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Fishing boats carrying
decomposed corpses have washed ashore in Japan in recent weeks, leading to
speculation they are rickety North Korean vessels that have strayed dangerously
far from port under the impoverished nation's push to boost its catch.
 There
has been no mention from secretive North Korea of any missing boats, but its
leader,
Kim Jong Un, has put a high priority on
fishing as a way of earning foreign currency and providing a sustainable food
source that is not reliant on harvests and weather.
The Japanese coast guard and police reported 12 incidents of wrecked wooden
boats, including some that were in pieces, on the country's shores and waters
since October, containing 22 dead bodies, including five skulls.
Japanese authorities declined to comment on the origins of the boats or the
possible identities of the dead, but a hand-written sign identified one boat as
belonging to unit 325 of the North Korean army, according to footage from
Japan's NHK Television. Tattered cloth was found aboard the vessel that appeared
to come from the North Korean flag, the video showed.
Defectors and experts say fishing boats under the command of the Korean People's
Army may have succumbed under pressure from Kim to catch more fish, drifting off
course and ill-equipped for rough seas.
TV images of some of the boats showed relatively large but otherwise
primitive-looking motorized craft and the coast guard said they did not have GPS
navigation systems. Those aboard could have died of starvation and exposure to
the cold after getting lost.
Although Japan's Meteorological Agency said there was not unusually bad weather
in the Sea of Japan this November, the waters are rougher at this time of year
due to the onset of cold, northwesterly winds.
October through February is also prime season for squid, sandfish and king crab
off the east coast of the Korean peninsula, and it is not unusual that there
would be high numbers of boats at sea, said Kim Do-hoon, a professor of
fisheries science at Bukyong National University in Busan.
"Kim Jong Un has been promoting the fisheries, which could explain why there are
more fishing boats going out," he said.
"But North Korean boats perform really poorly, with bad engines, risking lives
to go far to catch more. Sometimes they drift and fishermen starve to death," he
said. Over the years, North Korean boats seeking the
rich fishing grounds of the Sea of Japan have washed ashore in Japan as well as
on the deserted beaches of the Russian Far East. North Koreans looking to
defect, on the other hand, typically flee by land into China, or, less often,
via coastal waters to neighboring South Korea.
Fishing is a vital industry in a country where millions cannot find enough to
eat. North Korea's 1.2 million-strong army is heavily engaged in food
production, including fishing.
"Some of the boats belong to Korean People's Army fishery stations, possibly
operating to catch sailfin sandfish," said An Chan-il, who served in the North's
army as a junior officer before defecting to South Korea in 1979 and now heads a
private think tank on North Korea in Seoul.
"Kim Jong Un is pushing hard to produce more fish. So these boats must have been
stranded after overworking," he said.
Kim, North Korea's young leader, has made boosting food production a priority
for the isolated country since taking office after his father died in late 2011,
and recently visited a KPA fishing station on North Korea's east coast, calling
for the facility to be upgraded, the official KCNA news agency said.
"Modernization of the station will help it catch more fish, (Kim) said, adding:
The station should be turned into an up-to-date fishery base which can be
boasted of in the world, thus making our ongoing efforts produce good results
for the service persons and civilians," the Nov 25 report said.
Lee So-yeon, a North Korean army defector who arrived in Seoul in 2008, said
fish products are a key export for North Korea's army, which hires civilian
fishermen to make money.
"North Korean army units and security agencies are running many businesses to
earn foreign currency from mining gold to catching fish on the west and east
coasts," said Lee.
Lee Jong-won, professor of international relations at Japan's Waseda University,
added: "The North is introducing an incentive system for producers. Fish is one
of the main export products to China, which can be a way to get foreign
currency…There is a possibility this incentive system led people to take more
risks." |
