Liberation: When?

All the militaries in the world are useless if they don’t fight for what’s right

This article is more of an uneducated rant about our way of handling world politics, rather than a well thought out assertion of global politics and strategies since any military strategy involving war is far more complex than “Go in, conquer and establish peace”.

I’m aware that it’s not “that easy”, but I feel like it needs to be said again and again. The following article reflects only my own opinion. I speak for no one else. Though I hope that more people share my opinion on this.

The other day I saw an interview with several defectors from North Korea. The video is already 4 years old, which in a perfect world would mean that it’s outdated. But unfortunately, it’s not. On the contrary. The rules and punishments other defectors are facing now upon capture are even more severe.

I want to point at the injustice happening there. I want to ask why no one is doing anything about it. This is a wakeup-call, that most likely will be ignored and vanishing into the dark corners of the internet. I decided to write it regardless, even if just to get it off my chest.

It’s true, history repeats itself

I’m German, born in 1990, shortly after the reunion of East and West Germany. I was born in the West, never learning first hand of the hardships people in East-Germany had to endure over the past four and a half decades. It was only in my teens that I read about the infamous Berlin wall. I learned that there was an even greater wall, spanning all across the middle of our country. And much like people who defected from East to West in Berlin, many people lost their lives at the wall separating the entire country.

For 45 years, my country was divided. People in the West were under the influence of the US and NATO, while people in the East were subjected to the USSR and their false ideals of Communism. Post-war Germany was a victim of the cold war between the US and the USSR. Though Germany has brought this fate onto itself, I admit that.

This meant that people in West-Germany had much better prospects of life than their eastern counterparts. I grew up with an old joke stemming from that time, making fun of the dire situation in eastern Germany. The joke went something like this: “How do you know where East is? Just put a banana on the Berlin Wall, the side with a bitemark is East.”

For children with no real sense of the hardships, that was a funny little joke, playing on that people in the eastern part of Germany didn’t even have access to something as common as bananas. But the older I got, the more I realized how cruel it really was. Wikipedia has a near unlimited source of information about that time. About the wall, about soldiers patrolling the perimeter, about citizens being shot on sight when detected during their escape. About booby traps, installed to maim and kill escapees.

East Germany was one big prison. But over time, the people united and stood up against their regime. The wall fell and Germany united once again.

The country of North Korea is even worse than East Germany was back then. People are starving. Malnutrition is common. Civilians are being abused, forced into labor, publicly executed, and much more.

When Nazi Germany started the holocaust, killing millions of Jews in labor camps and concentration camps, systematically wiping out any and all people who weren’t regarded “Aryan”, the outcry in the aftermath was loud. It was an unprecedented atrocity. The holocaust is a prime example of cruelty and evil to this day.

It was with the help of the world’s armies, that these atrocities were finally put to an end.

Something quite similar is happening in North Korea. It is happening right now. Human rights violations, far more than I could list in this article. If you were born in Europe, the US, or Australia, you likely have had a relatively good and safe childhood, spending your life figuring out how to get rich or how to found a family with a lovely spouse and beautiful kids.

If you were born in North Korea however, you have no access to food, no access to electricity, and no rights to pursue your goals. You are but a pawn in a government game of chess. Expendable and worthless.

Rice is a commodity only reserved for people on their birthdays. And they only get a single serving. The rest of the family just sits around the table, congratulates them, and hopes that they enjoy their birthday feast.

This is insulting. I live in Japan, where rice is the basis for nearly every meal. Thanks to continuous efforts from the Red Cross and UNICEF, even children in Africa get more and more access to rice. In North Korea, it’s still seen as something special. Only a few kilometers away from South Korea, where streets are buzzing with McDonald’s chains, street food vendors, and Coca Cola advertisements.

Everybody is turning a blind eye

The US boasts of having the best and most advanced military in the world. And they use it openly to hunt ghosts in the deserts of Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran. They drop bombs worth millions of dollars to destroy $10 tents and cheap trucks used for smuggling weapons.

The UN has condemned North Korea for decades regarding their human rights violations. When plans emerged that North Korea has started developing nuclear weapons in order to enter the grand table of nuclear powers, tensions rose between North Korea and the US. At first, they talked about “Fire and Fury” threatening each other into submission. Then the tensions dropped and turned into negotiations. Neither of those has made any lasting impact or change.

By now, we can assume that North Korea is in possession of nuclear weapons, making it an even greater threat. But no one has ever taken any promising steps towards stopping the North Korean leadership from doing what it’s been doing for decades.

North Korea only ever pops up in the news when another missile is launched into the Sea of Japan. But other than that, nobody seems to care about the hermit kingdom.

Meanwhile, its people are still subjected to famine, injustice, rape, murder, and many more atrocities.

The recent case of Otto Warmbier

American college student Otto Warmbier was imprisoned in North Korea in 2016. He was accused of subversion and held captive for a year. In 2017, he was delivered back to the US. But his condition was critical. He was in a vegetative state and died shortly after he arrived in the US.

He was a US citizen, mistreated and obviously abused by his North Korean captors. Yet, President Donald Trump said that he’d believe North Korean leader King Jong-un that he had no knowledge of this mistreatment.

Warmbier shared a fate with countless North Korean citizens who are imprisoned and murdered in a similar way.

Yet again, no one is pressing for true justice. People shake hands and brush it off as an accident. Where is justice in that?

I wish for justice and liberation

The North Korean people are just like us. Human beings with human dreams and wishes. People who want to provide safety for their families. People who want to become artists, singers, cooks, and other professions. People who want to pursue knowledge and learn more about this world.

But they are stuck in a backward country, having been dealt a bad hand of cards. And their situation can not resolve by waiting it out. What North Korea needs is intervention, firm, and resolute. The people of North Korea need to be liberated from the evil holding their reins.

The military of North Korea is weak, compared to any other country in the world. They still use trucks that are run with coal. The most modern weapons they own came from China. But it’s enough to assert control over a starving population. The government is strategically keeping the population from revolting. People are weak and dispersed.

If there ever was a country that needs foreign military intervention, it’s this one. The government needs to be neutralized and replaced with a democracy. The infrastructure needs to be build up. People need to be fed.

And if I was asked to volunteer for being a part of that liberation army, I’d sign up for it. Both the US and NATO should take up arms and invade that regime to bring an end to this sheer unfathomable injustice, that has been going on for decades.

Too much talk, too little action

Because you people are being delusional if you hope for a day in which the world will know true peace, as long as you allow injustice like this to happen. Stop worrying about yourself and start worrying about those who need help. That’s how this world becomes a better place.

For North Korea, I only see people sitting on their asses, not making any profound move towards solving it. Because it’s “not their business”. A great way of showing selfishness.

Any world leader who allows something like this to happen right under their nose is nothing but a joke in my eyes. You have all the power you need, yet you are powerless. You’re less of a leader than the guy who bullied you in high school.

I’d almost dare to bet that if Hitler hadn’t risen to power in 1940, but right now, you’d all be speaking German by now. That’s how useless our current world leaders have proven to be. We need to stop injustice where it happens. Not with talking, but with force.

You have all these militaries. Use them to fight for what is right. Use them to make the world a better place. It’s a regime like any other and needs to be treated as such. Decapacitate the leadership. Remove them. Let the country prosper with trade. Help the people.

Injustice should be wiped out with fire and fury. Not with shaking hands and bribery.

I hope you watched the video I linked above. Because that’s something you won’t get to see on CNN or NBC.

Kevin is an editor and writer for the ILLUMINATION publication. Follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn.