South Korea’s New Low: Gulags

And I thought I’d seen it all:

Two South Korean nonprofit groups say they have begun discussions with the Russian government about creating a farming and light-industry zone in eastern Russia’s Maritime Province that would utilize South Korean financing and North Korean labor.

One of these nonprofits, which calls itself the Overseas Koreans Foundation, is affiliated with the Foreign Ministry. As for the land where this gulag is to be established–and that’s a fair description for a state-owned venture in rural Siberia where the workers are clearly not free to leave or quit–it belongs to a religious sect called Daesunjinrihoe. Now, far be it for me to comment on other peoples’ religious beliefs, except to say that when you make use of labor that’s less than fully free and voluntary, you’re at least halfway toward being a cult. The only real distinction in this case is that the slaves likely won’t be believers; another cult has already spoken for their allegiance.

This isn’t planned as a small thing, either:

According to the nonprofit groups, North Korea has said it would provide a workforce of 250,000 in exchange for the rice produced by the district, estimated at 800,000 tons annually.

Well, that’s one percent of the whole North Korean population. North Korea’s present gulag population is estimated at the same number of persons. Frankly, joint ventures with North Korea have a phenomal stillbirth rate. This one sounds particularly unlikely. On the positive side, someone does appear to be thinking about sending food into North Korea for a change. Distribution to the hungriest would be too much to expect, of course.

Funding is an obstacle, the two groups said. Russia has suggested that $600 million it owes the Korean government from a 1990 loan package to the Soviet Union be used for initial investment. The Finance Ministry, however, says it has an agreement with Russia that the debt be paid in cash between 2007 and 2025.

So the final financial arrangements are anything but certain, but one distinct possibility is that South Korea will use a state-affiliated enterprise to set up a slave labor camp in Siberia to recoup a bad debt from the Russians–by farming land owned by a religious sect. It’s a wonder North Koreans even want to go to South Korea.