A coalition of 28 human rights groups, led by the Geneva-based United Nations watchdog group U.N. Watch, is urging the world’s countries to protest North Korea’s chairmanship of the U.N.’s Conference on Disarmament.
“Allowing an international outlaw to oversee international arms control efforts is just plain wrong,” U.N. Watch director Hillel Neuer said Tuesday to reporters in Geneva. “North Korea is a ruthless regime that menaces its neighbors and starves its own people, and should not be granted the propaganda coup of heading a world body dedicated to peace.”
President Obama has issued warnings to the North Korea, condemning its leaders for continuing to arm themselves in a “a path of confrontation and provocation.”
Canada has already announced that it will boycott the conference until North Korea is removed from the chair. (RELATED: North Korea assumes presidency of U.N. arms control conference)
“The undersigned coalition of human rights and non-governmental organizations strongly protest North Korea’s presidency of the Conference on Disarmament (CD), for the reasons described below,” U.N. Watch wrote in a plea to other nations to join. “We call on all CD Member States to register their protest, as Canada has already done. We also call on North Korea to hand over its presidency to a more suitable country.”
The group noted that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) described North Korea’s nuclear program as a “serious concern,” as it continues to build a new uranium enrichment facility and a light water reactor.
U.N. Watch added that with millions starving under the current regime, it is unconscionable for the U.N. to grant the country a position of high stature: “As one of the world’s worst violators of human rights, North Korea should not be granted the symbolic legitimacy of chairing a world body dedicated to peace.”
North Korean defector and former army captain Kim Joo-il said during a Geneva press conference that his former country will use its chair “as propaganda for manipulating its residents.” It will serve, he said, to “perpetuate idolatry” of dictator Kim Jong-il and the “slavery” of his countrymen.
“Even if the presidency of North Korea of the Conference on Disarmament remains only for one hour — not even a week or a month — it is symbolic,” Joo-il said. The support of the international community is going to push North Korean residents even more into the hell that they are already living in right now.”
The Conference on Disarmament is the world’s “single multilateral disarmament negotiating forum of the international community.”