Indonesia's Sukarno Education Foundation has defended itself from ridicule after revealing earlier this week that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was to receive an 'Global Statesman' award for his "peace, justice and humanity." The same award in the past has been given to Mahatma Gandhi and Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi.
On Tuesday, the charity said it stood by its decision, dismissing criticism as "Western propaganda" and rejecting suspicions about North Korea’s human rights record as unfounded. "The allegations about human rights abuses are untrue," said Rachmawati Sukarnoputri, head of the Sukarno Education Foundation. "That's all just Western propaganda. Those Western governments like to put ugly labels on North Korea," she added.
Rachmawati is the daughter of Sukarno, Indonesia's own brutal dictator who was overthrown in the 1960s. "Sukarno was also accused of being an evil dictator who violated human rights, but this was proven otherwise over time," she said.
The North Korean government has long been criticised for human rights abuses and crimes against humanity, with its people suffering from perpetual famine.
“Kim Jong-Un’s power is built on the continued abuses inflicted on the North Korean people because he sits at the helm of a central government apparatus that uses public executions, extensive political prison camps, and brutal forced labor to maintain control,” the deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said in a recent report.
North Korea's Craziest Threats
January 1951(01 of07)
Open Image ModalSix months after invading North Korean forces started the Korean War, North Korean leader and founder Kim Il Sung says in a speech that U.S. and South Korean forces were the actual invaders and had prompted his army to retaliate. Kim vows to annihilate the North's enemies.
Caption: In this 1951 photo, Kim Il Sung talks to a North Korean combatant at the battlefront. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP Images) (credit:ASSOCIATED PRESS)
1994(02 of07)
Open Image ModalA North Korean negotiator threatens to turn Seoul into "a sea of fire."
Caption: Female North Korean traffic police officers gather in front of bronze statues of the late leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il in Pyongyang, North Korea on Saturday, Feb. 16, 2013. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder) (credit:AP)
September 1996(03 of07)
Open Image ModalNorth Korea threatens "hundredfold and thousandfold retaliation" against South Korean troops who had captured or killed armed North Korean agents who had used a submarine to sneak into the South.
Caption: North Korean soldiers gather along a Pyongyang street during heavy snowfall on Sunday, Feb. 17, 2013. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder) (credit:AP)
January 2002(04 of07)
Open Image ModalAfter President George W. Bush labels North Korea part of an "axis of evil" with Iraq and Iran, Pyongyang calls the remark "little short of a declaration of war." North Korea's foreign ministry warns it "will never tolerate the U.S. reckless attempt to stifle the (North) by force of arms but mercilessly wipe out the aggressors."
In this Jan. 29, 2002 file photo, President George W. Bush gives his State of the Union address on Capitol Hill in Washington. Vice President Dick Cheney is at rear.(AP Photo/Doug Mills) (credit:ASSOCIATED PRESS)
November 2011(05 of07)
Open Image ModalA day after South Korea conducts large-scale military drills near the island hit by the North in 2010, the North's Korean People's Army threatens to turn Seoul's presidential palace into a "sea of fire."
Caption: In this Feb. 16, 2013, image made from video, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, center, waves as he attends a statue unveiling ceremony at Mangyongdae Revolutionary School in Pyongyang. (AP Photo/KRT via AP Video) (credit:AP)
April 2012(06 of07)
Open Image ModalNorth Korea holds a massive rally denouncing conservative South Korean President Lee Myung-bak as a "rat." It says he should be struck with a "retaliatory bolt of lightning" because of his confrontational approach toward Pyongyang.
Caption: South Korea's President Lee Myung-bak attends the 15th ASEAN - South Korea Summit in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Monday, Nov. 19, 2012. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith) (credit:ASSOCIATED PRESS)
June 2012(07 of07)
Open Image ModalNorth Korea's military warns that troops have aimed artillery at seven South Korean media groups to express outrage over criticism in Seoul of ongoing children's festivals in Pyongyang. It threatens a "merciless sacred war."
Caption: South Korean army soldiers patrol along the barbed-wire fence near the border village of Panmunjom, which has separated the two Koreas since the Korean War, in Paju, north of Seoul, South Korea, Saturday, Feb. 16, 2013. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man) (credit:AP)