Regime squeezes North Korean workers in China for funds
The North Korean authorities are pressuring North Korean laborers in China to contribute more funds to underwrite large-scale state construction projects back at home.
Earlier this month, a Daily NK Special Investigative Team met with an employee of a North Korean restaurant in China, conducting an interview with him in a major city in China’s Liaoning Province. The man told Daily NK that “the authorities are asking for so much money for the Samjiyon and Wonsan construction projects that we have nothing left.”
The two construction projects are pet projects of Kim Jong Un. In his New Year’s Address, he stated that “the whole Party, the entire army and all the people should turn out to transform Samjiyon County into a model for modern mountainous cities, an ideal socialist village, and complete on the highest possible level the construction projects that represent the present era, including the Wonsan-Kalma coastal tourist area and other new tourist areas.”
The North Korean authorities have since been forcing North Korean citizens to supply labor and supplies for the two projects. These demands are now reaching North Korean laborers deployed abroad. ......
[Source: Daily NK]
