What Were They Thinking?

Someone else has finally noticed that the Olympic torch is scheduled to pass through Pyongyang. It's the UN:

The United Nations has withdrawn its staff from the Olympic torch run in North Korea amid concerns that the relay will be used as a propaganda stunt.

The decision followed a heated internal debate among foreign donors, who face a constant battle with Kim Jong-il’s government in their efforts to get food and aid to impoverished people.

It is believed to be the first acknowledgment by the world body that the Olympic torch relay is a political event that can be exploited by unscrupulous governments, diplomats said.

“It was unconscionable,” said a UN official who was briefed on the arguments.

North Korea is frequently listed among the world’s worst offenders against human rights.

It maintains labour camps in the remote north of the country, publicly executes dissidents and practises racially motivated infanticide on babies born to refugees who have been sent back from China.

In recent weeks North Korea has test-fired missiles, while stalling international negotiations over its nuclear weapons, and unleashed belligerent rhetoric against the new president of South Korea.

The withdrawal is a rebuke to the regime and an embarrassment to the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which invited the UN to join the global relay....

“There ought to be an inquest into this,” said a diplomat who follows North Korean affairs.

“In China’s case the IOC made the argument that the Games would help reform, although that’s looking threadbare. But North Korea? What were they thinking?”

Comments

[Martin Adamson]

Guaranteed day off for the burly minders, though.