OPINION | The Doha-Tehran-Pyongyang brotherhood is a danger to us all.
Qatar is helping North Korea, the brutal regime that killed University of Virginia honors student Otto Warmbier last month, by employing North Korean citizens and soldiers.
How is this even possible?
The North Korean regime, led by Kim Jong Un, is currently subject to international sanctions as it continues to defy calls to end Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs.
The foreign currency earned by North Korea’s overseas workforce, which rotates every three years in Qatar, is a crucial tool for propping up the isolated country’s fragile economy.
ADVERTISEMENT Up to three thousand North Korean migrant laborers are working on the World Cup 2022 construction sites to this day despite the actions of the international community. Ever since FIFA awarded the World Cup 2022 to Qatar, a steady flow of workers have entered the country, now under scrutiny for its support of extremism and terrorism. Doha supports North Korea by allowing workers to come to Doha for work on Lusail City, the location of the World Cup Final.
The Qatar-North Korean connection emerged just following 9/11 with very heavy activity from 2003 to present. North Korean workers are contracted with local construction companies through North Korean recruitment firms in Qatar including Sudo Construction, Gunmyung Construction, Namgang Construction and Genco.
The firms are all managed by North Korea’s External Construction Bureau. Some of the workers are soldiers sent by North Korea to earn cash for Pyongyang’s military. Sudo and Gunmyung made their first inroads to Qatar in 2003, followed by Genco in 2010. The recruit firms are employing some 3,000 North Korean laborers for pavement and building construction. Why North Korean workers were in Qatar before the awarding of the World Cup 2022 in 2010 only illustrates the ties that bind Doha and Pyongyang together.
The North Korean workers hope to collect their earnings when they return to North Korea, but according to a series of testimonies from defectors and experts, workers receive as little as 10 percent of their salaries when they go home, and most receive nothing.
