미국, 해외 북한 군인 출신 노동자들 단속 US cracks down on North Korea's army of overseas workers
US cracks down on North Korea's army of overseas workers
CNN Digital Expansion 2017 Jenna McLaughlin
By Jenna McLaughlin
Washington (CNN)The US ambassador to Myanmar was one of dozens of US envoys to get the same directions from Washington this spring: uncover North Korean sources of income, then cut them off.
Ambassador Scot Marciel's work with local officials shut down a North Korean restaurant in Yangon, one of many across southeast Asia where young waitresses sing, dance, serve moderately priced dishes and offer souvenir Kim Jong Un lapel pins in the gift shop. More than 80 percent of the servers' salaries is taken to support their country, where citizens are starving.'
North Korean workers make soccer shoes inside a temporary factory at a rural village on the edge of Dandong October 24, 2012. REUTERS/Aly Song/ReutersReuters
edited by kcontents
미국, 해외 북한 군인 출신 노동자들 단속
수입원 차단 주목적
임금의 80%를 본국에 송환
미얀마 주재 미국 대사는 올 봄 북한의 수입원을 찾아내 차단하는 동일한 지시를 받은 수십명의 미국 외교 사절 중 한명이었다.
스콧 마르시엘 대사가 현지 관계자들과 함께 한일은 동남아의 젊은 웨이트리스들이 노래하고 춤추고 저렴한 가격의 요리를 제공하며 김정은의 기념품을 파는 북한 식당을 폐쇄한 것이었다.
굶주리고 있는 국민들이 있는 자신의 조국을 돕기 위해 임금의 8할이 이상이 본국으로 송금된다.
양곤 레스토랑의 폐업과 직원 추방은 수십만의 북한 노동자들의 해외 파견을 종결시키고 그들이 북한 정권에 송금하는 연간 5억달러로 추정되는 돈을 차단하기 위한 미국이 계속해서 단속을 해왔다.
유럽, 중동, 아프리카, 아시아 전역에 있는 북한 노동자들을 포함하는 이 계획에 참여한 전 NSC관계자는 "모든 대사관은 북한의 수입원을 파악하고 방해하라는 지시를 받았다"고 말했다.
The Yangon restaurant closure and its workers' expulsion is one success story in an ongoing and uphill US campaign to end the overseas work of hundreds of thousands of North Korean laborers and to choke off the estimated $500 million a year they provide the regime.
"Every embassy was told to identify North Korean sources of income and stymie them," said one former NSC official who worked on the initiative that encompasses workers spread across Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
Excuses to ease restrictions
The US effort to crack down on Pyongyang's itinerant workforce at restaurants, on construction sites and in military and medical units overseas is part of the maximum pressure campaign that may have helped bring Kim Jong Un to the table to discuss denuclearization with President Donald Trump at their June 12 summit.
But North Korean work abroad, particularly in Russia, China and Southeast Asia, continues apace. And there are growing concerns that some countries are lax in enforcing sanctions, while others may be using the summit and the warming ties between the US and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea as an excuse to ease restrictions on Pyongyang.
In Chinese river towns bordering North Korea, workers are trickling back to the restaurants again, with some in operation and others looking set to re-open their doors, local businessmen say.
"We are already receiving reports that Chinese border controls have been relaxed," Greg Scarlatoiu, the executive director of The Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, told CNN. "I think that China, Russia and others seized the warming of US-DPRK relations as an opportunity to resume or continue economic exchanges with the DPRK with impunity."
As the US and UN levied sanctions on North Korea over the years to pressure the ruling family to end its nuclear and missile development, Pyongyang discovered that shipping citizens overseas to earn cash created a reliable stream of revenue.
'Nice' but 'very odd'
The State Department has compared the migrants to a slave labor workforce, one that nets Pyongyang around $500 million a year, the UN says. Workers are kept under close watch by regime "minders" and forced to pay remittances and loyalty fees to the government back home, almost always more than half their check.
Waitresses in the restaurants are occasionally allowed to go shopping with minders and often come from families of a high social class, according to Rosa Park, the director of programs at the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea.
"The restaurants are run by a network of North Korean expats, likely the same ones involved in other illicit revenue-generating activities and are part of this diverse set of tools used by the regime to raise hard currency," Priscilla Moriuchi, director of strategic threat development at the security firm Recorded Future.
"These tools include smuggling drugs, liquor, and precious stones, counterfeiting US dollars and cigarettes and exploiting diplomatic immunity," said Moriuchi, a former top National Security Agency official on East Asia.
The businesses might be fronts for intelligence operations or illicit businesses, particularly in Laos and Thailand, US intelligence sources said. One said the outlets are "meant ... to promote [North Korea], but are certainly more involved in corruption, espionage," and described them as "nice," but "very odd."
Economic change for North Korea?
The restaurant in Mongolia's Ulaanbaatar, for example, is decorated like a birch forest, where servers watch diners with hawk-like intensity before changing into flashy costumes to perform dance routines. The North Korean beer and food, like traditional bibimbap and beef soup, get good reviews.
The cash from overseas workers and businesses like these restaurants is not the regime's "lifeblood," said Mark Tokola, the Vice President of the Korea Economic Institute of America, but it's "not an insignificant amount by North Korean standards."
As part of its maximum pressure campaign, the US shepherded tough new sanctions through the UN in December 2017 that specifically targeted North Korean workers, requiring most of them to return home by 2019.
Enforcement has varied, but two countries are of particular concern.
Tens of thousands of North Koreans have worked in Russia and China, two of the few remaining places their airline Air Koryo still visits. Large numbers of laborers work in logging and construction in Russian cities like Vladivostok, while the bulk of North Korean restaurants are in Chinese cities, particularly on the border.
In the bustling river town of Dandong, a local businessman told CNN that North Korean tourism and business took a hit after Beijing ordered all North Korean-owned businesses to close in January, but things slowly seem to be coming back to life.
"I expect things to become better," said Mr. Lee, a South Korean who asked to be identified only by his surname. "North Korean restaurant workers are beginning to arrive," he said. "Some small restaurants have opened while large ones like Koryo, by the river, seem to be getting ready for reopening."
He notes that the number of trucks passing between his city, which is just across the river from Sinuiu, North Korea, is about 30% compared to the busiest period before sanctions hit. "We are all waiting for things to become better," he said.
China, North Korea's largest trading partner, is crucial to any attempt to squeeze Pyongyang economically and experts say it's clear Beijing is complying. But President Xi Jinping may see strategic benefits in cozying up to North Korea, and looking the other way on sanctions, particularly as President Donald Trump continues to slap trade tariffs on China.
A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy told CNN the government "has been comprehensively, accurately, faithfully and strictly implementing" the UN's North Korea resolutions.
Russian officials, according to local press, have promised to expel North Korean workers. One foreign official familiar with the issue said Russia alone has about 20,000 people "working in slave-like conditions."
The Kremlin declined to comment, but earlier this year Alexander Matsegora, the Russian ambassador to North Korea, told Russian news agencies that authorities had begun to expel North Korean labor migrants in accordance with December's UN sanctions.
NKNews
