Otto Warmbier made a serious mistake. He inadvertently challenged the rule of a paranoid totalitarian kingdom.
Nothing Warmbier did justifies the murder he suffered. The only solace for Otto’s parents is that he ultimately died back home in America.
Yet Warmbier’s brutal death, as tragic as it might be, should not be thought in vain. In Warmbier, the world’s gaze has now refocused on the humanitarian blight that defines North Korea. And North Korea doesn’t like that.
Indeed, it seems likely that North Korea only released Warmbier because it knew he was near death. It hoped the American medical system would be able to save his life. He was not released out of regret for the harm the North Koreans had done him, but because the North wanted to avoid the criticism it is now receiving.
Warmbier has given a face to the 25 million North Koreans who suffer similar abuse every day.
Around the world, media outlets are reporting on Warmbier’s death. And in doing so, they are referencing the numerous camps across North Korea, in which hundreds of thousands of people live as slaves. Those North Koreans are denied sufficient food, care, or rest. But they’re just the tip of the iceberg. Because each year, Kim Jong Un’s regime represses its entire population.
In this communist kingdom, TVs are locked onto inane propaganda movies and hysterical news broadcasts. Schools are defined by the education of the Kim dynasty’s crazed Juche ideology. Apart from the most elite members of the regime, North Koreans must use hospitals that are decrepit and ill-supplied. Private commerce, where tolerated, is only accepted after paying bribes. Freedom exists subject to the whims of the local secret police.
Most of the time, the world knows very little of this human tragedy. Hearing about North Korea’s millions of faceless victims, it’s easy to focus on other things. Happier things. We accept that we can’t do much to affect their plight. So we just close our eyes.
At least for a moment, Warmbier’s death has changed that.
In tangible terms, he has made it just a little harder for China to give North Korea a blank check. Chinese leaders will have watched President Trump’s genuine anger last night, when he referred to Warmbier’s death. Referring to the North, Trump stated simply, “It’s a brutal regime, and we’ll be able to handle it.” China doesn’t know what Trump means by “handle it”, and that’s why Trump’s words here are so powerful.
Ultimately, that’s of little solace to Otto’s parents. But perhaps they can take a tiny measure of comfort from something else. If only for a fleeting moment, the suffering of millions of people has received a glimmer of attention. And in that, the death of a young American student serves some moral purpose.
