North Korea is the world’s most repressive state — and the Organization and Guidance Department (OGD) is the key apparatus in Pyongyang’s administration of tyranny. The OGD may be little known in the United States, but, according to North Korean defector Jang Jin-sung, it is “the only entity that actually matters when it comes to decision-making or policy-making” in the Kim family regime. But what exactly is the OGD, how does it operate, and why do North Korea watchers, American policymakers, and human rights activists need to know about it?

Robert M. Collins lifts the veil on this ominous apparatus in the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea’s new report “Organization and Guidance Department: Control Tower of Human Rights Denial”. Enjoy this panel discussion with Nicholas Eberstadt on the report and the latest research about the OGD.

Related Materials: – Kim Jong Un’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year | The New York Times | August 15, 2019 – Trump meets Kim Jong-un this week. There’ll be one winner | The New York Times | February 25, 2019 – With Kim Jong Un, there’s no ‘win-win’ | The Wall Street Journal | May 23, 2018

This audio first appeared at an AEI event held on September 19, 2019, at AEI’s headquarters in Washington, DC.

Watch the full event here.