I just love it when do gooders come to Korea and preach about the horrors of eating dog meat for example. The latest do gooder is Louis Arbour who heads the UN High Commission for Human Rights. Apparently she is in town to discuss human rights abuses in Korea. Here is a passage from the Korea Times about some of her rants about Korean human rights,

“While she commended Korea for having made great strides in improving human rights, she also raised three of the issues that had been addressed in the meeting with civil groups the day before, emphasizing that the National Security Law should be repealed and that human rights violations against conscientious objectors and foreign laborers must be addressed and resolved.”

First of all it easy for the do gooders to come to Korea and complain about the National Security Law & mandatory military service when they don’t have to worry about having the world’s 4th largest army equipped with chemical and nuclear weapons sitting 30 miles from your national capitol to deal with. This is a uniquely Korean issue that should be decided by Koreans, not be influenced by a hypocritical do gooder from the UN.

Why do I say hypocritical? Because the High Commissioner for Human Rights has come to the wrong country to complain about human rights. She needs to take a trip to a North Korean gulag labor camp if she really wants something to complain about. But most of the countries on the UN human rights committee including the current chair, Libya actively violate human rights and wouldn’t want to showcase a fellow human rights violator. So it is easier to pick on the Koreans who do have some legitimate problems such as human trafficking and the treatment of foreign laborers here. But the UN focuses on the National Security Law and mandatory military service? Something tells me that this is all about politics and not any real concern about human rights. Just like how the UN wasn’t concerned about Iraqi human rights under Saddam Hussein as long as they got their oil money kick backs. Soon as the US invasion cuts off the kick backs suddenly the UN cares about the human rights of terrorists in Abu Graib. Maybe Korea needs to send the UN some free Hyundai cars or something to get them off their back.

Anyway, the UN needs to take their act somewhere else and leave Korea alone to handle the tough decision of repealing the National Security Law or how to handle mandatory military service. If the US government tried to influence something as sensitive as this, all hell would break loose. Koreans are perfectly capable of making their own touch choices and do not need do gooders to make decisions for them.

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