Mr. Dennis Rodman:

I see you’ve made a new friend, Kim Jong Un, AKA the Supreme Leader of North Korea, and the supreme commander of its army, state party, defense commission, among many things.

Yes, his names sound fancy. But what warranted your sudden friendship?

You said you love the guy despite what he does and what he represents: 65 years of oppression and counting.

Why? Because he is your friend? Because he loves basketball?

That is preposterous.

Excuse me, Mr. Rodman, but I’m trying to understand.

I don’t think you understand that you have just visited a country filled with poverty and injustice, where more than half of its 25 million people starve to death; where people are tortured and executed for mere political disagreements; where Kim Jong Un’s whims trump basic human rights.

I bet most people in North Korea die before ever touching a basketball, which served the basis for your so-called friendship.

But I bet you didn’t know that.

I’m sure you didn’t know a thing as you mingled comfortably with the elitist of the elites in rooms with A/C and heating, lighting, indoor plumbing, etc, while barely-clothed women and children slowly shivered and starved to death in shacks that provide no shelter from the winter winds.

You probably didn’t realize that the food you ate, the liquor you drank were from the labor of poverty-stricken peasants, products stolen from them by the government.

And your “friend” Kim Jong Un is responsible for all that.

Sure, he inherited the state and its conditions from his father, the infamous Kim Jong Il, but he had a choice: To continue such a devastating regime or bring it to an end.

He still has a choice.

But change doesn’t seem like it ever will come for the hopeless North Koreans suffering under the most abject conditions of humanity.

If you think that a single phone call from President Obama can change his ways, you are woefully mistaken.

It has been over half a century since the Kim family’s reign of terror began and tore the country apart, north and south.

My grandfather was a guerilla leader against Kim Il Sung in North Korea when the civil war broke out, and he became a liaison officer between the South Korean and U.S. Armies. While moving with the U.S. troops, he crossed the 38th parallel into South Korea.

He never saw his family again.

He can’t.

What has changed in the three generations since? Nothing, except for the further deterioration of conditions for the people trapped under his rule.

The Kim family still abuses power over its destitute citizens.

Children are still hungry.

The 38th parallel still keeps families broken. Because of your friend, torn families are forced to take up arms against each other.

I’m sure you didn’t know.

I don’t think anyone who learned about the atrocities of the Holocaust ever said, “My, what a great guy, Hitler is. I mean I disagree with his anti-Semitism, but, man, I just love him.”

Maybe you just didn’t think. You were  probably blinded by Kim Jong Un’s cult of personality that shrouds who he really is.

You just need to realize there’s something rotten beneath the facade of the Supreme Leader.

Until then, a tip for you, Mr. Rodman. I suggest you rethink your friendship with Kim Jong Un before you confess your love for another brutal totalitarian dictator.

Sincerely,

Yu Kyung Lee