Remember the Soviet Union's infamous prison system, the Gulag. Well, it appears to be making a comeback with the assistance of Communist North Korea.
At home, North Koreans live under total government control and the watchful eye of the Dear Leader, Kim Jong-il.
But in the Amur region of Russia, almost 1,000 miles (1,600 km) from the border, North Korea has created a home away from home at a series of remote logging camps in which nearly 1,500 workers are employed.
I travelled to one of the camps deep in the forest. A giant monument bearing the words "Our greatest leader Kim Il-sung lives with us forever" stood in the middle. - BBC
As if there are not enough unemployed Russians available to do work, for little money. They need to import North Koreans to work as slave labor.
Although reluctant to speak, one told me that he earned the equivalent of $200 per month. Another said that he earned $1 for each truck he loaded and that he could load up to nine per day, but he had not been paid since May. - BBC
As for vacation, forget it. I bet Stalin gave more his victims more time off that the North Koreans get now.
"The Koreans work year round with two days off per year," he told me. "All the other days are working days no matter what the weather conditions, they always work.
"The Koreans work for the government and their communist party, they've got production targets," he said. "If the quota is filled then everything is ok. If it is not fulfilled, well then they've got their Communist Party of North Korea, and everybody gets punished from the managers down to the worker who didn't fulfil the quota." - BBC
Despite the wonderful treatment, the report notes that thousands have escaped the camps and are living in hiding in Russia.
Go read the whole sad story and watch the video report. This is how Russia treats their friends. It should be a warning to us all.
N Koreans toiling in Russia's timber camps - BBC
I did not know about the BBC report.
ReplyDeleteThank you.
Wow, the British businessman really squirms in his seat at the end there! It's like his conscience is really bothering him, but hey, it's great money so what can he do....very pathetic.
ReplyDeleteThe story behind the story as to why these North Koreans are in the position they're in can be explained by three generations of idealogical "cleansing" in which
ReplyDeletegrandsons are condemned to life-long terms as slave laborers alongside their grandfathers - internment in concentration camps where prisoners are arbitrarily murdered by security guards - women suffer from forced abortions at the hands of unlicensed doctors - newborn babies are beaten to death. And sons and daughters are publicly executed in front of their mothers.
It makes me really sad that the existence of these concentration camps are not well known to most of the world.
Most people also don't realize that the severe famine in the DPRK resulted in the deaths of around 3 million people.