UN probe presses for NKorea cooperation
The probe's chairman said NKoreans living outside the country can provide useful information.
GENEVA (AP) - The head of a new U.N. probe into suspected human rights abuses in North Korea said Friday it is examining ways to carry out its work even without Pyongyang s cooperation.
The probe s chairman, Australian retired judge Michael Kirby, said that there are approximately 40,000 North Koreans living outside of the country, some of whom might be able to provide useful information, possibly through the use of public hearings.
Kirby and the two other members of a U.N.-appointed panel began their work on the investigation authorized in March by the 47-nation U.N. Human Rights Council. The investigation was recommended by U.N. special rapporteur Marzuki Darusman, who is now one of the panel members. The third member is Serbian human rights campaigner Sonja Biserko.
The panel has been tasked to investigate, with or without North Korea s participation, what U.N. officials describe as suspected widespread and systematic violations of human rights in North Korea. A similar probe into Syria s civil war has proceeded with virtually no access to the country, instead relying on accounts from refugees.
The authorization comes from a resolution sponsored by the United States, Japan, and the European Union. It was based on Darusman s findings that the secretive Asian nation has displayed widespread patterns of human-rights violations that include prison camps, enforced disappearances of citizens, and using food to control people.
In March, North Korea s U.N. ambassador in Geneva, So Se Pyong, ruled out cooperation with the investigation, which he said was a political meddling by "hostile forces" trying to discredit his nation s image and overthrow its socialist system.
Kirby said the panel will send another letter seeking Pyongyang s cooperation, which it has rejected in the past. "We are still hopeful that ... that we will have that cooperation and assistance," he said.
