Great Defector Article – Must Read!

The Asia Times has a great article this week about the North Korean defector issue. This article gave me some new perspective on the defector issue and why the Uri Party is pushing so hard to get rid of these defectors and keep Kim Jong Il in power.

More than 6,000 North Koreans have arrived in South Korea since the end of the Korean War in 1953. In, 2004, however, 1,890 defected to the South, an increase of 50% increase over 2003.

South Korea has always been bound to accept those from the North who do make it to Seoul. However, in defiance of the constitution, and humanity, Roh’s government is beginning to close the door, indicating that those who have “criminal records” in North Korea or China may not be accepted. That’s right. Those who have run afoul of the despots in the North no longer are welcome in South Korea. Indeed, Vice Unification Minister Lee Bong-jo further suggested that those found to have committed crimes in North Korea could be tried in South Korea, a legal procedure only possible if the judiciary asserts South Korean jurisdiction over all of North Korea.

Can you believe that the South Korean government may actually try to prosecute defectors who committed crimes in North Korea? How do you prosecute someone for the crime of maybe stealing food to feed his family dying of starvation or somebody who may have done such a horrible crime as talk bad about Kim Jong Il. I know nobody in the Uri Party would ever talk bad about Kim Jong Il, but talking bad about him in North Korea puts you in the gulag. So if the South tries these “criminals” and convicts them what then? Jail in South Korea would still be better than starving in the North, unless the South hands them back over to the North. Fortunately the defectors would have some legal recourse to try.

North Koreans who do make it to South Korea could well challenge these latest measures constitutionally. After all, South Korea cannot legally bar North Koreans – legally defined as Korean citizens – from entering the South, especially since the government is asserting its legal jurisdiction over North Korea by offering to locally adjudicate the cases of those who upset the North’s Dear Leader, Kim Jong-il. Of course, if South Korea’s criminal code extends to those accused of crimes in the North, what of the South Korean labor laws and human-rights code?

Obviously the South Koreans care very little about labor laws and human rights if they are trying to get rid of these refugees to begin with. Plus there is this information about the Kaesong project to consider:

South Korean manufacturers can hardly contain their excitement these days at the prospect of using North Korea labor at a mere $57.50 per month ($7.50 of that reportedly goes to the Dear Leader’s cognac fund) – the negotiated rate at the recently opened Gaeseong Industrial Complex in North Korea. Gaeseong, a symbol of Korean economic brotherhood, is just across the border in the North, where South Korean firms have established light manufacturing firms using North Korean labor. But since these workers are legally “South Koreans”, as specified by the ROK constitution covering the entire peninsula with extended legal jurisdiction, then would it not be illegal to pay them salaries amounting to less than a tenth the nationally defined minimum wage?

Will the South Korean government next shift its sights to the constitution, amending the document in order to legally recognize North Korea as an independent state and its citizens as foreigners in South Korea?

Of course, to recognize North Korea and its citizens as foreign nationals would seem to fly in the face of unification efforts. But then again the policies of Roh’s administration are not designed to bring about the speedy unification of the two Koreas. In fact the effect has been quite the opposite. South Korea’s leadership does not want the expense and potential upheaval that unification would bring. Instead they are working with and funding the North Korean leadership in efforts to fortify the regime and prevent the consequences of regime collapse and unification.

Roh, a former human-rights lawyer, believes that thwarting the flow of hungry North Koreans is the next necessary step. Sealing the North Koreans within North Korea ensures a pliant, cheap labor source, a resource that many economists in South Korea have proclaimed will allow South Korea’s firms a cost advantage over even the poorest of the world’s workers. Chinese laborers on average receive almost twice the rate that South Korean firms will pay their North Korean brethren toiling for South Korean companies in the new industrial park.

I have never considered the angle of keeping North Korea a float to provide much cheaper labor than China for South Korean companies to make increased profits. If you don’t think this is true check out this quote:

Callous and indifferent, to be sure, but who can argue with the potential profits? As Lee Woo-chun, president of the South Korean engine component manufacturer Dosco Co, explained last year, “If I can get good workers, I would build factories anywhere, even if the country were ruled by a regime worse than that of Kim Jong-il.”

So basically the South is willing to keep Kim Jong Il in power as long as he turns his country into a giant sweat shop for South Korean companies. The key is to keep the starving people inside the sweat shop. Sweat shops don’t work to well if you don’t have anyone to work in them. If they can do this, South Korea wins because of the cheap labor and they do not have to worry about fronting a huge bill for reunification and Kim Jong Il wins because he is still in power making increased revenues. However, the same North Korean people will continue to lose, but who cares about them anyway when there is so much money to be made?