North Korea’s top military body yesterday warned of “catastrophic consequences” for supporters of the latest UN censure on its human rights record, as state media reported leader Kim Jong-un presided over fresh military drills.
A resolution asking the UN Security Council to refer North Korea’s leadership to the International Criminal Court for possible charges of “crimes against humanity” passed by a resounding vote of 111 to 19 with 55 abstentions in a General Assembly Human Rights Committee last week.
Introduced by Japan and the EU, and co-sponsored by 60 other nations, the resolution drew heavily on the work of a UN inquiry which concluded in February that the North was committing human rights abuses “without parallel in the contemporary world.”
Photo: Reuters
The North since then has repeatedly slammed the bill as a political “fraud” and warned that it was being pushed into conducting a fresh nuclear test.
The National Defense Commission (NDC), chaired by Kim, said yesterday the bill amounted to a “war declaration.”
The resolution makes no mention of Kim, but notes the UN inquiry finding that the “highest level of the state” holds responsibility for the rights abuses.
The dignity of its leader “cannot be bartered for anything,” the NDC said in a statement, adding that Japan, South Korea and the US — co-sponsors of the bill — were Pyongyang’s “primary targets.”
“The US and its followers will be wholly accountable for the unimaginable and catastrophic consequences to be entailed by the frantic ‘human rights’ racket against the [North],” it said.
As Pyongyang ramped the up angry threats, Kim guided a large military drill involving maritime transport and amphibious landing, the state-run news agency said.
The NDC also said that South Korean President Park Geun-hye would not be safe “if a nuclear war breaks out” on the Korean Peninsula and that its attacks could make Japan “disappear from the world map for good.”
The isolated and nuclear-armed state has staged three nuclear tests — most recently last year, the most powerful to date. This week, the US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University said on its 38 North Web site that new satellite imagery suggested Pyongyang may be firing up a facility for processing weapons-grade plutonium — a major source for a nuclear test.
South Korea said last week its military was on standby and the US said on Thursday that the renewed threat of a nuclear test in the North was a “great concern.”
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