A group of North Koreans sent to work at a seafood factory in China last month rioted and occupied the building to protest unpaid wages, Japanese media said on Sunday. During the protests, they took factory officials hostage and bludgeoned to death the representative of the company that owned it.
The story is broken Japanese Yomiuri Shimbun The newspaper spoke to North Korean sources about the events of January 11-14. The official said this was the first major uprising by disgruntled North Korean workers who had been sold into virtual slavery to foreign companies, and that the Pyongyang regime was finding it increasingly difficult to control its young subjects. It is also a warning.
Factories in China produce apparel, process seafood, and even – according to Radio Free Asia (RFA) – For pharmaceutical manufacturing. The facility is located in Helong City, China, within a development zone along the border with North Korea.
Approximately 2,000 North Korean workers were transported to the factory under a contract with the North Korean Ministry of Defense. The Ministry of Defense wanted the indentured servants to earn Chinese currency that could be taken back to Pyongyang.
Slave laborers in North Korea typically earn very little wages and are not paid until they return to North Korea. The money they earn is held by the communist tyranny, and most of it is kept as “expenses” and “donations” to the motherland.
North Korean workers at Helong reportedly heard rumors that previous workers were being paid. there is nothing When they returned home, the administration decided to withhold all their salaries to fund “war preparations” against South Korea and the United States. Rumors abounded in North Korea that most of the money was embezzled by high-ranking officials.
A riot broke out on January 11, during which North Korean workers, many of them former soldiers, took control of the factory and took hostages. North Korea sent secret police to deal with them and notified the Chinese consulate, but the workers refused to enter the factory.
At one point during the workers’ revolt, workers physically assaulted one of the hostages, who media reports said was either a factory manager or a representative of the company that owned the factory. There is. The occupation of the factory ended on January 14 after workers bludgeoned the man to death.
according to Yomiuri Shimbun’s Sources said the workers were “temporarily appeased” after the North Korean regime agreed to pay their wages, but about 200 of the 2,000 workers were subsequently detained by secret police and sent to North Korea. He was reportedly taken back to North Korea’s “political prison camp” and received a “severe prison sentence.” punishment. “
North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un and his top officials reportedly reacted to the incident, which was one of the strongest acts of defiance against Kim Jong-un’s rule since he took power in 2011. “I’m in shock,” he said. Workers sent overseas will hear about the Galong Incident and reflect on their own rebellious actions.
“This is the first large-scale protest by North Korean workers in China, and it brings to the fore the anti-authoritarianism of North Korean youth who do not accept slavery.” Yomiuri Shimbun.
RFA said that Ko Yong-hwan, a North Korean defector who currently works at South Korea’s Ministry of Unification, said last month that North Korean workers in China had indeed carried out “strikes and riots” when rumors of the January 11 uprising spread. However, he pointed out that they said that they were. He said it subsided after a few days. Ko predicted that there may be another round of violence as “funds to repay wage arrears have dried up.”
