[2013 외교아카데미:시니어]

에세이 콘테스트 (김종국 / 고2)

1. I believe Julian Assange and Edward Snowden are the protectors of human rights, rather than the betrayers. Firstly, what the US intelligence has been doing with its secret surveillance program called "Prism" is a violation of human rights. Basically, "Prism" is a surveillance program that checks everything what an internet user does. Imagine how would you feel if your government knows everything you watch and search on the internet. Every human right have his/her privacy, and choosing what you want to see is definately a matter of privacy. Thus they should be known as the protectors of human rights as they try to stop the violation of privacy via exposing the secret documents.

Also the "Prism" checks what other countries' internet users search on the internet as well as the US citizens. But checking other countries' permissions is an utter nonsense that ignores the other countries' rights. If the US wanted to do the surveillance program in other nations, it should have asked the permissions from the nations. As the former US president Woodraw Wilson stated in the "Wilson's 14 points', every single nation has right to determine its own destiny. Thus acting the surveillance program is another form of modern imperialism and must be condemned. And they are protectors as they try to stop the modern imperialism.

To sum up, because what the US intelligence has been doing is a violation of human rights to its citizens and an act of modern imperialism to the other countries, They are the protectors who are trying to stop crime by the US.

2. "Arab Spring" or "Jasmine Revolution" is a series of revolutions that happened in some Arab and North African states to upthrow their countries' dictatorships, But the revolutions moved on to civil wars in some countries, resulting enormous casualties.

To give the example of Syria, the civil war between the citizens and the government  has continued for over two years. The president Al - Assad is mercylessly killing his own citizens with chemical weapons which is forbidden to use by many treaties such as the Geneva Protocol.

However, the uS nor the UN cannot do anything to stop this mass killing and upthrow the dictatorship. The biggest reason why they cannot intervene is because Russia is retoins the dispatch of UN or US troops to Syria in the UN Security Council. Russia has been selling weapons secretly to the Syrian government and Syria is one of the Russia's main trading partners. Thus the Russian government does not want the collapse of the Assad government because the collapse would mean Russia losing its big trade partner.

In this situation, where the dispatch of troop is impossible, i think the US should sell or supply its advanced weapon, as Russia do the same to the Syrian government to the Syrian citizen force so that they can fight back to the government force.

And recently, the Pentagon announced that the US was considering supplying or selling at the US weapons to the Syrian citizen force. Thus I believe that the termination of the war and the day that the Syrian citizens will enjoy the freedom and democracy will come soon.