28 rights groups protest North Korea heading arms control body
GENEVA – A North Korean defector and 28 advocacy groups led by the Geneva-based UN Watch are urging nations to protest Pyongyang’s chairmanship of the UN-backed Conference on Disarmament, the world’s only multilateral forum for nuclear arms diplomacy.
“Allowing an international outlaw to oversee international arms control efforts is just plain wrong,” advocacy group U.N. Watch’s director Hillel Neuer told reporters Tuesday 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.”
Canada is boycotting the conference until North Korea’s presidency expires in September.
Former North Korean army captain Kim Joo-il, a defector now living in Britain, told the press conference organized by UN Watch that the regime is using its presidency “as propaganda for manipulating its residents,” to “perpetuate idolatry” of dictator Kim Jong-il and the “slavery” of North Koreans.
“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. 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,” he said.