North Koreans in Libya banned from returning home

Posted By Suzanne Merkelson Thursday, October 27, 2011 - 5:25 PM Share

Can North Koreans living and working abroad possibly have it worse than those citizens who stay home? From waitresses who work in government-run restaurants across Asia to seamstresses essentially enslaved in the Czech Republic to the well-documented North Korean football team publically shamed after its World Cup loss, it's obvious that the regime's brutality doesn't stop at the border. Now, the estimated 200 North Korean citizens living in Libya have been banned from returning to North Korea, due to fears that news of the Arab Spring will leak to the country's 23 million subjugated inhabitants.

As the Telegraph reports, Kim Jong Il's regime had a close relationship with Muammar al-Qaddafi -- the North Koreans sent doctors, nurses, and construction workers to Libya, earning hard currency needed to buy missiles and equipment for North Korean's nascent nuclear weapons program. The North Koreans in Libya join other nationals who had been working in Tunisia and Egypt not allowed to return home.

According to the Telegraph, North Korean media hasn't reported on Qaddafi's death and only about one percent of North Koreans are even aware of the uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa -- mainly government officials and a few citizens who travel to China for business.

As an editorial in the Korean Herald says:

Pyongyang's silence about the fall of the dictators in Tunisia and Egypt and the bloody death of Gaddafi reveals Kim Jong-il's awareness of the vulnerability of his regime in the process of a third-generation dynastic succession of power. Despite their boasting of the perfect loyalty of the 23 million people to the party and the leader, the ruling elite are afraid of what effect the information on the fates of the overseas dictatorships will have on the oppressed people of the country.

orean Central Television/Yonhap via Getty Images

EXPLORE:LIBYA, NORTH KOREA
 

SUB@DDWAP.COM

1:12 PM ET

October 28, 2011

Do you believe what you are writing?

Really? In what simplified, almost brainless, world of thought do you assume your readers live?
So you want us to believe that North Korea is dependent on those 200 construction workers and nurses's immense revenues to build their nuclear program?
Yeah sure, great research, thanks for the enlightment!
Same way you had your readers believe that the traitors armed rebellion in Benghazi was a national revolution. We saw how the rebels were welcomed in every town in a blitz sweep and without any help from foreign arms!
I am guessing you also had your readers believe that the certain destruction of many Libyan towns, and the certain death of about 24 thousand Libyans is a welcome outcome, far better than the threat of destruction that the Libyan government had issued on the armed rebels of Benghazi.
Oh my, would'nt the world be a better place without such reporters? I have no doubt about it. Why don't you escape from your master's voice and start thinking instead of rehashing the same ingredients the world powers sprinkle on you lot I'd media slaves, expecting you to mix them into some readable narratives for simple minded people? This article is an excellent specimen: we have North Korea, we have nuclear weapons, we have dictatorship, we have 20 million people that are ALL enslaved, etc.
You must be having a laugh...

 

KIZOYUN

8:01 PM ET

October 29, 2011

olumlu geli?me

ben her zaman uzakdo?u ülkeleri olan japonya, çin, kore gibi ülkelere hayran olmu?umdur, çünkü bu topluluklar 2. dünya sava??ndan bu yana her zaman kendilerine çok çal??may? felsefe edinmi?lerdir,
k?z oyunlar? bu ba?ar?lar?ndan dolay? ve teknolojiye katk?lar?ndan dolay? te?ekkür ederim

 

HB209

4:17 PM ET

November 14, 2011

that dude is seriously paranoid

Wow that is absolutely insane. that dude is seriously paranoid. I don't know what I would do if I was banned from seeing my family sylvania netbook.

 

GIGA34

9:26 PM ET

November 15, 2011

Populist rulers can

Populist rulers can accommodate diversity, as they have largely done in today's Turkey, or they can unleash the forces of sectarianism, as they have in Iraq, where Shiites and Sunnis kill one another and both kill Christians and phlebotomy certification. Older Iraqis will tell you that no one ever spoke of "Sunni" and "Shiite" when they were young; but whether in Bosnia or Iraq, sectarianism, once provoked, has a very long half life. There is no more volatile substance in the modern nation-state. Thanks

 

COWBOY69

6:01 AM ET

November 18, 2011

for the best

its probably for the best.. motorcycle parts why would anyone want to go back there anyway? just run and don't look back!

 

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