Obama's order targets $300 million from 'slave workers'

By Yi Whan-woo

U.S. President Barack Obama’s latest executive order concerning North Korea’s exploitation of “slave workers” abroad will squeeze the Kim Jong-un regime further.

Officials here say up to 100,000 North Korean workers are believed to be forcibly mobilized by their authoritarian regime to toil in over 20 countries.

An estimated $300 million or 90 percent of the combined wages earned annually by the North Korean migrant workers are directly funneled into Pyongyang’s leadership for development of weapons of mass destruction.

Analysts said the executive order was made in a timely manner because the regime is threatening to conduct more nuclear and missile tests.

“The history of the North Korean workers abroad has gone on for decades and their jobs have been expanded to various industries over the period,” said Park Sang-hak, a North Korean defector-turned-activist in Seoul.

“It’s possible that the Kim regime may try to send another 100,000 workers overseas in the future.

“Under such circumstances, Washington is beginning to understand that hard currency earned by North Korean workers can pose a great threat to the U.S.”

Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies, voiced a similar view. He speculated that North Korea may try to send 53,000 factory workers formerly working at plants in the Gaeseong Industrial Complex to China to earn cash after the inter-Korean industrial park shut down on Feb. 11.

“I’d say the White House has taken such a possibility into account to some extent and is trying to prevent it from happening,” Yang said.

An Chan-il, a defector-turned-scholar in Seoul, said Obama’s executive order is expected to deal a blow to North Korean restaurants in addition to the U.N. Security Council’s latest resolution against Pyongyang.

He said the number of guests at seven North Korean restaurants in Dandong, a Chinese border city, has “dramatically decreased” since March 2 when the UNSC approved the sanctions aimed at tightening trade with Pyongyang.

A group of young women work at an estimated 130 North Korean restaurants in 12 countries, such as China, Cambodia as well as the Netherlands. They usually serve as waitresses but also sing, play instruments and dance to entertain guests.

The restaurants are operated by Office 39, a secretive branch of the repressive regime that reports to Kim Jong-un concerning its use of money.

“Coupled with the U.N. resolution, I believe the White House’s new measure will force people to feel guilty about eating at those restaurants,” he said.

China accounts for 60 percent of the North Korean laborers, while the rest are in Russia and other countries in the Middle East and Africa.

Some 50,000 North Korean citizens work on construction sites in China, Mongolia, Poland, Kuwait, Qatar and other countries, while other laborers work as lumberjacks in Siberia.

Other migrant laborers work at industrial plants in China’s northeastern provinces that border North Korea.

They toil for over 12 hours a day under harsh condition, including severe weather. And the repressive regime has pocketed 90 percent of their total monthly earnings, according to Database Center for North Korean Human Rights.

For instance, the North Korean authorities only spare $100 or less each for 1,800 manual laborers in Mongolia out their monthly salary of around $650.

North Korea has exported over 4,000 artists from its state-run Mansudae Art Studio to produce propaganda-themed projects in states such as Benin, Botswana, Cambodia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Senegal, Namibia and Zimbabwe.

They have been producing murals, mausoleums, statues, sculpture and other special artworks that are aimed at propagandizing the regime and its despots in a host of countries.