North Koreans are needed to do the dangerous jobs, says Malaysia

By admin-s Last updated Nov 25, 2014

(The Guardian) – “I don’t get paid – the company gets the money,” he said. “When I go back to North Korea I’ll get paid, I think.”

Malaysia has defended the use of North Korean labourers in its mining industry, saying they are particularly good workers because of their dedication, strength and bravery.

After a North Korean was among those killed in a mine explosion at the weekend, Malaysia’s deputy home minister, Datuk Seri Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar, told reporters that the men had been working legally under a special agreement between Pyongyang and authorities in the Malaysian state of Sarawak.

“When it comes to industries such as coal mines, the jobs are very dangerous and tough,” Wan Junaidi said. “No local or Sarawakian will dare to take up such jobs — that is why [we] need foreign workers. In the coal-mining sector, only Britain, China and North Korea have highly-skilled workers.”

Defectors’ groups claim there may be as many as 65,000 North Koreans currently working abroad — primarily in China, Russia, Mongolia and the Middle East — where they are sent to jobs in construction, forestry, factories, restaurants and mines.

They have questioned the ethics of using North Korean workers, amid suggestions that their salaries are paid directly to the government in Pyongyang.

The minister’s comments come just two days after three men — Tun Tun Win, 36, from Burma; Kardianto, 38, from Indonesia; and Pang Chung-hyok, 29, from North Korea — were killed after a blast ripped through the mine on Saturday morning. Another 29 men were injured, seven of them from North Korea. Forty-nine of the 119 foreign workers at the Sarawak mine were North Koreans.

North Korean labour is sought after in Sarawak state on Borneo island, which is the only place in Malaysia permitted to hire workers from the country. Peninsular Malaysia has no such privilege, Wan Junaidi said.