Preliminary Versio

2 PEOPLE FOR PROFIT NORTH KOREAN FORCED LABOUR ON A GLOBAL SCALE EDITED BY: REMCO BREUKER & IMKE VAN GARDINGEN AUTHORS: JAN BLINKA BRITT BLOM MARTE BOONEN REMCO BREUKER IMKE VAN GARDINGEN TYCHO VAN DER HOOG MARIEKE MEURS SHANNON STEWART ANOMA VAN DER VEERE LEIDENASIACENTRE LEIDEN 2018 3 4 - PRELIMINARY REPORT1 - CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 7 INTRODUCTION 9 CHAPTER 1: ACCOUNTABILITY FOR DPRK WORKERS IN THE VALUE CHAIN: THE CASE OF PARTNER SHIPYARD, A POLISH SHIPBUILDER AND ITS DUTCH PARTNERS 15 CHAPTER 2: SURVEILLANCE AND LONG HOURS: NORTH KOREAN WORKERS IN RUSSIA 49 CHAPTER 3: UNCOVERING NORTH KOREAN FORCED LABOUR IN AFRICA: TOWARDS A RESEARCH FRAMEWORK 69 CHAPTER 4: EMPLOYING NORTH KOREAN WORKERS IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC 89 CHAPTER 5: THE NETWORKS THAT SHAPE OVERSEAS DPRK LABOUR 129 - FINANCIAL NETWORKS 131 - POLISH COMPANIES 137 - NORTH KOREAN NETWORKS AND THEIR SECRETS: THE CASE STUDY OF TAIWAN 144 CHAPTER 6: ‘SLAVES TO THE SYSTEM’, AWARENESS OF NORTH KOREAN FORCED LABOUR 159 CHAPTER 7: NON–ENFORCEMENT: THE CONSCIOUS CHOICE NOT TO ENFORCE 173 CHAPTER 8: COMPLIANCE AND ENFORCEMENT 191 PROJECT TEAM MEMBERS 206 1 The publication of this prelimininary report was timed to coincide with the international premiere of Dollar Heroes. As such, this version may still have minor mistakes, typographical errors, and other deficiencies in it. Publication in book format will follow soon, after a process of copy-editing and such. 5 6 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This report owes everything to a number of people who were willing to speak out, despite possible negative consequences for themselves. North Korean exiles who worked overseas for their state; prominent North Korean exiles such as Jang Jin-Sung and Thae Yong-Ho who were willing to explain how things work in the North Korea system. Dr Kim Kwang-cheol’s interviews with some of the former North Korean workers were literally invaluable. Experts in different fields never hesitated to generously donate their time, expertise, and efforts to help us out. Investigative journalists who have made this topic their home for the last few years unexpectedly shared some of their source materials with us, which helped us a great deal. There are many more people to thank. Journalists who kept encouraging us, politicians who tried (and try) to make a difference, fellow academics who took an interest and who took the trouble to write a kind message whenever the media or colleagues in the field were less kind. Our thanks also go out to those who criticized us; academic debate is a precious thing. Other kinds of criticism – the non-academic kind if you will – only served to imprint the urgency of this research. Thank you all. First and foremost, we should thank the members of our project team, who have made quite unbelievable efforts to do the research and get this report ready. You always kept smiling, so let us paraphrase Winston Churchill: ‘Research is a game that is played with a smile. If you can't smile, grin. If you can't grin, keep out of the way till you can.’ The biggest thank you goes to you. Remco Breuker Imke van Gardingen 7 8 INTRODUCTION We started our previous report by noting that a North Korean welder had burned to death while working on an assignment on a Polish shipyard in 2014. Chŏn Kyŏngsu’s gruesome death galvanised awareness of what precisely had been happening to DPRK labourers all over the world. It seems fitting that we start the introduction to our follow–up report by telling a bit more about Chŏn, details and stories that emerged during the research of the past year and a half. Chŏn was 41 when he died, a native of Pyongyang’s Man’gyŏngdae neighbourhood. He left behind a wife and a nine–year old son. A man of few words, generally liked by his peers, he did not drink or smoke, but he was fond of the North Korean card game chup’ae. He had worked in Poland for fewer than two years when he died. Originally, he was assigned to do work that paid badly, but he pleaded with management to be transferred to where he could either earn more or be sent home. Perhaps because he was a trusted worker who functioned as a cell secretary and organised ideological lectures, he was then assigned a position as a welder. His accidental death, according to a former colleague, was not the result of Chŏn’s negligence, but due to a lack of ventilation in the space where Chŏn was welding, leading to a build–up of gas. Sparks from the welding ignited the gas and burnt Chŏn. After the accident, it was not immediately clear who had died, because the body had been burnt beyond recognition. However, Chŏn’s smartphone was discovered near the place of the accident, unscathed, and pictures of his family identified the phone as his. Chŏn died two weeks after his birthday on August 15, the day the Korean peninsula’s liberation from Japanese domination is celebrated. The story of Chŏn’s death has taken years to collect and put together; in order to discover the meagre details we now know, we have had to dig through reports written in Polish by the Polish Labour Inspectorate, talk to North Koreans who worked abroad, do research in EU member states, in South Korea, sift through seemingly endless digital and other archives, and try to form a picture of what the situation Chŏn was in was like. Despite our efforts, it is still an incomplete and fragmented story, much of which we will never know. In that sense, it is 9 very much like our research. Despite our best efforts, it is still an incomplete and fragmented story, much of which we will never know. There are a number of reasons for the fact that as the project team leader and as researchers we have never felt more strongly that the research done is incomplete and fragmented yet may realistically be as good as it gets. There is the fact that the project never had full–time people working on it and that most of us had to somehow combine it with our regular duties. Combined with the transnational and interdisciplinary nature of the research, which will easily transport one from familiar surroundings to professional terra incognita, the sheer diversity of sources needed, the many different research locales, the geographical diversity, the different historically formed practices in different places, the interplay between governments, private companies, state institutions, workers, and the like, and the fact that the issue is extremely politicised, created a complex and layered discourse that still awaits analysis. So hoping to come up with any kind of definitive analysis with a small, part–time team – no matter how hard talented team members worked – never was a realistic option. Normally, when faced with such a situation, an academic will try to get a grant, so that extra funding buys time and expertise. The politicised nature of the discourse, however, makes applying for grants almost impossible. Politically neutral grants are fiercely competitive and the DPRK’s peculiar international position precludes for example many EU grants (and that surprisingly on grounds of principle). Subsidies that were available to us, we had to say no to, due real possibilities of political intervention and –real or perceived– association with overt political and ideological objectives. Why then the decision to publish admittedly incomplete and fragmented research? To a certain extent, all research is always incomplete and fragmented of course, but that is not a very satisfactory explanation. The reason to publish at this moment is quite simply not that we feel we are anywhere near what could reasonably be called the end of the research project, but because we judge we have enough to mark a substantial moment. To put it very simply, this is but a stop in the way to the final destination. We also hope that in publishing this, we contribute to the formation of a critical mass, academically and in terms of human rights, that will help creating increasing synergies. This report is partly a follow–up of the previous report, in that it again has a focus on Poland, which is regrettable and unfortunate in certain respects, but inevitable in others. We have tried to begin mapping the phenomenon of DPRK overseas labour globally and historically. As such, the now historical case of the Czech Republic has been investigated in detail; apart from its historical value in itself, it also contributes to our understanding of DPRK 10 overseas labour in a broad, structural perspective over the –relatively– longue durée. The chapter on Africa is in a way the opposite of the Czech Republic chapter. Not in the sense that it is not historical – history plays a very important role in the research on Africa –, but in the sense that where our research into the Czech Republic and the DPRK labour presence there has finished, that in Africa has not. The Africa chapter also contributes to a wider understanding of DPRK overseas labour, but at the same time signals this project’s intention to delve much deeper into the DPRK presence in Africa, historically and at present. The chapter on Russia highlights a number of characteristics that seem most prevalent in Russia, but that may also be found in other regions that yet await further investigation. This chapter is impressive in the way it chronicles the experiences of individuals working in Russia. One way of investigating DPRK overseas labour is by focusing on the financial networks, instigating and making possible the contacts that shape DPRK overseas labour. The case of Taiwan shows just how difficult research on DPRK networks abroad is – and how necessary.

Load more