H R South Africa’s N K APARTHEID & North Korea’s SONGBUN Parallels in Crimes Against Humanity Robert Collins Robert Collins South Africa’s H R APARTHEID N K & North Korea’s SONGBUN Parallels in Crimes Against Humanity Robert Collins Copyright © 2021 Committee for Human Rights in North Korea Printed in the United States of America All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior permission of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea 1801 F Street, NW, Suite 305 Washington, DC 20006 P: (202) 499-7970 www.hrnk.org Print ISBN: 978-0-9995358-9-9 Digital ISBN: 978-1-7356515-0-7 Library of Congress Control Number: 2020944705 II Dedicated to: The late Congressman Stephen Solarz, former HRNK Co-chair The Honorable Richard V. Allen, former HRNK Co-chair and former U.S. National Security Advisor Helen-Louise Hunter, author, “Kim Il-song’s North Korea” and former HRNK Secretary III BOARD OF DIRECTORS Gordon Flake, Co-Chair Katrina Lantos Swett, Co-Chair John Despres, Co-Vice-Chair Suzanne Scholte, Co-Vice-Chair Kevin McCann, Treasurer Andrew Natsios, Co-Chair Emeritus Morton Abramowitz Thomas Barker Jerome Cohen Rabbi Abraham Cooper Jack David Paula Dobriansky Nicholas Eberstadt Carl Gershman Robert Joseph Stephen Kahng Robert King Jung-Hoon Lee Winston Lord David Maxwell Marcus Noland Jacqueline Pak Greg Scarlatoiu, Executive Director Roberta Cohen, Co-Chair Emeritus IV TaBLE OF CONTENTS About the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea ..................................................... VI About the Author ........................................................................................................................VII Acknowledgments ....................................................................................................................VIII Acronyms...................................................................................................................................... IX Foreword ....................................................................................................................................... X Executive Summary ..................................................................................................................XII Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 1 Legislation and Documents ....................................................................................................... 4 South Africa’s Apartheid ..............................................................................................................7 North Korea’s Songbun .............................................................................................................14 Locating Policies ........................................................................................................................ 39 The Argument for North Korean Songbun to Constitute Contemporary Apartheid .........................................................................................................48 Legal Parallels between South African and North Korean Crimes Against Humanity .......................................................................................................... 51 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................. 55 Annex 1: Applicable Laws to Apartheid in North Korea ........................................................57 Bibliography .................................................................................................................................61 V Korean economy, the structure of the ABOUT THE internal security apparatus, the songbun social classification system, and the abduction of foreign citizens. HRNK COMMITTEE is now the first non-governmental organization that solely focuses on North Korean human rights issues to receive FOR HUMAN consultative status at the United Nations (UN). It was also the first organization to propose that the human rights situation RIGHTS IN in North Korea be addressed by the UN Security Council. HRNK was directly and actively involved in all stages of NORTH the process supporting the work of the UN Commission of Inquiry (COI) on KOREA North Korean human rights. Its reports have been cited numerous times in the report of the COI, the reports of the UN The Committee for Human Rights in Special Rapporteur on North Korean North Korea (HRNK) is the leading U.S.- human rights, a report by the UN Office based nonpartisan, non-governmental of the High Commissioner for Human organization in the field of North Korean Rights, a report of the UN Secretary- human rights research and advocacy, General António Guterres, and several tasked to focus international attention on U.S. Department of State Democratic human rights abuses in that country. It is People’s Republic of Korea Human HRNK’s mission to persistently remind Rights Reports. HRNK has also regularly policymakers, opinion leaders, and the been invited to provide expert testimony general public that more than 20 million before the U.S. Congress. North Koreans need our attention. Since its establishment in October 2001, HRNK has played an important intellectual leadership role in North Korean human rights issues by publishing over 40 major reports (available at https://www.hrnk. org/publications/hrnkpublications.php). Recent reports have addressed issues including political prison camps, the dominant role that Pyongyang plays in North Korea’s political system, North Korea’s state sponsorship of terrorism, the role of illicit activities in the North VI earned a B.A. in Asian History from the ABOUT THE University of Maryland in 1977, and a M.A. in International Politics, focusing on North Korean Politics, from Dankook AUTHOR University in 1988. Mr. Collins is a Senior Advisor at HRNK, where he conducts interviews with North Korean escapees in South Korea to gather information for North Korean population and human rights data. He is the author of Marked For Life: Songbun, North Korea’s Social Classification System; Pyongyang Republic: North Korea’s Capital of Human Rights Denial; From Cradle to Grave: The Path of North Korean Innocents; Denied From the Start: Human Rights at the Local Level in North Korea; and North Korea’s Organization and Guidance Department: The Control Tower of Human Rights Denial, which were published by HRNK. Robert M. Collins completed 37 years of service as a soldier and U.S. Department of the Army civilian employee. He served 31 years in various assignments with the U.S. military in Korea, including several liaison positions with the Republic of Korea Armed Forces. Mr. Collins’ final assignment was as Chief of Strategy, ROK-US Combined Forces Command, serving the four-star American commander as a political analyst for planning on Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asian security issues. He received the Sam-il Medal (Republic of Korea Order of National Security Medal, Fourth Class) from President Lee Myung- bak and the U.S. Army Decoration for Exceptional Civilian Service by the Secretary of the Army. Mr. Collins VII ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The author would like to thank Greg Scarlatoiu, Executive Director for the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK) for his direction and support; Amanda Mortwedt Oh, HRNK Human Rights Attorney for her legal insights; Chuck Downs, former Executive Director for HRNK for his concepts; and David Tolbert for this initiative. He would also like to thank Rosa Park for her editorial work, painting for the front and back cover as well as for the inside of the publication, photography for the cover, and graphic design work; Hayley Noah for her work on the bibliography, footnotes, table of contents, acronyms, and background research on the crime of apartheid; Gabrielle Henig for her background research on the crime of apartheid; Benjamin Fu for his editorial and graphic design review of the report; Jeune Kim for the translation of the Resident Registration Project Reference Manual Table of Contents; Junsoung Kim and Doohyun Kim for their transcription of the Resident Registration Project Reference Manual Table of Contents; and Ross Tokola for his hands-on contributions to the cover of the report. VIII ACRONYMS COI Commission of Inquiry DPRK Democratic People’s Republic of Korea KPA Korean People’s Army KWP Korean Workers’ Party NKPPC North Korean Provisional People’s Committee OGD Organization and Guidance Department RIP Resident Investigation Project RRP Resident Registration Project IX at the Local Level in North Korea (2018), FOREWORD From Cradle to Grave: The Path of North Korean Innocents (2017), Pyongyang Republic: North Korea’s Capital of South Africa’s Apartheid and North Human Rights Denial (2016), and Marked Korea’s Songbun: Parallels in Crimes for Life: Songbun, North Korea’s Social against Humanity by Robert Collins Classification System (2012), South underlines similarities between two Africa’s Apartheid and North Korea’s systematically, deliberately, and Songbun provides invaluable insight for thoroughly discriminatory repressive decision makers, diplomats, scholars, systems.