By Ndanusa Aduka
How does North Korea fund its embassy in Nigeria? How do its diplomats in Nigeria make the extra money they need to survive, save for themselves and pay mandatory ‘royalty’ to their home government? These questions arise from the fears raised by Global Initiative against Transnational Organised Crime, in a report which states that “… increasingly stringent economic sanctions and isolationist policies designed to cripple North Korea’s nuclear weapons capabilities will likely fuel the expansion of the regime’s illicit activities and state-sponsored criminal networks…”
North Korea came under United Nations Security Council hammer recently, following a unanimous adoption of new rounds of tough sanctions over its nuclear production and testing programmes. But, in a bold rejection of the UN sanctions, North Korea fired an intermediate-range missile over Hokkaido, which reportedly, flew 3,700 kilometres to the Pacific Ocean.
The Global Initiative against Transnational Organised Crime, a nongovernmental organisation, in a report entitled ‘Diplomats and Deceit: North Korea’s Criminal Activities in Africa,’ released in September 2017, asserts that “as legitimate revenue sources dry up, (for North Korea), the quest for dark money to bolster Kim’s regime is almost certain.’ It also, based on its investigations, warned that “ the extent of North Korea’s criminal activities in Africa and the involvement of embassy personnel is still little known and little understood; ‘… evidence presented in this report, coupled with the testimony of high level defectors and government officials in Africa and Asia with knowledge of criminal activity in Africa, suggests that it is far more concerted and widespread than previously thought,’ pointing out that ‘ these activities pose a very real threat and one that requires far more attention from law enforcement and intelligence agencies on the continent.”
The report, written by a South African journalist, Julian Rademeyer, is coming against the background that North Korea has acquired a notorious reputation of tasking every citizen, including diplomats, doing business outside North Korea to pay ‘royalty money’ to support the development of weapons of mass destruction.
Relying on several detailed accounts of various former North Korean diplomats who defected to South Korea, the report reveals how North Korean diplomats are badly paid and the ‘Diplomatic Corps has long been under pressure to support the maintenance of foreign missions by earning foreign exchange,’ pointing out, that ambassadors are paid between $900 and $1,000 per month, a situation which leads them into desperation “ for extra income through work outside the embassy and live communal life behind the embassy walls to save cost…”
Consequently, all over the world, North Korean diplomats, the report says, violate the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations which does not allow diplomats to practise any Commercial or Professional activity for personal profit, but Korean diplomats, according to the report, are secretly listed as Directors of private enterprises in some countries, run private restaurants, mini-bus taxis and engage in fishing in local rivers, and sometimes get involved in illegal deals involving arms, narcotics, natural resources and other illegitimate businesses to make money for themselves and support their home government.
The report exposes the existence of two ‘shadowy departments’, code named Bureau 38 and Bureau 39, which control a complex network of business operations and front companies in countries where they have established diplomatic presence. The task of the two Bureaux, the report says, is obtaining hard currency for the ruling Korea’s Workers Party and Pyongyang, through both licit and illicit means.
The report quoted the United States Treasury, describing Bureau 39, as a secret branch of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea government that provides critical support to the North Korean leadership in part, through engaging in illicit economic activities and managing slush funds and generating revenue for leadership.
An analysis by Global Initiative against Transnational Organised Crime shows that 18 of at least 31 detected rhino horn and ivory smuggling cases involving diplomats in Africa, since 1986, involved North Koreans. A North Korean trade representative was reportedly caught trying to smuggle ivory in Zimbabwe last year while their criminal activities in Mozambique, South Africa and other African countries have been variously reported, but little is known about their activities in Nigeria, beyond their engagement in solid minerals in areas around Zamfara State.
The report cites a United States Department document, circulated to a number of governments in April, 2017, which urged ‘ strict scrutiny of North Korean officials claiming to be diplomats,’ recalling that earlier, in November, 2016, United Nations Security Council imposed a travel ban and asset freeze on two Korean diplomats.
The report estimates that North Korea rakes in as much as $500 million per year from crime profit activities and between $700 million and $1 billion annually through exports of weapons and trading drugs and counterfeit money. Giving the critical security challenges in Nigeria, where widespread illegal importation of arms by unknown persons have been reported as security agencies battle violent crimes, militancy and insurgency in parts of the country, this warning by the Global Initiative against Transnational Organised Crime may be instructive.
North Korea maintains Embassies in ten African Countries, including Nigeria, South Africa, Angola, Tanzania, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Senegal, Uganda, Guinea and Equatorial Guinea.
The report says North Korea can no longer maintain these embassies because funds have dried up while bilateral relations have weakened and a significant number of the diplomats already implicated in criminal activities, as the battle for survival rages on.
Already, Uganda, rated among the top five countries that have close ties with North Korea in the world, is reportedly said to have sent 60 North Korean military and state security officials away from the country in May, 2016, and just recently, the country complied with the United Nations resolutions that imposed sanctions on North Korea for developing nuclear weapons. Part of the measures taken by Uganda in compliance with the United Nations resolutions also includes the expulsion of representatives of the Korean Mining Development Trading Corporation, and the country’s Foreign Affairs Ministry says it would not renew government contracts with North Korea to train Ugandan soldiers.
Aduka writes from Kaduna
This is why Nigeria’s security agencies must keep an eye on North Korean diplomats and their activities in Nigeria, even as Journalists for Peace in Korean Peninsula (JPKP), in a statement signed by its Chairman, Tajudeen Ajibade, and released in Kaduna on Saturday, October 21, called on the Federal Government of Nigeria to reconsider diplomatic relations with North Korea, close down its embassy in Nigeria and urge other countries yet to comply with the United Nations sanctions against North Korea, to do so.
Aduka writes from Kaduna