government officials and civil employees find ways to do your part to end violence and continue to provide services to your people.

 

As time goes forward, we ask you to weigh what you can see and hear of the outside world with the reality of the world Kim Jong Un forces on you. No one knows today what a reunified Korea will ultimately look like, but the destiny of the Korean Peninsula is to be fully part of the international community with respect for human rights and the right of national self-determination. We are aware that the path to Korean unity poses many difficult questions to which no one today can give definitive answers. This especially includes the difficult and decisive question of the overarching security structures in Asia. What happens after Kim Jong Un is gone is a future we need to build together.

 

In making this 10-point promise, we guarantee you and you families a fruitful place in a reunified Korean Peninsula. Our intent and purpose in making these commitments to you is to avoid a conflict which is likely to destroy the Korean people and damage the rest of the world in the process. We can peacefully overcome the division of the Korean people, but this means prudence, reason, and good judgment on everyone's part.

 

Commander Fredrick “Skip” Vincenzo, USN (ret.), is a nonresident senior fellow with both the Center for Naval Analyses and the Indo-Pacific Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security—as well as a non-resident fellow with the Irregular Warfare Initiative. He is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and completed Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training. With a career spanning 28 years—more than two thirds of that spent deployed on operations or permanently assigned overseas—he has extensive experience in Special Operations, Korean security, information operations, counter terror, NATO, and countering hybrid threats. His groundbreaking work on information-based sub-national deterrence is emerging as one of the most promising options for dealing with aggression coercion of authoritarians like Russia, China, and North Korea. His professional writing has appeared in numerous online security publications, and his largest collaborative piece, “An Information Based Strategy to Reduce North Korea’s Increasing Threat^[3],” was cited by both the Wall Street Journal and Foreign Affairs Magazine as one of the few underexplored options for dealing with an increasingly dangerous North Korea.

 

^[1] “Report of the Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea | OHCHR.” United  Nations Human Rights Council. Accessed September 4, 2024. https://www.ohchr.org/en/hr-bodies/hrc/co-idprk/reportofthe-commissionof-inquiry-dprk.

^[2] Robert Collins, “Pyongyang Republic,” HRNK, accessed September 4, 2024, https://www.hrnk.org/uploads/pdfs/Collins_PyongyangRepublic_FINAL_WEB.pdf.

^[3] Fredrick Skip Vincenzo, An information based strategy to reduce North Korea’s increasing ..., October 2016, https://georgetownsecuritystudiesreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/An-Information-Based-Strategy-to-Reduce-North-Koreas-Increasing-Threat.pdf.

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