ARTICLE: “An Industrial Park in North Korea Nears a Growth Spurt,” by James Brooke, New York Times, 28 February 2006, p. C5.

We are told that South Korean firms are starting to take advantage of the Kaesong Industrial Park in which Kim Jong Il has allowed them access to 26-cents-an-hour labor.

Who needs China? says one company president.

Indeed, when your neighbor to the north is one big prison.

Ah, but the smell of competition is in the air, as South Korean firms worry that Chinese firms in the north of North Korea will tap all that captive labor before they do.

I know, I know. I should be grateful for the connectivity. Better some than none at all and maybe, just maybe, over the longest of hauls this can result in the slow-motion buy-out of North Korea.

But how many millions suffer in the meantime under Kim’s amazingly cruel regime. How many suffer constant malnutrition? How many die prematurely? How many lives lives of cruel neglect and deprivation?

Ah, but you might hope that at least these wages better the lives of those few thousands lucky enough to get these jobs?

Read on:

In the United States, American labor and human rights activists may object to employment conditions at Kaesong. The minimum wage for the 48-hour week is $57.50. But $7.50 is deducted for “social charges” paid to the North Korean government. The remaining $50 is paid to a North Korean government labor broker. None of the South Korean factory managers here would guess how much of the $50 salary ends up in the pockets of workers.

“The exact amount is determined by North Korean authorities,” said Kim Dong Keun, a South Korean who is chairman of the Kaesong Industrial District Management Committee.

Mr. Hwang, of Shiwon [a company active in the district] said: “We pay the broker. So we have no idea.”

Think slave labor still doesn’t exist in this world?