Siberian Timbering: Economic Salvation, Extinction and Enslavement

 

Now that it is the Year of the Tiger there is an interesting article in Japan Times(February 14, 2010)  about tiger, fish and timber poaching in Siberia.  It appears that the poaching of Korean pine trees is severely endangering the tigers.

“Korean pine is a really valuable tree for tigers.  The pine nuts feed squirrels, deer and wild boar, which the tigers hunt.  The tree provides cover in winter, when the deciduous trees are bare.  It is the root of this environment.  No pine, no tiger,” declared Sveta, a doctorial student from Irkutsk and a member of Wild Life Conservation Society.

But the extinction of tigers is not the only concern.  According to this New York Times (January 28, 1992) piece. the destruction of the Siberian forest may contribute to global warming.

According to this BBC article (November 27, 2009) - more than a third of all Russian logs are smuggled by mafias, a practice that doubled between 2005 and 2007.  One illegal logger told the journalist to jump quickly into the car or he and the journalist would be shot.  “My boss has a guy who shuts up anyone creating problems or speaking too much,” he later explained.  Apparently there have been some provisions made to try and save these forests from poachers – especially the last remaining Korean pine forests.  World Wild Life (WWF) has a page dedicated to it here.

What started off as a posting similar to this one about the endangered tigers in Russia quickly evolved (or devolved – depending on your view) into a posting of both Koreas’ involvement in the Russian timber industry.

Legal Logging Operations by South Korea

While a great deal of the lumber being logged is poached, what about the legal timber?  What you may not have known is that South Korea imports nearly 90 per cent of its timber and that Russia is its number two exporter – Chile is number one. 

Chung Ju-yung, the founder of Hyundai, has a lot to do with this.  He apparently helped in the negotiations that resulted in the Soviet Union recognizing Korea in the early 1990s.  In an interview with Los Angeles Times in 1990, Chung said, ”We needed each other economically. If there is an economic need, politics will follow.”  He formed the Svetlaya, a Russian-South Korean joint venture, to log timber in Siberia.  He also suggested that North Korea might join the project or similar ones.  And they did!

North Korean Loggers

Andrei Lankov wrote about these North Korean loggers in 2006.  Large numbers of North Koreans were sent to Russia to work in an effort to pay off North Korea’s debt to the Russians.  They were obviously well-guarded and indoctrinated.  A St. Petersburg Times article (August 14, 2001) quoted Taisia Rozhanskaya, deputy head of the regional migration services in Primorye Region as saying, “I feel sorry for them.  They all look brainwashed.  They wear pins with the portrait of Kim Jong Il and have to attend political gatherings twice a week.”

The Independent (March 13, 1994) wrote about the working conditions of these loggers and noted that they were “virtual slaves.”  Punishment at the camps were severe: 

“There were frequent beatings by camp guards, and two types of prison: a log house for minor infractions and solitary confinement cells for ‘ideological crimes’, such as criticising the government of Kim Il Sung. The loggers dreaded these prisons: sleep was impossible, rations were reduced, beatings were commonplace and not all prisoners got out alive. The work day began at 5am, and continued until 8pm in the summer, 5pm in the shorter winter days. Rest days were rare. Each logger received one new set of clothes per year, and most worked for three years before returning home. They earned an average of dollars 25 a month (paid in North Korean won), and those able to cut 50 per cent more than their target could earn a maximum of dollars 40 a month.”

But this article in The Russia Journal (July 8, 2003) gives a complete opposite view of the lives of North Korean loggers.  It quotes one director as claiming that “Koreans are good workers.  I haven;t seen anyone better here.”  The article further goes on to claim that the logging operations were “a huge boon for North Koreans” and that the worst punishment meted out then (the optimum word) was to be demoted to a lower-paying job that had nothing to do with logging.  This St. Petersburg Times (August 7, 2001) article noted that  ”prisoners were often immobilized by plaster casts put along the length of their legs, or metal devices of similar purpose. There are also reports of executions.”  The Chosun Journal (copying an article by The Times of London dated August 6, 2001) supports the St. Petersburg article and adds that an Amnesty International report ”described the 1988 suicide of a worker who threw himself in front of a Russian train rather than return to North Korea; an attempted suicide by a worker, who cut open his stomach when arrested for escaping; and the summary execution of a refugee, who was shot at the border when returned there by Russian authorities. Two others were spared the same fate by officials who saw the execution and let them stay in Vladivostok. Another refugee who had escaped several times said that a needle had been driven through his nose and attached to a rope.”

This NPR article (April 13, 2008) quotes a local Russian resident describing her reaction to encountering one of these Russian loggers.  ”When we come across them in the forest, they’re afraid of us. We used to feel sorry for them looking very poor, dressed in their black work clothes,” says Tynda resident Liudmilla Alexandrovna. “But now we’re used to them. After all, their lives here are far better than in North Korea.”

BBC reporter, Simon Ostrovsky, traveled to one of these camps and managed to get video of the North Koreans in operation.  The article and video can be seen here (August 26, 2009).  In addition to the poor working conditions, the inherent dangers they faced made worse by the poor working conditions, and only receiving 2 days off each year, the article also mentions loggers running away and of their horror at being captured and sent back to North Korea:

“They can expect terrible suffering, they can expect a cruel death,” Svetlana Gannushkina, an activist who helps North Korea loggers escape,  said. “We know of cases when people in the moment of their detention have simply, killed themselves. These people and their families become pariahs in their own country. They are treated as traitors.”

Even the earlier mentioned The Russia Journal acknowledged that, at least at one time, “the North Korean worker camps had officers who hunted down escaped workers ‘like hounds,’” and that the escapees would burst into tearsand beg not to be turned over to their employer.

According to the Independent article there were as many as 150 North Korean lumberjacks trying to defect to South Korea.  North Korea angrily denied the reports and described them as “rumour, unfounded propaganda and sheer fabrication.”  But at least a couple did manage to escape and find work, illegally because they were cheap.  This St. Petersburg Times article (November 20, 2001) claims that the North Korean runaways were ”a very attractive work force for Russian employers because of their illegal status and lack of any rights [and that] Russian citizens use this cheap work force very successfully, ignoring all existing laws.”

 Choson Ilbo interviewed one of the North Korean loggers who managed to escape.  Kim Man-soo described his life at the camp.  ”I worked 15 hours a day for five years. In July 1998, I counted the vouchers I had been given instead of money. They were worth US$3,000. That was my goal. I risked my life earning that money. I was excited about bringing the money home, but when I told the logging office to pay me, they said they had no money.” The logging office had sent all the cash it received from Russia to the North. That was the last straw: Kim escaped in January 1999.  There is also another article by Choson Ilbo (December 10, 2008) that gives more of Kim Man-soo’s life at the camps.

Apparently there has been some strife in regards to these loggers.  According to this Nightwatch report dated December 2006 (doesn’t cite sources so you be the judge):

“North Korean labor camps in the Siberian wilderness in the Maritime Province of Russia have been a central feature/thorn in the North’s relationship with the Russian Far East. In the 1990’s at least half a million men worked in self governing forestry camps that had become lawless. Living conditions were sub-human. Federal Russian troops were needed to stop the periodic gang wars and indiscriminate crime, but the Russian governor refused to enter the camps even with armed escorts from the Interior Ministry.  The Russians paid for the timber, but wanted to deport the unruly Koreans. The North Koreans wanted the labor payments but refused to take the work crews back. The issue remains unsettled. What do you do with a half million unruly workers that no one wants? Who pays for their relocation?”

Historical Logging

I found one of the quotes in the Japan Times somewhat surprising.  Amir Khisamuditnov, a historian/writer is quoted as saying:

“Vladivostok has always resisted Moscow.  Before the revolution, China, Japan and Korea were a threat to the region.  Under the Soviets, Vladivostok was closed to foreigners because Moscow was afraid it would fall to the ‘yellow’ powers.”

I can understand the fear of the Soviets – especially in regard to the Northern Campaign, but Korea as a threat to Russia?  Seems almost ironic that one of the events leading to the Russo-Japanese War was the Yalu Timber Concession (owned by a Russian – an ancestor of Yul Brynner).  The logging rights and the virtual Russian enclave – complete with a small port named after the Russian Czar – provided Japan with an excuse to declare war upon Russia.

Additional Links

North Korean Economy Watch did a posting on North Korean loggers in 2009 complete with google views.

Far Outliers in 2006.

Photo Citations – Choson Ilbo, Gregory Feirfer of NPR, Dale Miquelle from Japan Times, Wild Life Extra and WWF.