Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Ya-ta Boy]

This is the story as printed in the Chosun Ilbo:

[Ya-ta Boy]

This could be totally irrelevant and unconnected to the events at the east end of the DMZ but it is worth a look at what has been happening at the west end:

Flash of temper livens Korea talksBy Donald Kirk

SEOUL - North Korea has livened up the current round of six-party talks in Beijing with a sideshow at the truce village of Panmunjom in which North Korean guards have been kicking over tables in the one-room, one-story hootch on the line between the two Koreas, all this in the presence of South Korean tourists.

While envoys from the United States, the two Koreas, Japan, Russia and China were yakking in Beijing about "verification" of whatever the North is doing to disable its nuclear facilities, US and North Korean colonels traded rhetorical blasts at the critical flashpoint 64 kilometers north of the South Korean capital Seoul where the Korean War armistice was signed in July 1953.

First the United Nations Military Armistice Commission - the nomenclature reflects the role of the UN command structure dating from the Korean War - demanded an end to "intimidating acts" by the North Koreans. The North in turn demanded the meeting in which the senior North Korean colonel denounced the "provocative actions" of the southern side.

The North Koreans accompanied that claim with a warning that "even the slightest provocation against the other side" anywhere near the conference room "may lead to an armed conflict at any moment".

The question was whether or not the increased tensions at the Panmunjom crossing had anything to do with Friday's tragic shooting on the eastern side of the peninsula in which a North Korean soldier shot and killed a 53-year-old South Korean woman who had walked into an off-limits area during a visit to the Mount Kumkang tourist zone. The woman was said to be on an early-morning stroll near a beach when the shooting occurred.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/JG12Dg01.html

The plot possibly just thickened. To the innocently clueless ajumma possibility and the espionage possibility we can add the possibility of a Nork 'warning shot across the bow' to influence the 6 party talks.

[Bondrock]

I think it may have been connected to 2MB's speech, in that the Norks wanted to cut him off at the knees and see if he would still give the speech. I also agree that the 6 party talks are involved.

The Norks are mainly behind the recent protests here in SK too. Amazing how they can manipulate things with their brinkmanship tactics. I admit I don't like it, but also admit that part of me shakes my head in wonder at what they are able to get away with.

[On the other hand]

[Bondrock]

Those ajummas probably wander over the line every day. But this day was the day of warning because of so many reasons such as 2mb and the 6 party talks.

[Ya-ta Boy]

[Adventurer]

Look, the ajumma was supposed to be with her group not taking a stroll by herself in North Korea. She wasn't somewhere that others were going to, so she was taking a risk. She was alone i.e. she chose to be away from the group. She didn't realize the seriousness of doing so. Is that the fault of the North Koreans? No. However, they shouldn't have shot her to death.

[On the other hand]

[Adventurer]

[On the other hand]

According to someone on the Marmot's Hole, this is the fence that the woman crossed.

As you can see, the fence isn't complete, so presumably the woman crossed over at the other end, and didn't have to jump over the actual fence. However, according to someone else on Marmot...

[Gopher]

It is a demilitarized zone. Not Disneyland or the zoo. And even in Disneyland and the zoo people should know not to wander over the fenceline...

[Ya-ta Boy]

The Joong Ang Ilbo has a diagram with distances in its lead story. It also says:

Seoul also officially refuted Pyongyang�s account of the incident. �The North has said the victim traveled 3.3 kilometers (2 miles) in 20 minutes from the time she left the hotel and until her death,� Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Ho-nyoun said yesterday in a press briefing. �The victim was a woman in her 50s and she was moving on a sandy beach, so there is a logical contradiction in the North�s argument.�

The article goes on to say:
More signs of trouble were seen yesterday for the Lee Myung-bak administration� efforts to thaw frozen inter-Korean relations as Pyongyang used insulting language to turn down the South Korean president�s offer to engage in dialogue.

�Although the renegade talked about resumption of dialogue this time, the words are empty,� said yesterday�s Rodong Shinmun, the official newspaper of the North�s governing Workers� Party. �The speech once again revealed the anti-unification position and confrontational character of Lee Myung-bak, the traitor.�

At this point, I'm leaning to this scenario:
A woman leaves her hotel at 4:30am for a walk on the beach to watch the sunrise. Her shoes get wet from the water and it's still dark enough around 5 for her not to realize the dune marks the line of the 3.2 meter fence and she climbs over it. Wet shoes, a 3.2 meter high fence and her age argue against her climbing the fence in the dark.

She gets 200 meters past the fence before she's shot. She's inland from the beach.

The witness says he only heard 2 shots from 350 meters away. The Norks say they fired blank warning shots. No one has said anything about wind velocity or direction. The witness does say he wasn't paying attention and there was the sound of waves.

It's reasonable to ask for an investigation. Tourism has been halted. The Nork government is already losing money from one of their most important sources of income. It will be interesting how long the North is willing to give up money.

The candlelight vigil people will have a new issue to add to their list of grievances against Lee. It will be interesting to see how the non-candlelighters react to this incident. Lee has a chance to restore some of his popularity.

It will be interesting at school today. My students will know more about this than is being printed in the papers.

[Ya-ta Boy]

Forgot the link:

http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2892280

[The Bobster]

Two weeks have gone by, and while it probably shouldn't, what amazes me is the scarce outrage - or even sumpathy for the victim - felt or expressed by the citizenry of K Korea over this.

And the repurcussions? Little at all, aside from the cancelation of tours to Kumgansan. This is something that ought to have happened immediately when the N Koreans expelled all S Korean govt authorities several weeks prior to the incident. What was going through these people's minds, letting thousands of vacationers go on ahead and frolic inside the terrotory of a hostole power with none of their own people in place to even observe or verify or be informed of what happens to them?

With regard to S Korean poliitcs, I simply cannot see the position of the left/liberals among my Korean friends. When I asked one of them why there were no candlelight vigils for Mrs Park, the reply was "North Korea made an accident," and I couldn't keep quiet.

"First," I said, "That's not what they are saying - they want you to apologize for the fact that they killed one of you.

"Second, when an Korean soldier shoots a S Korean it's only what he was trained to do, and what he was ordered to do.

"Finally, 'accident' is what you call it when a couple of American soldiers turn a sharp corner and unintentionally plow their heavy vehicle over a couple of schoolgirls on their way to a party - but I was here in 2002 and there were only a handful of S Koreans around who called it that, and millions more who called it cold-blooded murder."

Eventually, the conversation comes around to whether and how much The Bobster loves 2MB (which is something that gives me a little deja vu when I recall how many times I was accused of loving Saddam when I first started opposing Bush's war, lo, these many years past) and I win no further points with such friends by pointing out that the Sunshine Policy was clearly a failure because there seems to be light only on this side of the DMZ.

And meanwhile, Mrs Park is quietly buried with two bullet holes in her back, her body returned only after said bullets had been removed from her flesh, because it seems that the exact make and calber and metallic composition of the weapons used by soldiers patrolling a few meters from a lucrative resort is, well, I guess it's a state secret and we have to respect that ...

[ontheway]

"Accident" is one of the words that Koreans do not understand. It has been mistranslated in the Korean/English English/Korean dictionaries. Up to 10% of the words have been mistranslated. After 911 many Koreans kept referring to the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon as "accidents."