Wow, that's a stupid plan in retrospect, perhaps when they took their decision it was _obvious_ that ruining the livehood of a whole region would cause the worker to take power. Or, since they all ended up gov official, perhaps they don't give a shit about the workers, but instead did this to create a political situation which would benefit them.
Incredible.
Probably much more common that people thinks. And much more devastating also. There are a lot of similar examples in Europe and America