Lefkowitz Denounces Kaesong Slave Labor; U.S. Continues to Squeeze NK’s Finances

It’s like they’re reading this blog . . . or perhaps great minds just think alike.

You may recall that recently, I blogged about a media visit to the Kaesong Industrial Park. Piecing together several excellent reports allowed one to gather: (1) the extraordinary degree of control over the North Korean workers; (2) the extraordinary degree of supervision of the South Korean visitors; (3) the fact that the North Korean workers actually receive just $8 a month, not the widely-reported $58; and (4) that the workers at Kaesong can forget about forming independent labor unions, or striking for better wages or working conditions. There is little doubt that Kaesong workers have almost no choice whatsoever in the conditions of their employment.

The latter fact is legally significant, because “freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining,” is considered an international right under Article 2 of the 1988 ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work. I have personal knowledge that at least one NGO with status at the UN is considering filing a complaint.

Fast-foward to the last remarks by Jay Lefkowitz, the U.S. Special Envoy for Human Rights in North Korea, at the Heritage Foundation, and a big hat tip to Sperwer, who found video of the address:

The Unification Ministry condemned remarks by the U.S. special envoy for North Korean human rights, Jay Lefkowitz, that North Korean laborers at the complex are paid less than US$2 a day and conditions there should be inspected by the International Labor Organization. Lefkowitz told a forum at the conservative Enterprise Institute in Washington that North Korean workers at the complex do not enjoy guaranteed labor rights and an international organization like the ILO should inspect the complex and report its findings to the UN.

In fact, as the LA Times tells us, Lefkowitz greatly overstated what the workers at Kaesong are actually paid, after “voluntary” payments to the regime. I especially liked this:

Ministry spokesman Lee Gwan-se said the official’s remarks were made without verifying actual conditions and “provide misleading information that not only distorts the situation but damages the image of South Korean enterprises working there.

There’s no need to blame Jay Lefkowitz for slandering those South Korean corporations; just listen to the words of one manager at one of those same enterprises:

Not only are the wages the lowest in Northeast Asia, but independent labor unions are banned.

“Strikes?” Hwang replied dismissively in response to a reporter’s question. Raising crossed arms, he said with a slight smile: “Absolutely not.”

What’s more, Lee’s suggestion that Lefkowitz should go to Kaesong and see things for himself is facially fatuous. The North Koreans have refused to allow monitoring of food aid distribution, and have also refused to let UN Special Rapporteur Vitit Murtarbhorn into the country. Of course, if I were Lefkowitz, I’d call the bluff immediately and ask to visit and speak freely with the workers without minders present.

[Update: This report suggests that a more recent visit to Kaesong was a big disappointment even to some of its South Korean supporters.]

Much more significantly for 6.5 million hungry North Koreans, Lefkowitz also criticized countries (read: China and South Korea) that provide North Korea unmonitored or almost-completely-unmonitored food aid, thus making it possible for the regime to feed its priority subjects without accepting monitored aid from the World Food Program. In light of the President’s recent denunciation of Chinese repatriation of North Korean refugees, it’s the latest in a series of signs that the Bush Administration, though now in its sunset, has finally shaken its gridlock and gone on the attack against the North Korean regime’s financial lifelines and political control mechanism. Also last week, the Administration froze the assets of Swiss firm Kohas AG and its president, whom the Treasury Department suspected of dealing with a North Korean firm whose own assets were frozen over its proliferation activities.

These are also signs that the U.S.-South Korean relationship has deteriorated to the point of each nation essentially acting in ways that are independent of and contrary to each other’s policy objectives, and each then publicly criticizing the other after the fact. The instigation and exploitation of that division is probably North Korea’s greatest diplomatic and political success, and may be the single most important factor in North Korea’s survival thus far.