They could be North Korean defectors who set out to sea in search of asylum. Or they might be fishermen who, in desperate hope of increasing their catch, strayed dangerously far from their home ports....
“We know that the regime in North Korea is pushing its farmers and fishermen to produce greater amounts of food,” Robert Dujarric, director of the Institute of Contemporary Asian Studies at Temple University’s Japanese campus, told the Chinese newspaper. “To my mind, the most likely explanation is that these were simply fishermen who were trying to fulfill large quotas and simply ran out of fuel too far out at sea to get home.”
The “primitive looking” motorized boats, each about 10 to 12 meters long, were not equipped with GPS navigation, the Japan Times reported. Adrift and ill-equipped for an extended time at sea, their crews likely died of exposure or hunger.
December 2, 2015
"Mysterious ‘ghost ships’ keep washing up in Japan with bodies on board."
"Though it’s thought that the 'primitive' wooden boats are Korean, the identities of the victims on board are unclear."
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I guess "Mysterious ghost ships" gets more clicks than "People dying because of communist/socialist rulers."
Alternative headline: "Communism mysteriously kills people." It's a mystery how it does that. Particularly in North Korea, where Jimmy and Bill and Barry have worked wonders.
Biowarfare? Perhaps they're infected with a mysterious plague.....
Actually, more likely they died of thirst than hunger. You can live a month or more without food, but less than a week without fresh water.
Has Dennis Rodman surfaced lately (so to speak)?
Fishermen wouldn't starve.
Were there piles of caught fish onboard? They don't look like fishing boats you'd take far out to sea... Maybe it's a commie plot- the dead bodies are loaded with some biological agent...
I read an article that said this has been going on for over a century.
rhhardin wrote: Fishermen wouldn't starve.
In a right-side-up world this would be a reasonable supposition. When the fishermen are subjects of the Hermit Kingdom it is not. Before 9/11, when the tyrannies of the firm of Kim et fils got their due attention from the nattering classes, it was often noted by defectors that the countryside was starving while the capital was well-fed. One would think a peasant would make sure his family was fed before bundling off his harvest to the State, but in a condition of perfect terror that same peasant will readily surrender his entire crop without the merest taste of it and hope for a miracle rather than incur the wrath of the man-god. The same psychology would prevail on a fishing boat.
With one boat, or two, maybe you wouldn't know, but surely they can tell the difference between fishermen who wandered too far out to sea, and escapees. Maybe they don't want to say.
If escapees, some should have succeeded in reaching Japan safely, but Japan might not want to say because they don't want the North Korean government to imprison or kill their families.
If fishing boats, you can calculate how the currents work, and how long they have been adrift, and if the boats are the usual type, and theer should be others that they have rescued.
This has apparently been going on for years, so the assumption is they are boats that were simply pushed out too far to sea. Unless that is the way of sentencing people to death, or disposing of bodies.
Japan's way of discouraging undocumented Korean immigrants? I'm thinking Japan would not welcome a flood of Korean refugees, but want to avoid international scandal of turning them away.
Let it be known that some boats have washed up, but never any live survivors.
Sam you're arguing things not in evidence.
It is more likely that the food, water and fuel they were given was meant to last a specific period of time so as not to encourage escaping. You're also assuming they had charts. I'm guessing they didn't have any navigation tools. Maybe not even a compass. I'd give you your last assumption except I'm pretty sure that in NK the boat has more value than the people in it and would be missed.
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