ROK and Inter-Korean relations
December 2010
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SKorea names strategist to new NKorea crisis post
The Associated Press
Friday, December 31, 2010; 1:04 AM
SEOUL, South Korea -- A retired army general who is a defense strategy specialist will lead South Korea's new national crisis management office charged with addressing North Korean provocations, the government said Friday.
The new office was created in the wake of North Korea's artillery attack on a front-line island near the Koreas' disputed western sea border.
The newly named chief Ahn Kwang-chan once served as head of the Defense Ministry's policy bureau, was deputy chief of military strategy at the Joint Chiefs of Staff and has worked in the South Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command, President Lee Myung-bak's office said in announcing the appointment.
[SK NK policy]
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N.Korean Commandos 'Train to Occupy S.Korean Islands'
North Korean commandos are training to occupy South Korea's five northernmost islands in the West Sea in an emergency, Radio Free Asia reported Thursday. Quoting a Chinese source familiar with North Korea, the broadcaster said sharpshooters under the North's Navy Command and the General Bureau of Reconnaissance have been conducting the drills in waters off Nampo since mid-December.
The source claimed they were ordered by leader Kim Jong-il and his son and heir Jong-un.
They belong to an elite unit that invariably ranks first or second in the People's Armed Forces' combat evaluation. Troops are said to practice swimming in full combat gear for 40 minutes even in midwinter.
The source said the aim is to dampen the South Korean military's determination to firmly respond to any North Korean provocations or attacks after the shelling of Yeonpyeong Island in November.
If North Korean troops take civilians hostage on the five islands, it would be difficult for South Korean and U.S. forces to strike back, the source speculated.
The source claimed an operational plan has the North's Army Corps firing coastal artillery at the five islands on a moonless night and special forces landing in hovercraft and occupying the islands.
But a South Korean government official denied the report. "It's true that North Korean troops are training in waters off Nampo, but we believe that their drills are part of routine winter drills, not practicing landing on the five West Sea islands," he said.
[Buildup] [Media]
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N.Korea Boosts Special Forces, Conventional Arms
North Korea's special forces have grown by 20,000 over the past two years, reaching about 200,000 in total and increasing the so-called asymmetric threat the country poses to the South.
The numbers come from the defense white paper 2010 published on Thursday, which says the North has consistently boosted its special warfare capabilities, deploying a light infantry division under an Army corps stationed on the frontline and adding a light infantry regiment to an Army division there.
The 200,000-odd special troops are primed to carry out combined operations such as attacks on major facilities in South Korea, assassination of VIPs and harassment in the rear by infiltrating the South using underground tunnels and AN-2 aircraft capable of low-altitude infiltration, the white paper said.
[Buildup] [Military balance] [Media]
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Kim Jong-il 'Exhibits Criminal Behavior Traits'
North Korean leader Kim Jong-il apparently visited Hwanghae Province just before both the sinking of the South Korean Navy corvette Cheonan and artillery shelling of Yeonpyong Island, while attending musical performances following both attacks, according to government intelligence. Hwanghae Province is the region in North Korea that is closest to the sites of the attacks.
In March this year, Kim conducted one of his on-the-spot guidance tours at a cooperative farm in Sariwon, North Hwanghae Province around two weeks before the March 26 attack that sank the Cheonan. On March 27, Kim attended a performance by the North Korean national symphony orchestra. On April 3, Kim attended a performance by the Mansudae Art Troupe.
The North Korean leader's itinerary was similar around the time of the artillery attack on Yeonpyong Island on Nov. 23. On Nov. 22, Kim inspected a fish farm in South Hwanghae Province and on Nov. 28 he attended a performance by the national symphony orchestra. On Dec. 5, Kim watched a performance by the North Hamgyong Province Art Troupe.
Pyo Chang-won, a criminal psychologist at the Korea National Police University, said, "Visiting the scene of a crime before it is committed can be seen as boasting about it." It can also induce troops in the region to demonstrate zealous loyalty, Pyo added. Before the nuclear test in 2006 and long-range rocket launch in 2009, the North Korean leader conducted intensive on-site inspections of military bases in Hamgyong Province, where the relevant facilities are located.
"If it's no coincidence that Kim attended musical performances following both attacks, there are two possible reasons," Pyo said. Either he may have intended to create an alibi by stressing the fact that he is a peace-loving person who enjoys cultural events, or he may have been trying to calm his nerves. "If this type of behavior repeats itself, we can view Kim as having the same personality defects as Adolf Hitler, who listened to classical music after the massacre of the Jews," he added.
[Bizarre] [Media] [Kim Jong Il]
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N.Korea Releases Footage of Kim Jong-il Using Left Hand
North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has been spotted using his left hand fairly adeptly, suggesting that he is recovering from paralysis following a massive stroke in 2008. Some observers believe North Korean media deliberately showed footage of Kim using the hand to quash rumors that his days are numbered.
In a documentary broadcast Wednesday by the North's state-run Korean Central Television, Kim repeatedly uses both hands to open and close a closet door in a newly-built apartment for artists on the banks of the Daedong River in Pyongyang. The footage was purportedly shot on Oct. 8.
[Health]
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Season's Greetings from N.Korea
North Korea has faxed New Year's greetings to some 50 South Korean organizations and key figures via fax, urging the South to abide by the joint declarations signed at two inter-Korean summits on June 15, 2000 and Oct. 4, 2007.
A government official said the North faxed the greetings to 35 civic groups including the Pan-Korean Alliance for Reunification and the South Korean Federation of University Students Councils and 15 individuals. "We are sending seasonal greetings while welcoming the New Year. We wish you luck in your patriotic endeavors toward the unification of our nation under the banner of the joint declarations."
Provincial governments and civic organizations aiding the North were also among the recipients.
"It seems the North wants to wheedle humanitarian aid from sympathetic South Korean bodies," the official said. North Korea has been sending New Year's greetings and propaganda to South Korean organizations and individuals every year since 2001.
[Overtures]
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Special Forces of N.Korea reach 200 thousand, Defense Ministry estimates
In its 2010 White Paper, the ministry estimated that the number of troops and military weapons and vehicles in N.Korea is on the rise
Kwon Hyuk-chul, Staff Writers
In its “2010 National Defense White Paper” published Thursday, the Ministry of
National Defense estimated the number of North Korean Special Forces at 200 thousand. Previously, these forces were estimated at around 120 thousand in the 2006 White Paper and around 180 thousand in the 2008 white paper. If the Ministry of National Defense’s estimates are correct, the number of special forces has been increasing recently on the order of 20 thousand to 60 thousand every two years.
[Buildup] [Military balance]
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[Editorial] Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s disappointing end
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Korea (TRCK), which was founded with the goal of establishing ethnic legitimacy and achieving citizen unity through determining the truth of Korean history, concluded its operations yesterday with a report summarizing five years of activity. Established in December 2005 according to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Act, this commission has delved into the truth of incidents related to the anti-Japan independence movement, civilian massacres around the time of the Korean War, and illegal human rights infringements by public authorities.
In the short space of five years, the commission achieved substantial results. To begin with, it brought to light the truth for 8,468 cases, some 80 percent of the 10,860 petitions it received. It located socialist-affiliated independence activists who had been buried, and it confirmed that civilians were illegally executed by the military and police at locations throughout the country around the time of the Korean War. Also brought to light were the manufacturing of charges by state authorities, such as the case with the Minjok Ilbo's Cho Yong-su, as well as advertising suppression in the Dong-A Ilbo and forced dismissals of journalists by the Chun Doo-hwan government. The commission also showed that a series of espionage cases in the 1980s, including the “Aram-hoe incident,” were distorted or concocted entirely through illegal incarceration and acts of brutality.
[Human rights] [Lee Myung-bak]
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Trot Music Is S.Korea's Best Propaganda Weapon
An old-fashioned style of Korean pop music called trot is South Korea's most powerful psychological weapon against North Korea.
Most songs the military has broadcast to North Korean soldiers across the military demarcation line over tannoys along the DMZ were trot (pronounced "teuroteu" and short for "foxtrot").
They stopped in June 2004, but on May 24 this year, after the North sank the Navy corvette Cheonan, the military started airing propaganda programs on FM radio frequencies beamed across the border.
[Buildup]
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Girl Bands to Assist in 'Psychological Warfare'
The Defense Ministry is apparently minded to use songs and music videos by manufactured girl bands such as Girls' Generation, Wonder Girls, After School, Kara and 4minute in so-called psychological warfare against North Korea.
An official in charge of psy ops at the Joint Chiefs of Staff said no decision has been made so far. "It will take months to set up the big screens to use in psychological warfare operations and a wide range of contents will be shown," the official said. "I don't know whether songs by girl groups will be included, but there is that chance since pop songs were used in the past." But he added the content of propaganda broadcasts will not be limited to girl bands.
The JCS official said he is unsure how effective the work of girl bands will be. But the revealing outfits worn by the performers and their provocative dances could have a considerable impact on North Korean soldiers.
Girls' Generation englishnews@chosun.com / Jun. 11, 2010 09:15 KST
[Pyschowar]
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Gov't Send Mixed Messages About N.Korea Policy
The government seems to be sending out mixed messages regarding a perceived shift in its North Korea policy from engagement to preparations for reunification by hinting at the resumption of six-party talks.
President Lee Myung-bak in a policy meeting on Wednesday said the government should help people understand that "reunification is not far off and has many positive aspects for them."
In a briefing to the president, the Unification Ministry set three policy goals for 2011 -- persuading the North to change, seeking "proper" inter-Korean relations, and preparing for reunification.
"To help the North seek desirable change, we need to find a new approach to targeting the North Korea people," a ministry spokesman said. "We should lay firm foundations for the peaceful reunification of the Korean Peninsula in the long term."
The expression "preparations for reunification" has long been interpreted by both Koreas as meaning absorption of one Korea by the other.
But apparently mindful of the risk of escalating tensions with that choice of words, the ministry also talked about "opening doors for dialogue" and added, "We are not seeking reunification by absorption."
[Takeover]
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South Korea: North Korea builds up special forces
By HYUNG-JIN KIM
The Associated Press
Thursday, December 30, 2010; 3:05 AM
SEOUL, South Korea -- North Korea has faster, more powerful tanks prowling the world's most heavily armed border and 200,000 special forces poised to carry out assassinations and cause havoc in South Korea, a major military review said Thursday.
Seoul's Defense Ministry report, released every two years, signals that the North's military threat has expanded. It comes as President Lee Myung-bak's administration scrambles to respond to criticism that it was unprepared for a Nov. 23 North Korean artillery attack on a front-line island that killed four people.
[Buildup]
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White Paper Must Show Will to Defend Ourselves
The Defense Ministry's white paper due out on Thursday states that North Korea "poses a serious threat to security by developing and augmenting massive conventional military capabilities and weapons of mass destruction such as nuclear weapons and missiles, and through constant armed provocations like the torpedo attack on the Navy corvette Cheonan, and the shelling of Yeonpyeong Island. As long as the threat continues, the North Korean regime and military, the perpetrators of all such provocations, are an enemy."
[Buildup]
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N.Korean troops' new camouflage uniform causes alarm in the South
Source: Global Times [08:36 December 29 2010] Comments Some North Korean troops stationed along the border are donning a camouflage uniform similar to that worn by South Koreans, apparently to practice intrusion drills, a South Korean defense ministry official said Tuesday.
The move has prompted the South to advance the supply of new uniforms for its own troops to avoid confusion, the official said in a background briefing.
[Buildup]
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S. Korean Warmongers Plan to Stage Naval Firing Exercises
Pyongyang, December 27 (KCNA) -- The puppet Joint Chiefs of Staff of south Korea plans to stage provocative naval firing exercises in the East, West and South Seas of Korea from Dec. 27 to 31, according to south Korean KBS.
The madcap naval firing exercises to be staged by the puppet war-like forces again in 23 places with huge forces involved will drive the situation on the Korean Peninsula to the brink of a war as they are aimed at invading the DPRK.
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Bigger Island Harbors to Make Evacuation Easier
The Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs is to expand 10 harbor terminals on nine islands including Yeonpyeong from next year to accommodate 5,000-ton civilian and naval vessels that will facilitate the evacuation of residents and military operations in an emergency.
Any harbor with a 5,000-ton capacity can accommodate a destroyer equipped with formidable firepower. The 10 harbors are on Yeonpyeong, Beaknyeong and Daecheong islands among the five northernmost islands in the West sea; Chuja, Gageo and Daeheuksan islands in the West Sea; Ulleung and Dokdo in the East Sea; and Hwasun and Gangjeong harbors on Jeju Island.
According to a report the ministry presented to President Lee Myung-bak on Monday, the ministry will hand oversight of the harbors from local governments to the central government. It will also expand harbor facilities, which are now suitable for ships smaller than 3,000 ton, to accommodate vessels up to 5,000 ton.
"We'll start expansion in 2012-2013 after making the necessary preparations next year," a ministry spokesman said. "Once expansion is completed, mass evacuations of island residents will be possible if an island suffers an attack like the shelling of Yeonpyeong" in November.
The ministry also claims it will finish the four-rivers mega project by the end of next year and open a Seoul-Incheon canal in October next year allowing ships to travel from Incheon to the Han River.
[Buildup]
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Shift in N.Korea Policy Needs Careful Preparation
The government is shifting the emphasis of North Korea policy from exchanges and cooperation to fully fledged preparations for reunification beginning in 2011. "Next year, we intend to concentrate our efforts on strengthening our reunification capabilities rather than on dialogue with the North," a Unification Ministry official said. It is apparently looking to influence ordinary North Koreans to bring about changes in the Stalinist country. "We must free ourselves from the perception that reunification by absorption is unfeasible," he added.
[Takeover]
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Defense White Paper Defines N.Korean Regime as Enemy
The Defense Ministry on Monday said it will describe the North Korean regime and military as an "enemy," instead of the old expression "main enemy," in its white paper 2010 due out on Thursday.
This is the first time the defense white paper has described the North Korean regime as opposed to the country as an enemy.
The white papers from 1995 to 2000 took North Korea as the "main enemy." Since 2004, they described the North as a "serious threat" or a "direct and serious threat."
/Yonhap In the introductory part stating the "defense goals," the new white paper states, "The North poses a serious threat to security by developing and augmenting massive conventional military capabilities and weapons of mass destruction such as nuclear weapons and missiles, and through constant armed provocations like the torpedo attack on the Navy corvette Cheonan, and the shelling of Yeonpyeong Island. As long as the threat continues, the North Korean regime and military, the perpetrators of all such provocations, are an enemy."
A senior military officer said, "We limited the concept of enemy to the North Korean regime and military to separate the North Korean people. We didn't specifically use the expression 'main enemy' due to our relations with neighboring countries, because it implies that there also may be other enemies."
[SK NK policy] [Buildup]
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People in Their 30s Still Support Sunshine Policy
A survey on North Korea's shelling of Yeonpyeong Island on Nov. 23 by Cheong Wa Dae shows that while most people want tough measures against the North, many in their 30s still support the Sunshine Policy of aid and engagement initiated by the Kim Dae-jung administration. Other surveys also show that more people in their 30s than in other age groups support the policy.
In a poll by Research & Research on Nov. 27, 43.3 percent of respondents held the Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun administrations, which implemented the engagement policy, responsible for the North's development of nuclear weapons. But 35.4 percent blamed the Lee Myung-bak administration's hard-line North Korea policy. Some 21.3 percent gave no answer.
[Public opinion] [SK attitude NK] [Demographics]
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S.Korea Looking to Develop Stealth Jets
The South Korean government and military are considering developing stealth aircraft by 2015 as part of the country's fighter development program.
Citing an unnamed military source, Yonhap News Agency reported on Monday that North Korea's deadly shelling of Yeonpyeong Island last month has bolstered support among officials in Seoul for pursuing stealth aircraft technology.
The possession of stealth aircraft beyond the North's detection capabilities could apply great psychological pressure on the regime, the source said, and allow the South to match the military technology of advanced nations.
[military balance]
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Broadcasters and newspapers under thumb of administration
The Lee administration has used strategic appointments and legislation to reinforce its media takeover
» The JoongAng Ilbo article entitled, “Why Does MB Have Tears in His Eyes?” introducing stories of citizens who were helped by President Lee Myung-bak.
Lee Moon-young
As we stand at the end of 2010, the South Korean press is an embarrassment.
The diagnosis was harsh: “An abundance of defense of the Lee Myung-bak administration, the disappearance of criticism, and journalism left without a leg to stand on.”
It was a year in which broadcasting bowed to political pressure, while newspapers voluntarily stifled their own voices. There was an outpouring of assessments about the seizure of broadcasting through parachute appointments of network presidents. These were accompanied by assessments about the seizure of newspapers with comprehensive programming networks as bait luring in any press members that might check the Lee administration’s powers.
[Lee Myung-bak] [Media]
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Defense Ministry designates N.Korea ‘our enemy’ in White Paper
The ministry attempted to dodge controversy by labeling N.Korea the country’s ‘main enemy’
By Kwon Hyuk-chul, Staff Writer
The Ministry of Defense said Monday that it did not label North Korea the “main enemy” in its 2010 Defense White Paper, but instead inserted the phrase “the North Korean government and military is our enemy.”
A Defense Ministry official said Monday, “The ministry chose to do so to send a strong message to North Korea and express the firm view of the enemy possessed by the South Korean military, while at the same time minimizing grounds for controversy by using the phrase ‘the main enemy.’” Concerning the background to the decision, the official said, “There are no instances of foreign countries using the term ‘main enemy’ in their defense white papers or similar official documents.” He said, “The ministry considered that the Defense White Paper was an official government document open to the domestic public and aboard.”
[SK NK policy] [Buildup]
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Think Tank Warns of Further N.Korean Provocations Next Year
North Korea could invade South Korea's five northernmost islands in the West Sea, a think tank warns. In predictions for 2011 published Sunday, the National Intelligence Service's Institute for National Security Strategy said there is a chance the North will try to attack the South again next year.
The North's artillery attack on Yeonpyeong Island, one of the five, last month shows that the regime "was no longer fully in control of its actions," it said. It seems highly likely that the North will continue to launch various provocations to consolidate the regime succession."
[NK SK policy] [Buildup] [Inversion] [Thinktank]
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N.Korea Keeps Up Campaign of Denial Over Attack
North Korea on Friday continued its campaign of denial over the shelling of Yeonpyeong Island last month that killed two civilians and two soldiers by hauling soldiers on state TV to offer their fanciful version of the attack.
The soldiers, who were understood to have taken part in the artillery operations, gave their accounts on a talk show on [North] Korean Central TV on the 19th anniversary of leader Kim Jong-il becoming the supreme commander.
North Korean soldiers offer ostensible first-hand accounts of last month's artillery attack on Yeonpyeong Island during a talk show on the North's Central TV on Friday. /Yonhap "Fire burned in our eyes when we saw [South Korean] artillery shells fall into our territorial waters," one was moved to claim. "We poured our merciless thunderbolt of revenge on them. When we saw the first shell hit the enemy's radar post and several pillars of fire soar there, shouts of 'Hurrah' celebrated our victory."
[Clash] [Media]
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N.Korea Policy to Shift from Engagement to Reunification
The government is to start fully fledged preparations for reunification with North Korea next year, in a signal shift from the traditional emphasis on stability and cross-border exchanges to a more aggressive vision for the future.
A senior official on Sunday said the Unification Ministry will brief President Lee Myung-bak on Wednesday on its objectives for next year, which will be focused on preparations for reunification.
Following North Korea's artillery attack on Yeonpyeong Island, Lee has made a series of comments hinting at signs that North Korean regime is cracking. At a meeting with Korean residents in Malaysia on Dec. 9, Lee said, "I feel reunification is now not far off" and called it an "important change that nobody can stop." And in a speech at a government meeting on Dec. 3 he said, "No power in history has been able to resist the changes sought by the public."
Another government official said, "The focus of next year's North Korea policy has shifted to bolstering our capacity to handle reunification rather than on communicating with the North." He said there are efforts to map out measures “that can bring about changes among the North Korean people."
The ministry also plans to brief Lee on suggestions for funding reunification and gaining the support and cooperation of South Korea's allies and neighboring countries. This marks a U-turn in North Korea policy, given that Unification Minister Hyun In-taek only told Lee in his New Year's briefing early this year that an inter-Korean summit could be possible in 2010.
englishnews@chosun.com / Dec. 27, 2010 12:56 KST
[Takeover] [Lee Myung-bak] [SK NK policy] [Buildup]
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No Comeback for 'Main Enemy' to Describe N.Korea
The Defense Ministry will not use the old expression "main enemy" to describe North Korea in the 2010 white paper due out in a few days, it said Sunday.
The ministry claims it is looking for a stronger term, but the decision could prove controversial amid escalating tensions on the Korean Peninsula after the sinking of the Navy corvette Cheonan and shelling of Yeonpyeong Island. The term "main enemy" was scrapped a few years ago because it was felt to be needlessly confrontational.
There is also speculation that the decision aims to leave room for North Korea to see sense, improving the chances of better inter-Korean relations.
A senior government official said, "The term 'main enemy' is used to refer to the worst among many enemies, so we judged that the expression was unsuitable both diplomatically and militarily. It will be replaced with a term that best describes the situation we are in."
[SK NK policy] [Buildup]
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Security institute recommends talks to prevent further inter-Korean provocations
The report also recommended S.Korea take proactive actions to resolve the N.Korea nuclear issue
By Son Won-je, Staff Writer
The National Intelligence Service-affiliated Institute for National Security Strategy issued a report Sunday predicting that North Korea may invade the Five West Sea Islands, including Baengnyeong and Yeonpyeong Islands, during 2011, and that it may also make sudden overtures to improve inter-Korean relations.
In an annual report published Sunday on prospects for the political situation on the Korean Peninsula, the INSS said, “With regard to the succession system, there is a strong chance that North Korea’s provocations will continue in a variety of forms” during 2011.
[SK NK policy] [Buildup]
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Lee urges citizens not to be afraid of war
President Lee Myung-bak makes a speech during a meeting at the Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs, Monday. / Yonhap
By Na Jeong-ju
President Lee Myung-bak reaffirmed Monday that the country can only maintain peace by dealing resolutely with North Korean military threats, saying he would order a firm response if the country is attacked again.
“If we are afraid of war, we can never prevent war,” Lee said in his biweekly radio address. “The administration will make its utmost efforts to keep the peace, but won’t fear war with North Korea.”
[Buildup]
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Playing Chicken at the Brink
By Erich Weingartner
“Did Seoul just win a terrifying game of chicken?” This question (from a Tweet by Beijing-based Globe & Mail correspondent Mark Mackinnon) was on many minds this week. On Monday, December 20, 2010, the South Korean military completed a provocative 94-minute live-fire drill as part of its military exercise on Yeonpyeong Island. Despite threats of a deadly response, North Korea failed to take action.
In an unequal contest of power, brinkmanship favours the side that has the least to lose. This fact alone has made the DPRK masters of brinkmanship. And being the most sanctioned country in the world has strengthened their hand. Raising the spectre of war and destruction does not strike fear into the hearts of North Korean citizens (or affect their stock values) nearly as much as it does citizens of South Korea
[Clash] [Bizarre] [Brinkmanship] [Buildup]
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NKorea troops boast of artillery attacks (sic) on SKorea
By HYUNG-JIN KIM
The Associated Press
Sunday, December 26, 2010; 2:19 AM
SEOUL, South Korea -- North Korean soldiers boasted on state television they bombarded a front-line South Korean island with artillery last month as immediate retaliation (sic)after the South fired first.
[Clash] [Media]
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Families of Yeonpyeong civilian victims want national merits
By Lee Hyo-sik
The bereaved families of the two civilian construction workers killed by North Korea’s artillery attack on Yeonpyeong Island last week have been refusing to hold a funeral for the dead, demanding the government designate them as men of national merit who sacrificed themselves for others.
But the government is reluctant to accept their demands, saying the late Kim Chi-baek and Bae Bok-cheol died while performing private contracts and were just unfortunate civilian casualties.
“They were killed while engaging in construction work inside the military base. On top of industrial disaster benefits, the government should recognize them as those who sacrificed their lives for the country and others,” Kim stressed.
[Clash] [Civilian] [Casualties]
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10 N.Korea artillery shells land south of NLL
S.Korea has reportedly given a careful response in light of the G20 and economic stability concerns
» North Korea’s naval artillery shells, located on the Jangdan Peninsula.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff said Tuesday that of the roughly 110 artillery rounds fired off by North Korea in the direction of the West Sea Northern Limit Line (NLL) on Monday afternoon, about 10 crossed the NLL and fell in the waters of Baengnyeong Island. This is the first time North Korean artillery shells have fallen south of the NLL.
[NLL] [Clash]
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'Live-fire artillery drill frightened people in Pyongyang'
By Lee Tae-hoon
South Korea’s military drill held on Yeonpyeong Island, Monday, was rumored among North Korean students to be the U.S. military’s attack on Pyongyang, causing many to skip school and find shelter to hide, Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported Friday.
RFA said, citing a source in Cheongjin, North Hamgyeong Province, that a large number of the children of the North’s elite studying at Kim Il Sung University in Pyongyang were absent from school on the day of the live-fire exercise near the maritime border.
[Military balance] [Media]
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Ban on release of sinking image of Cheonan lawful
By Lee Hyo-sik
The Seoul Administrative Court Friday rejected a petition filed by a civic group seeking to force the Ministry of National Defense to disclose the entire image of the sinking frigate Cheonan in waters near the disputed inter-Korean border on March 26 captured by a thermal observation device (TOD).
In April, the Human Rights Center for Soldiers filed a complaint with the court after the ministry refused to release TOD images.
At that time, the ministry claimed that the images are a matter of national security and that the disclosure could harm South Korea’s interests.
The center then took legal action against the defense ministry, saying that with the world already aware that a North Korean torpedo attack sank the naval ship, making the TOP images public would not compromise national security
[Cheonan] [Coverup]
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War rhetoric rises between North and South Korea
North and South Korea were trading threats of retaliation as tensions continued to soar on the peninsula. The South held its biggest land-based military exercises of the year Thursday, while its president visited an army base.
By JEAN H. LEE
The Associated Press
Thursday, December 23, 2010; 9:31 PM
SEOUL, South Korea -- One month after a deadly exchange of artillery fire, the two Koreas ramped up their rhetoric, with South Korea's president pledging unsparing retaliation if attacked again and a top North Korean official threatening a "sacred" nuclear war if provoked.
[Buildup]
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N.Korea Threatens Nuclear Attack
Kim Yong-chun /Xinhua-Yonhap North Korea's Minister of the People's Armed Forces Kim Yong-chun on Thursday hinted darkly at a nuclear attack on South Korea, saying, "Our revolutionary armed forces are fully ready to start a sacred war based on the nuclear deterrent at a time we deem necessary."
[Buildup] [Media]
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S.Korea Stages Huge Show of Force Near DMZ
Exactly one month after North Korea bombarded Yeonpyeong island, South Korea's military has staged a brief but large show of force. The country's president told troops his patience with Pyongyang has run out.
South Korean army troops fire shells from howitzers and tanks. Overhead, attack helicopters and jets drop bombs in an exercise to repel a mock North Korean invasion at a training ground 30 km from the heavily fortified border.
President Lee Myung-bak Thursday addressed an army unit in the mountains near the Demilitarized Zone dividing the Korean Peninsula. The president says South Korea will not strike first but if North Korea attacks it will be hit with a strong blow.
Lee said he had hoped patience with Pyongyang would bring peace to the Korean Peninsula but that has turned out to be a mistake.
[Buildup] [Provocation]
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Lee Calls for Firm Response to Future N.Korean Provocations
President Lee Myung-bak says that if North Korea strikes the South again the military should launch a strong counterattack to ensure peace in the region.
During his visit on Thursday to a front-line army unit in Yanggu, Gangwon Province about a kilometer from the border, Lee said that tough action against attacks by the North will stop the communist regime from provoking the South further and prevent war.
He also called for strong national unity amid looming North Korean threats and tensions between the two sides, saying that Pyongyang believes its assaults against the South could split the nation.
[Lee Myung-bak] [Buildup]
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KPA Supreme Command: World Should Know Who Is Provoker
Pyongyang, December 20 (KCNA) -- The Supreme Command of the Korean People's Army released the following communique Monday:
The U.S. imperialists and the south Korean puppet military warmongers perpetrated such reckless military provocation as firing thousands of bullets and shells from the sensitive area of Yonphyong Island in the West Sea of Korea for an hour from 14:30 Monday despite strong warning of the KPA and condemnation of the public at home and abroad, far from drawing a lesson from the disgraceful defeat they suffered in the last Yonphyong Island shelling.
Their military provocation was a product of their cunning scenario to deliberately lead the military counteraction of the DPRK to driving the situation on the Korean Peninsula to the brink of a war and thus save the U.S. Asia policy and strategy toward the DPRK from bankruptcy.
It was, at the same time, to serve the propaganda purpose as it was aimed at saving the face of the present puppet authorities now finding themselves in such profound ruling crisis that it is hard for them to complete the tenure of their office because of their ignorance and incompetence and delivering the puppet military from its decline.
This was nothing but a childish play with fire of cowards without an equal as they made much fuss, firing shells left unused during the military provocation on November 23 after shifting by stealth the waters to be a scene of the projected shelling and its target for fear of the KPA's second and third retaliatory blows for self-defence.
The revolutionary armed forces of the DPRK did not feel any need to retaliate against every despicable military provocation like one taking revenge after facing a blow.
The second and third powerful retaliatory strike to be made by the revolutionary armed forces of the DPRK knowing no limit as declared before the world will lead to blowing up the bases of the U.S. and south Korean puppet warmongers.
The world should properly know who is the true champion of peace and who is the real provocateur of a war.
[Provocation] [NK SK policy]
-
The Most Dangerous Man in Korea is Not Kim Jung Il
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
I have an article up on Asia Times titled The Most Dangerous Man in Korea.
The man I’m referring to is South Korean president Lee Myung-bak.
Provocative, n’cest pas?
The point of the article is that Lee wants the U.S. to support his hands-off policy toward the DPRK until the Kim regime staggers off and dies. Then the ROK can swoop in and reunify the peninsula on its terms.
Of course, any US or Chinese engagement that prolongs the life of the DPRK (or creates conditions conducive to the emergence of an independent successor regime) is anathema to Lee.
Trouble is, North Korea is still in good enough shape militarily to give Lee more trouble than he can handle.
So the North Koreans goad Lee with provocations like the Cheonan and Yeonpyeong incidents—to which Lee apparently dares not respond with anything stronger than moral suasion and a call for more sanctions and military exercises-- in order to demonstrate to the South Korean electorate and the United States government that Lee’s policy of ignoring Pyongyang is not the best way to go.
[Lee Myung-bak] [NK US policy] [Takeover]
-
The most dangerous man in Korea
By Peter Lee
Who is the most dangerous man on the Korean Peninsula? Maybe it's not Kim Jung-il, but South Korea's President Lee Myung-bak.
The big story in North Asia in 2010 was the destabilizing effort by South Korea to use its growing profile as a regional power to seize control of the reunification agenda and promote a policy for reunification under its aegis. Its initiative attracted the determined opposition of North Korea and China, the qualified support of the United States, and the glum acquiescence of Japan.
But the Lee government has succeeded only in foreclosing
alternatives. Fear of North Korean reprisal has constrained major, overt moves by South Korea to hasten the collapse of Kim Jung-il's regime.
[Lee Myung-bak] [NK US policy] [Takeover]
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S.Korea Military Drills Continue
The Army is to stage a ground and air live-fire drill on Thursday as a show of force in response to North Korea's shelling of Yeonpyeong Island on Nov. 23 and in preparation for threats to the Seoul metropolitan area.
An Army spokesman on Wednesday said the drill will be staged in Pocheon, Gyeonggi Province and involve Korean-made multiple rocket launchers, self-propelled antiaircraft guns dubbed "Biho" (flying tiger), AH-1S attack helicopters, 500MD helicopters, METIS-M anti-tank missiles, two F-15K fighters, and four KF-16 fighters, and about 800 troops.
Soldiers stand guard along the coastal border in Dangjin, South Chungcheong Province early Tuesday morning. K-1 tanks will fire at targets on the move and fighter jets will bomb targets from air. The Army will run AN/TPQ-36 Firefinder radar to track enemy trajectories to their source and fire K-9 self-propelled guns to practice responding to a North Korean shelling.
The First Navy Fleet Command on Wednesday also began a four-day mobile maritime training and antisubmarine drill in waters east of Geojin Port in Gangwon Province, mobilizing six corvettes and frigates and Lynx helicopters.
[Buildup]
-
South Korea drill set to anger Pyongyang
By Song Jung-a in Seoul and Daniel Dombey in Washington
Published: December 22 2010 04:12 | Last updated: December 22 2010 17:00
South Korea is set to conduct its largest-ever live-fire military exercises just 20km short of the border with North Korea, in a move that could spark fresh tension on the Korean peninsula.
The news comes as a senior US official set out Washington’s road-map towards resuming the six-party talks on Pyongyang’s nuclear programme and reducing tensions over the Stalinist state’s recent actions.
Thursday’s one-day exercise, involving 800 troops, fighter jets and tanks, follows similar South Korean exercises on the southern island of Yeonpyeong, which North Korea shelled last month, causing four deaths.
Pyongyang had threatened to retaliate if the Yeonpyeong drills went ahead, but subsequently announced it would take no immediate action.
“The military drills should not be used for domestic political purposes,” said Yang Moo-jin, professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul. “Strengthening only military drills while inter-Korean dialogue is completely stopped could result in a vicious circle.”
Choo Eun-sik, a senior South Korean military commander, said the exercises were aimed at “demonstrating our solid military preparedness” for any fresh North Korean attack.
“Exercises that have been announced well in advance, that are transparent, that are defensive in nature should in no way engender a response from the North Koreans,” said Robert Gibbs, White House spokesman.
North Korea this week made some conciliatory gestures, telling Bill Richardson, former US ambassador to the United Nations, it was willing to allow UN inspectors access to its main nuclear site in Yongbyon.
But, speaking to the FT, a senior US official said that, for the six-party talks to go forward, North Korea would have to agree to international inspectors well beyond Yongbyon, which he described as the “tip of the iceberg”.
Washington insiders suggest that if North Korea uses uranium enrichment to produce weapons grade material, it is likely to do it at other facilities well away from Yongbyon, making access to other sites all the more important.
“Any final nuclear deal [on resuming talks] is going to have to include not only inspections at Yongbyon but also inspections at suspect facilities,” the official said.
He also said China and the US agreed the first step towards talks was a reduction of tensions between Seoul and Pyongyang. He hailed what he said was an “important shift” in Beijing’s position. “Both we and China agree that the first step back to negotiations is some kind of progress in the North-South relationship,” he said. “They and we privately are going to be working with Seoul and Pyongyang to try to move that forward.”
US officials say that North Korea’s decision not to retaliate against South Korea’s previous military exercises this week is probably connected with pressure from Dai Bingguo, China’s senior diplomat, who visited Pyongyang last week.
However, some US experts emphasise that China is not imposing the same demanding conditions for North Korea to return to the six-party talks as are the US, Japan and South Korea.
The official added that North Korea would feature as a topic of Chinese president Hu Jintao’s visit to Washington next month. “What is important is that the US and China agree on the path forward from now until we can resume negotiations,” he said.
[Buildup] [Provocation] [China NK]
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Ruling party lawmakers call for new direction in N.Korea policy
Some lawmakers say it is time to address the continued threat of war
By Lee Jung-ae and Lee Se-young
Prominent lawmakers in the ruling Grand National Party (GNP) issued calls Wednesday for a change in the continuing hardline North Korea policy that has dominated since the North Korean artillery attack on Yeonpyeong Island last month.
The debate was touched off by sixth-term GNP Lawmaker Hong Sa-duk.
During a meeting of senior party members Wednesday, Hong said, “The first stage of the Yeonpyeong Island situation was resolved effectively thanks to the president’s strong leadership ability, but everyone will feel that inter-Korean relations cannot be allowed to persist in their present state into the long term.”
“I hope that the chairman and floor leader will consult with the new policy committee director [Lawmaker Shim Jae-chul] and take steps toward playing a leading role in reviewing our North Korea policy,” Hong added.
Hong’s remarks were followed by an outpouring of similar suggestions from other attendees.
[Lee Myung-bak] [Dissension]
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Army, Air Force to stage largest-ever joint drill
By Lee Tae-hoon
South Korea’s Army and Air Force will hold their largest-ever joint live-fire exercise today at a range, some 20 kilometers south of the border with North Korea, a military official said Wednesday.
“The joint exercise has been annually carried out in the town of Pocheon, Gyeonggi Province,” Eom Hyo-sik, an Army spokesman, said. “This year, however, it will be staged on a larger scale than before.”
[Buildup]
-
Korean drinker consume 5.8 bottles of soju a month; survey
By Park Yeon-kyung
Seventy-three out of 100 South Koreans are drinkers, with 83 males and 64 females each per 100, according to a survey. A drinker means that an adult drinks alcoholic beverage once or more a month.
A Korean drinker consumes 5.8 bottles of soju (359ml a bottle) and 7.2 bottles of beer (500ml a bottle) on average a month, down 8 percent and 5 percent, respectively, from last year.
-
Seoul Must Work Harder on Diplomacy with China and Russia
As tensions mounted over South Korea's artillery drills on Yeonpyeong Island, the South's weakness was exposed not on the front lines but on the diplomatic front. North Korea invited New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson and told him it wants to let IAEA inspectors back in, while the focus of an emergency UN Security Council meeting convened by Russia was South Korea's planned artillery drills rather than North Korea's attack on the island. After turning the tables in its favor, North Korea gloated, "The world must clearly see who is the guardian of peace and who is the warmonger."
[Softpower] [Overtures]
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N.Korea Deploys More Missiles Along West Coast
North Korea has had extra surface-to-ship and surface-to-air missiles ready near the western coast since early this week in response to a South Korean artillery drill on Yeonpyeong Island, which took place on Monday.
"The North has deployed more SA-2 surface-to-air missiles and Silkworm surface-to-ship missiles at Cape Deungsan on the western coast," in addition to multiple rocket launchers and coastal artillery, a South Korean government source said Tuesday. "It seemed ready to launch some of the surface-to-ship missiles, so our naval ships moved out of range."
[Military balance]
-
N.Korean Propaganda Fax Aims at Sowing Dissent in South
North Korea has faxed propaganda material to a large number of South Korean organizations and businesses, shifting the blame for its artillery attack on Yeonpyeong Island to the South Korean and U.S. governments in an attempt to foster conflict between conservatives and progressives here.
In the wake of its Nov. 23 artillery attack on the border island of Yeonpyeong, Pyongyang dispatched the propaganda fax from China to some 80 South Korean religious and social organizations and businesses, according to a Unification Ministry official. But only 15 of them, including nine companies with plants in North Korea, reported the fax to the ministry, it added.
[Surveillance]
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South Korea vows to 'punish the enemy' as it prepares for new military drills
Hundreds of troops, fighter jets, tanks and attack helicopters prepared for exercises a month after North Korean attack on Yeonpyeong island
Associated Press
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 22 December 2010 07.55 GMT Article history
South Korean soldiers undertake a military drill on the beach at Malipo, north-western South Korea. Photograph: Wally Santana/AP
South Korea today vowed today to "punish the enemy" as hundreds of troops, fighter jets, tanks and attack helicopters prepared for major new military drills near the heavily-armed border a month after a deadly North Korean artillery attack.
Although the North backed down from its threat to retaliate over South Korean drills in west coast waters claimed by both countries on Monday, South Korean forces have been on high alert this week, warning of surprise attacks.
[Provocation] [Buildup]
-
SKorea to stage firing drills near land border
By HYUNG-JIN KIM
The Associated Press
Wednesday, December 22, 2010; 2:06 AM
SEOUL, South Korea -- South Korea vowed Wednesday to "punish the enemy" as hundreds of troops, fighter jets, tanks and attack helicopters prepared for massive new drills near the heavily armed border a month after a deadly North Korean artillery attack.
Although the North backed down from its threat to retaliate over South Korean drills Monday in west coast waters claimed by both countries, South Korean forces have been on high alert this week, warning of surprise attacks. The North responded to a Nov. 23 artillery drill on South Korea's front-line Yeonpyeong Island with an artillery bombardment that killed four, including two civilians.
The North has made some conciliatory gestures in recent days - telling a visiting U.S. governor that it might allow international nuclear inspections of its atomic programs - but Seoul appears unmoved and is bracing for possible aggression.
"We will completely punish the enemy if it provokes us again like the shelling of Yeonpyeong Island," Brig. Gen. Ju Eun-sik, chief of the army's 1st armored brigade, said.
South Korea's navy began annual four-day firing and anti-submarine exercises Wednesday off the country's less-tense east coast.
The disputed western sea border has been the site of most of the Koreas' recent military skirmishes, including last month's artillery bombardment. But the east coast was used by the North as a submarine route for communist agents to infiltrate South Korea in the past.
South Korea's army and air force also planned joint firing drills Thursday near the Koreas' land border.
The training - the 48th of its kind this year - will be the biggest-ever wintertime joint firing exercise that South Korea's army and air force have staged, the army said in a statement. The drill will involve 800 troops, F-15K and KF-16 jet fighters, K-1 tanks, AH-1S attack helicopters and K-9 self-propelled guns, the statement said.
[Provocation] [Buildup]
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South Korea: Seeking Reunification by Live Fire?
By John Feffer, December 20, 2010
If you look closely at the AP photograph of the South Korean marines conducting a drill on Yeonpyoeong island, you can see that their yellow headbands read tongil. That's the Korean word for reunification. With the South Korean government conducting another round of live-fire artillery drills in contested waters near North Korea, the message of the headband is unambiguous. Rather than waiting patiently for reunification to take place through negotiations, the Lee Myoung-bak administration wants to accelerate the process, by force if necessary.
[Takeover] [Lee Myung-bak] [Overtures]
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Korean Peninsula at a New Juncture of War and Peace: Between
Aggressive Deterrent and Escalating Risk of War
By Tong Kim
December 21, 2010
Tong Kim, visiting professor at the University of North Korean Studies
and visiting research professor at Korea University, writes, “If the
South Korean government were operating in the wake of the Yeonpyeong
incident with the assumption that the North Koreans would not be ready
for a war, it would be too risky. President Lee said, “…a disgraceful
peace achieved through intimidation only brings greater harm in the end.
Only courage that defies retreat under any threat or provocation will
bring about genuine peace.” The South Koreans do not have to be
intimated or retreat from threats or provocation. Yet, they should be
able to find a better path to achieve “genuine peace” with confidence
that they can prevent a war that nobody wants. It will take courage to
talk to the North in the current environment. Maybe dialogue should
wait until the dust settles. Nevertheless, dialogue is the best
solution. People want peace, not war. Peace is achievable.”
[Provocation] [Inversion] [SK NK policy]
-
Artillery Drill Ends Without New Clashes
There was widespread relief Monday when an artillery drill in the West Sea ended without the threatened retaliation from North Korea or any other noticeable rise in tensions. The military fired live rounds on Yeonpyeong Island for an hour and 34 minutes, but fears of another North Korean strike proved unfounded.
[Provocation]
-
N.Korea Backtracks Over Yeonpyeong Drills
Having issued dire threats of "merciless retaliation" only this weekend, the North Korean military now says it was "not worth reacting" to a South Korean artillery drill on Yeonpyeong Island on Monday. The armed forces of the North "did not feel any need to retaliate against every despicable military provocation," the North Korean Army's Supreme Command said in a statement.
This implied that the North will not attack South Korean territory immediately as it did on Nov. 23, experts speculate. The reaction came about two hours and 30 minutes after the drill ended.
But the North Korean state-controlled media kept up the martial rhetoric, threatening to "annihilate the strongholds of the U.S. and South Korean warmongers."
Meanwhile, the North's official Rodong Sinmun said South Korea's plan to switch a floodlight tower overlooking the demilitarized zone back on as part of the resumption of psychological warfare "is a dangerous rash act that could ignite a fresh armed clash."
[Provocation]
-
N.Korea Continues Flip-Flop Strategy
North Korea has apparently decided to bang the peace drum for the time being, launching no attacks during a South Korean live-fire exercise on the flashpoint border island of Yeonpyeong on Monday despite earlier threatening dire retribution. Instead it told U.S. troubleshooter Bill Richardson it will allow the return of UN nuclear inspectors.
And the official Rodong Sinmun daily, in further evidence that Pyongyang has abruptly changed tack, on Monday published an op-ed piece titled, "The Anti-War and Peace Banner Must be Hoisted Higher."
"The North apparently feels it got all it wanted from the shelling of Yeonpyeong Island," said a South Korean security official. "Now it's going to try and get rewards for its provocation through a fake peace offensive and diplomatic maneuvering."
[Clash] [Zero]
-
N.Korea Lines Up Decoy Artillery Batteries
The North Korean military reportedly deployed decoy artillery pieces among real multiple rocket launchers on the coast, ahead of a South Korean artillery drill on Yeonpyeong Island in the West Sea on Monday.
The decoys were tricked out to look like 122-mm and 240-mm rocket launchers. When it shelled the island on Nov. 23, the North fired 122-mm rockets with a range of 20 km alongside coastal artillery guns from Kaemori.
Experts say the decoys are either inflatable or made of painted plywood.
The aim seems to be to give greater weight to threats that it could shell the island again and to confuse South Korean F-15K fighters and destroyers bent on surgical strikes in the event of a counterattack, experts speculate.
"The North Korean military is developing sophisticated camouflage and deceptions to avoid surveillance and precision bombing by state-of-the-art South Korean and U.S. reconnaissance equipment and weapons systems," a South Korean military officer said. "It seems they've got all sorts of decoy equipment and facilities, from fake cave positions of long-range guns and fake naval ships to fake aircraft, fake runways and bogus guns."
[Military balance]
-
North Korea tables retaliation
Source: Global Times [08:13 December 21 2010] Comments
South Korean marines patrol on Yeonpyeong Island Monday. Photo: AFP
By Yu Miao
North Korea appeared Monday to have backed off from its strong warning of retaliation, saying South Korea's live-fire drills the same day on a border island were not worth a military response.
The official KCNA News Agency quoted the North Korean People's Army Supreme Command as saying, "We felt it was not worth reacting to military provocations one by one," Reuters said.
[Provocation]
-
N. Korea doesn’t respond militarily, but later attack remains a possibility
Diplomatic pressure from China seems to have played a key role
» New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, who has been visiting Pyongyang as unofficial envoy since last Thursday, receives questions from foreign reporters yesterday. Richardson was scheduled to leave today for Beijing, but due to fog will stay in Pyongyang until weather clears. (Kyodo AP Yonhap)
By Son Won-je, Staff Writer
There was no counterattack from the North Korea’s military to the resumption of South Korean artillery exercises at Yeonpyeong Island on Monday. The crisis of a large-scale armed clash between South Korea and North Korea appears to have been avoided for the time being. However, many analysts are saying the possibility remains for surprise military action by the North at a later date.
North Korea’s military said on Monday it “was not worth reacting” to South Korea’s live-fire drills conducted on Yeonpyeong Island, the North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported.
“We felt it was no worth reacting to every single cowardly provocation by the South,” the KCNA quoted the North Korean People’s Army Supreme Command as saying. However, the KCNA threatened again that its retaliatory strikes more powerful than first artillery attack could easily annihilate the strongholds of the U.S. and South Korean warmongers.”
[Overtures] [China NK]
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94-minute artillery exercises at Yeonpyeong Island are finished without clash
N. Korea reportedly permits IAEA inspectors’ return
» Yeonpyeong Island citizens take shelter and listen to military officials’ explanation during yesterday’s artillery exercises. (AP Yonhap)
By Kwon Hyuk-chul, Staff Writer
The South Korean military conduced a live-fire artillery exercise on Yeonpyeong Island on Monday. The North Korean military, which had previously warned of retaliation in such a case, did not respond militarily, so no direct armed clash took place between the two Koreas. The possibility of additional North Korean provocations is not going away, however, so it appears inter-Korean military confrontation and tensions will continue for the time being.
The South Korean military carried out a live-fire drill for 84 minutes, from 2:30 to 4:04 p.m., during which it aimed at an area of sea southwest of Yeonpyeong Island. A military official said they fired off the remaining rounds that they were unable to fire during the Nov. 23 drill. During that drill, a total of 3,657 shells of 11 different kinds, including high-explosives from the K-9 self-propelled artillery pieces, were fired from Yeonpyeong Island from 10:15 a.m., but the drill was terminated due to North Korea’s artillery attack at 2:34 p.m.
[Provocation]
-
Why War Cannot Be the Answer
By Lee Jong-seok, former Unification Minister
We greet another day with inter-Korean relations at their worst and the whole country fearing war. Inter-Korean relations have seen many ups and down since the late Yushin Era, when I attended university, and today, but they have never been as sad and confused as they are now. It is painful just to write this column.
For what purpose are we declaring our willingness to engage in war? I feel indignant about the North Korean army's savage attack on Yeonpyeong Island, and I can understand the South Korean military's determination to recover its tarnished reputation. But is it credible to put our society at stake because of anger and pride?
Last weekend, I had dinner with a noted public health and environment scholar who has visited North Korea's Hwanghae Province a few times. According to this person, North Korea is in such a devastated state right now that there is nothing left to destroy outside of Pyongyang. How much suffering would actually result, this person asked, if our armed forces were to fire artillery toward Hwanghae Province? In contrast, how much more serious a situation South Korea would face, developed as it is in all directions, were a single North Korean shell to fall in Gyeonggi Province?
We often see reports about how key figures in the Lee administration believe there is a strong chance the North Korean regime will soon collapse due to its vulnerability. These predictions have generated a lot of controversy. But if the administration's diagnosis is correct, it makes even less sense that it would be willing to opt for war against a system that is soon to fail, when war means that South Korea could well be destroyed along with it.
[Collapse][War]
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[Editorial] Containing crisis on the Korean Peninsula
Tensions between North Korea and South Korea are rising quickly over the proposed artillery firing exercises the South Korean military says it will be conducting either today or tomorrow in the West Sea near Yeonpyeong Island. In response to South Korea’s announcement that it plans to go ahead with the exercises “as long as the weather is good,” North Korea has declared that “unpredictable second and third defensive strikes will be inflicted.” If things continue on this way, there could be an even greater clash than last month's Yeonpyeong Island episode.
An emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council was convened early this month at Russia's request. Concerns are also growing among South Koreans, especially the residents of the five West Sea Islands. It would not be an overstatement to call this the highest level of crisis seen since the Korean War.
-
Seoul 'plays hardball' with Pyeongyang
By Kang Hyun-kyung
South Korea staging an exercise Monday, which Korea watchers worried could lead to war, sparked speculation over its motives for playing hardball with its northern neighbor.
The government made it clear that it has a legitimate right to hold the regular exercise on its territory, given that South Korea has “routinely” carried them out since the first artillery unit was stationed on Yeonpyeong Island in 1974.
“We had 10 exercises last year alone and twice in August and once in September this year, and not a single shot landed on the North’s territory,” an official said according to Yonhap News.
The exercise was also aimed at strengthening its hold of the maritime border, called the Northern Limit Line (NLL), which was drawn by Gen. Mark Clark and his aides after the 1950-53 Korean War.
[Provocation] [NLL]
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North Korea Withholds Fire After Military Drills by South
By SHARON LaFRANIERE and MARTIN FACKLER
Published: December 20, 2010
PYONGYANG, North Korea — An ominous showdown between North and South Korea was forestalled Monday after the North withheld military retaliation to South Korea’s live-fire artillery drills on an island the North shelled last month after similar drills.
The North claims the island and surrounding waters and had threatened “brutal consequences beyond imagination” if the drills went forward. But a statement from the North’s official news agency Monday night said it was “not worth reacting” to the exercise, and one by the North’s military said, “The world should properly know who is the true champion of peace and who is the real provocateur of a war.”
[Provocation] [Media] [Overtures]
-
Blast from the past
Short comments in the Evening Standard of London by Steven Casey and Tim Beal
[Clash] [Korean War]
-
No North Korean response to South Korean drills
By Chico Harlan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, December 20, 2010; 10:21 AM
SEOUL - Pushing hostilities toward a tipping point but no further, South Korea on Monday conducted a 94-minute artillery drill on Yeonpyeong Island, and North Korea vowed not to retaliate despite earlier threats.
Pyongyang had said days earlier than drills conducted on the front-line island, just seven miles from the North Korean coastline, would prompt "brutal consequences beyond imagination." But Monday evening, North Korea, through its state-run news agency, said that South Korean drills were "not worth" a military response.
Before that statement was issued, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak ordered his government to remain prepared for an emergency - a sign of a precarious intra-peninsular standoff that security experts say is one miscalculation away from war.
[Buildup] [Overtures]
-
Kim Jong-un 'Loves Nukes, Computer Games and Johnny Walker'
Kenji Fujimoto Kim Jong-un, the third son and heir of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, showed a strong affection for nuclear weapons since he was a child, according to Kim senior's former personal chef. Kenji Fujimoto quoted Kim Jong-un as saying uranium mines are the North's "sole assets."
[Media]
-
S.Korea to Switch DMZ Floodlights Back On
A ceremony is held to switch on a floodlight tower at Aegibong Peak on the western frontline in December, 2001 (file photo). The military has decided to switch on a floodlight tower at Aegibong Peak on the western frontline for the first time in seven years, amid fears that the North is getting ready to shoot at the contraption.
"We've recently detected signs of the North Korean military watching the tower" at the mouth of the Han River in Gimpo, Gyeonggi Province "as if they are preparing to shoot at it," a government source said Sunday.
[Provocation] [Buildup]
-
S.Korea to Go Ahead with Live-Fire Drills
South Korean military officials say they will proceed with planned live-fire artillery drills from an island the North shelled last month, despite threats of retaliation from Pyongyang.
An official with South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said Saturday the South's military is ready to respond to any possible provocation. He said the drills will not be carried out Saturday because of bad weather. But he said they will be conducted by Tuesday.
[Provocation]
-
N.Korea Deploys Rocket Launchers Along West Coast
North Korea has deployed multiple rocket launchers along the shore north of Yeonpyeong, Baeknyeong and Gangwha islands in response to a planned South Korean artillery drill on Yeonpyeong, government sources here say. The North earlier threatened an "unpredicted self-defense counterattack" to the drills.
A South Korean government source said, "After making the threat in a message sent Friday, North Korea raised the alert level at artillery divisions on the west coast and deployed the multiple rocket launchers." The source added the South Korean military is monitoring the situation.
The North also reportedly made coastal artillery ready to fire and put some fighter jets on the west coast on standby.
englishnews@chosun.com / Dec. 20, 2010 09:00 KST
-
S.Korean Democracy Improves, But N.Korea Mired in Repression
South Korea's democracy ranks 20th in the world, up eight places from two years ago, in an index released by the Economist Intelligence Unit. The Democracy Index 2010 by the think tank affiliated with the U.K. magazine covers 167 countries.
South Korea scored 8.11 points on average, up from 8.01 in 2008, when it ranked 28th.
-
Gov't Bans Visit to Kaesong Complex
The government on Monday banned firms operating in the joint-Korean Kaesong Industrial Complex from sending staff there for the day.
"For safety reasons we've stopped firms sending their staff to the industrial park on Monday considering the escalating tensions between the two Koreas," a Unification Ministry official said.
[Buildup]
-
N.Korea prepares for retaliation
Source: Global Times [09:02 December 20 2010]
By Song Shengxia
North Korea's military reinforced an alert Sunday for artillery units based along its west coast ahead of a planned live-fire drill by South Korea at a disputed maritime border, the Yonhap News Agency quoted a government source as saying.
"We understand that there's been an upgrade in alert at artillery units," the South Korean government source said, according to Yonhap.
The statement was made hours before the UN Security Council was due to convene an emergency meeting to address the escalating tensions on the Korean Peninsula, as bad weather delayed the start of the planned live-fire exercise by Seoul.
Tensions between the North and South have fueled international concerns that their spat could escalate and spiral out of control.
[Clash]
-
S. Korea begins live-fire artillery drills Yeonpyeong Island near the border
South Korea's military conducted live-fire artillery drills 2:30 p.m on Monday, the Ministry of National Defence said.
According to the ministry, South Korean marines on Yeonpyeong Island fired self-propelled 155mm howizer K-9s towards southwestern waters off the island. It also reportedly mobilized 105mm light howitzers, Vulcan guns and 81mm mortars.
A defence ministry official said that the military used all kinds of artilleries and the drill will not last long time. It was covered by KF-16s and F-15Ks.
[Provocation]
-
S.Korea to resume firing exercises off Yeonpyeong Island
The S.Korean government has developed an increasingly ultra-militant policy line coupled with their hardline N.Korea policy rejecting dialogue
By Kwon Hyuk-chul, Staff Writer
Amid sharpening antagonism between North Korea and South Korea following the South Korean military’s announcement of artillery firing exercises off Yeonpyeong Island, the U.N. Security Council (UNSC) held an emergency meeting Sunday (local time) in connection with recent tensions on the Korean Peninsula. The South Korean military and government have repeatedly affirmed their intention to hold exercises as early as Monday “if the weather is good,” in spite of North Korean threats of an “unpredictable defensive strike.”
Meeting with reporters Sunday at the entrance to the Ministry of National Defense complex, Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin commented on China and Russia’s opposition to and calls for restraint on the exercises by saying, “This is not the [late 19th century] Joseon era when we were at the whim of surrounding powers, and the firing exercises will be carried out” within the reported time.
Kim added, “We are not taking into account any other variables besides the weather.”
“The only issue with these exercises is the weather. There is no connection whatsoever with the UNSC,” said a high-ranking Cheong Wa Dae (the presidential office in South Korea or Blue House) official. “Even if some conclusion is reached at the UNSC, the firing exercises will continue regardless.”
[Provocation] [Buildup] [Lee Myung-bak]
-
Containing crisis on the Korean Peninsula
Tensions between North Korea and South Korea are rising quickly over the proposed artillery firing exercises the South Korean military says it will be conducting either today or tomorrow in the West Sea near Yeonpyeong Island. In response to South Korea’s announcement that it plans to go ahead with the exercises “as long as the weather is good,” North Korea has declared that “unpredictable second and third defensive strikes will be inflicted.” If things continue on this way, there could be an even greater clash than last month's Yeonpyeong Island episode.
An emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council was convened early this month at Russia's request. Concerns are also growing among South Koreans, especially the residents of the five West Sea Islands. It would not be an overstatement to call this the highest level of crisis seen since the Korean War.
Under these circumstances, the right course of action is to call a halt to the firing exercises.
[Provocation] [Peace effort]
-
Korean Brinkmanship, American Provocation, and the Road to War: the manufacturing of a crisis
Tim Beal
The exchange of artillery fire between South and North Korea on 23 November, 2010 had predictable results – a great increase of tension on the peninsula, a show of force by the United States, and a torrent of uninformed media articles and pontificating from the security industry
[Clash]
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S. Korea begins live-fire artillery drill near NK
South Korea on Monday fired artillery into waters near the western sea border with North Korea, pushing ahead with a high-tension exercise amid Pyongyang's threat to strike back if the drill goes ahead, an official said.
The drill began at around 2:30 p.m., an official at the South's Joint Chiefs of Staff said.
"It won't last long," he said on condition of anonymity.
[Provocation]
-
South Korea Conducts Live-Fire Drills Near the North
By MARTIN FACKLER and MARK McDONALD
Published: December 20, 2010
SEOUL, South Korea — Defying North Korean threats of retaliation, South Korea on Monday began live-fire artillery drills on an island shelled last month by the North, moving the Koreas closer to a showdown as international efforts at last-minute mediation came up short.
A spokesman for the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said marine artillery units on Yeonpyeong Island began firing at 2:30 p.m. The South Korean island, which sits just eight miles off the North Korean coast, was the site of last month’s artillery barrage by the North that killed two marines and two civilians.
[Provocation]
-
Seoul undertakes effort to measure North Korea's longevity
By Chico Harlan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, December 19, 2010; 5:32 PM
SEOUL - Hoping to better predict when North Korea might collapse, South Korea is spending $1.6 million to come up with a formula that measures the stability of the world's hardest-to-measure country.
The formula will take into account political loyalty in the military, recent economic output, even the ups and downs of leader Kim Jong Il's health - all despite a lack of verifiable information on any of those factors.
"The major problem with this is the lack of data," said one senior government official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the project, known as the North Korea Situation Index, is underway.
[Collapse] [Takeover] [Predication] [Intelligence]
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DPRK military urges S. Korea to immediately stop shelling exercise plan: KCNA
English.news.cn 2010-12-17 16:54:21
PYONGYANG, Dec. 17 (Xinhua) -- The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) military on Friday urged South Korea to immediately stop its plans for a shelling exercise around Yonphyong Island, the official news agency KCNA reported.
The head of the DPRK delegation to the DPRK-South Korea general-level military talks sent a notice to the South Korean side concerning the shelling exercise, reported the KCNA.
The notice warned that if South Korea persisted in its plan to hold the exercise, the DPRK would deliver a second and third "unpredicted self-defense counterattack" that would be bigger and more powerful than the previous one to defend its territorial waters.
The notice urged South Korea to make "deep deliberation" to the DPRK warning.
Tensions on the Korean Peninsula have been heightened after South Korea and the DPRK exchanged artillery fire near Yonphyong Island on Nov. 23 that killed four South Koreans.
South Korea has declared plans for a live shell artillery drill in the waters southwest of Yonphyong Island on a selected date from Dec. 18-21 depending on weather conditions.
On Friday, the KCNA reported that South Korea's firing destination was the territorial waters of the DPRK and Seoul's plan to resume the firing drill was aimed at "saving its face lost last time."
That the United States supported the plan and intends to dispatch forces to take part in the drill made the provocation of South Korea to an "extremely dangerous degree," according to the report.
Editor: Wang Guanqun
[Clash] [Provocation] [Buildup]
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N.Korea echoes threat of ‘self-defense attacks’
Tensions have again escalated as S.Korea prepares to restart artillery firing exercises off Yeonpyeong Island
» Yeonpyeong Island residents depart from their homes to take refuge on the mainland as the date of resumed firing exercises by Marines approaches, Dec. 17. (Press photo pool)
By Kwon Hyuk-chul, Staff Writer
The North Korean military threatened Friday that it would launch self-defense attacks after South Korean military authorities announced South Korean Marines on Yeonpyeong Island would restart live-fire drills on a day with clear weather between Dec. 18 and 21. Accordingly, concerns about a military clash are heightening.
In a message sent in the name of the head of the North Korean delegation to inter-Korean military talks, North Korea warned that if South Korea pushes ahead with its drills on Yeonpyeong Island despite its advanced warning, North Korea would carry out unpredictable second and third self-defensive strikes to protect its territorial waters. The message warned that the attacks would be more serious in terms of strength and scope than the artillery attack launched on Nov. 23, when North Korea shelled Yeonpyeong Island.
South Korean military authorities, however, decided not to respond to the message, judging that it was not worth responding to each of North Korea’s threats. They said they plan to respond resolutely in order not to get caught up in North Korea’s scheme to cause internal chaos in South Korea.
[Clash] [Zero] [Buildup]
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KPA Demands S. Korea to Stop Plan for Shelling from Yonphyong
Pyongyang, December 17 (KCNA) -- The puppet warmongers of south Korea are set to fire again shells into the territorial waters of the DPRK north of the maritime guard line of the Korean People's Army from December 18 to 21 by mobilizing lots of striking equipment newly introduced into the island, blatantly challenging the unanimous aspiration and demand of the people at home and abroad desirous of peace and security on the Korean Peninsula.
They are floating information that the projected shelling from Yonphyong Island is a routine annual drill to be periodically conducted in waters of the south side south of the "northern limit line".
The waters off Yonphyong Island, the target of their shelling, are the inviolable territorial waters of the DPRK.
Newly appointed puppet Minister of Defense of south Korea Kim Kwan Jin and other puppet military warmongers, far from drawing a due lesson from the last provocative shelling incident on Yonphyong Island, are set to perpetrate new military provocations. They are letting loose a spate of such reckless remarks as "the exercise of the right to self-defense," "severe punishment by combined combat forces" including strike flying corps and "not ruling out an all-out war leading to striking enemy's bases" and the like.
It is the ulterior intention of the newly installed puppet military to save the face of the south Korean military which met a disgraceful fiasco by perpetrating the second adventurous shelling from Yonphyong Island. Through this the group of traitors craftily seeks to save its hardline policy towards the north, a policy against the nation, peace and reunification, from total failure and preserve the illegal "northern limit line".
No one in the world would allow those who drew a line inside other's court, without its owner's knowledge, and insist it belongs to them and shamelessly conduct saber-rattling to preserve it.
What should not be overlooked is that even the U.S. imperialist aggressor forces present in south Korea are openly shielding the puppet military warmongers' shelling exercises on Yonphyong Island, asserting that it is "not a violation of the Armistice Agreement."
Even riff-raffs belonging to the already defunct Military Armistice Commission are coming to the island under the guise of "observers" in a bid to take a direct part in providing military assistance to the provocative shelling drill in communication, medical care, etc.
The head of the delegation of the KPA side to the north-south general-level military talks sent the following notice to the south Korean puppet forces at 12:20 on Friday in connection with the fact that the puppet military warmongers' reckless military provocations reached a grave phase under the wire-pulling of their American master:
The puppet military warmongers should take a prompt measure to stop the planned provocative maritime shelling from Yonphyong Island.
In case they conduct the above-said shelling at last despite the warning served by the KPA in advance, it will deal the second and third unpredictable self-defensive blow at them to protect the inviolable territorial waters of the DPRK as it had declared before the world.
It will be deadlier than what was made on Nov. 23 in terms of the powerfulness and sphere of the strike.
The south Korean group of traitors and the puppet military warmongers had better cogitate about the KPA's warning.
[Clash] [Provocation] [Buildup]
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NK vows retaliation if S. Korea conducts live-fire drills near border
North Korea vowed Friday to retaliate with greater firepower if South Korea goes ahead with its planned live-fire drills from the frontline island that has been devastated by North Korean shelling.
"Second and third self-defensive blows that cannot be predicted will be dealt" if South Korea conducts the one-day drills scheduled between Saturday and Tuesday, the North's military said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
[Provocation]
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N. Korea threatens attacks on South
By Na Jeong-ju
North Korea warned Friday of “self-defensive strikes” against South Korea if the latter goes ahead with the planned live-fire drills near Yeonpyeong Island.
South Korea’s defense ministry ignored the North’s threatening and vowed to conduct the drills as planned.
“We will mercilessly respond to the exercise with rounds of self-defensive attacks,” the North’s military said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.
[Provocation] [Media]
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South Korea Set For Live - Fire Drills Despite North Threat
By REUTERS
Published: December 18, 2010
. Filed at 2:48 a.m. ET
YEONPYEONG, South Korea (Reuters) - South Korean marines were poised on Saturday to conduct a live-fire drill off the west coast despite a threat by the North to launch a new strike and Beijing's call for restraint from the rival states.
A U.S. troubleshooter, Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico, called the situation "a tinderbox" and urged the North to let the rival South conduct exercises.
Analysts were skeptical the North would carry out its threat issued on Friday, rattling financial markets in the face of a vow by the South to retaliate against any attack by Pyongyang.
However, James Cartwright, vice chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said, “What we worry about obviously is ... if North Korea were to react to that in a negative way and fire back at those firing positions on the islands, that would start potentially a chain reaction.” Cartwright added, “What you do not want to have happen out of that is for ... us to lose control of the escalation. That’s the concern.”
[Clash] [Buildup] [US dominance]
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South Korea drilling plans bring new threats from North Korea
By Chico Harlan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, December 17, 2010; 5:53 PM
SEOUL - Within the next few days, perhaps as early as Saturday, South Korea's military plans to stage a live fire drill on the same island that was shelled by North Korea 31/2 weeks ago.
But North Korea said Friday that, should South Korea carry out the drills, it will retaliate with deadly firepower.
"It will be deadlier than what was made on Nov. 23 in terms of the powerfulness and sphere of the strike," an unnamed North Korean military official said in a statement carried by Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency.
Also on Friday, North Korea posted a commentary on its Web site warning that any upcoming war on the peninsula would involve nuclear weapons.
Seoul has promised to hold the one-day drills on Yeonpyeong Island between Saturday and Tuesday, complicating diplomatic efforts to lower temperatures in the region and rein in North Korea's aggressive behavior.
[Buildup]
-
S.Korea Must Use Its Own 'Asymmetric' Warfare
Kang Chol-hwan Since the sinking of the Navy corvette Cheonan and shelling of Yeonpyeong Island, the North Korean regime has been telling its armed forces that the South is nothing special and can be beaten with ease. The two successful provocations have given the People's Army a new boost of confidence.
It is therefore important to equip the five West Sea islands near North Korea with defenses that are visibly strong enough to counter North Korean attacks. But in fact the combined South Korean and U.S. forces can already overwhelm the North in overall firepower, even if the North is successful in small local skirmishes.
[military balance]
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S.Korea to Resume Artillery Drill on Yeonpyeong
South Korea will conduct an artillery fire drill from Yeonpyeong Island in the West Sea sometime between Saturday and next Tuesday, the Joint Chiefs of Staff said Thursday. They decided to carry the drill out to show the country will not give in to North Korean blackmail.
The drill was originally planned for last month but interrupted by the North's artillery attack on Yeonpyeong. It will take only one day.
Targeting a 40 km by 20 km maritime area in South Korean waters southwest of Yeonpyeong Island, it will mobilize K-9 self-propelled guns, 105-mm towed howitzers, Vulcan guns, and 81-mm mortars.
About 20 troops of the U.S. Forces Korea will participate in the drill, providing commanding control (sic), communications and medical support.
Representatives from the UN Command and the Military Armistice Commission will observe the drill on the spot to ensure armistice compliance, a JCS spokesman said.
A UNCMAC spokesman said that the UNC has observed South Korean military training on a regular basis, adding that the "armistice agreement applies to all territory in Korea of land, sea and air."
The South Korean Marine unit on Yeonpyeong Island fired 3,657 shells into South Korean waters from 10:15 a.m. on Nov. 23 but halted the training at 2:34 p.m. due to the North Korean shelling of the island.
It will conduct the same drill at the same location in the same format.
VOA News / Dec. 17, 2010 09:36 KST
[Clash] [Provocation] [Buildup]
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SKorea to stage firing drills from border island
(AP) – 10 hours ago
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea said Thursday it will conduct artillery drills similar to ones that prompted North Korea to shell a front-line island last month — a move that risks further confrontation even as an American governor arrived in Pyongyang in a diplomatic effort to cool tensions.
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who has frequently acted as an unofficial envoy to the North, was greeted at Pyongyang's airport by a senior North Korean official after telling reporters in Beijing he expected to be given some sort of message by the North.
"My objective is to see if we can reduce the tension in the Korean peninsula," Richardson said at the airport, according to Associated Press Television News. "I'm going to have a whole series of talks with North Korean officials, and I look forward to my discussions."
Meanwhile, in South Korea, the Joint Chiefs of Staffs said in a statement that marines based on Yeonpyeong Island, a tiny fishing community with military bases near the Koreas' disputed sea border, will stage one-day live-fire drills sometime between Saturday and Tuesday. Weather and other factors will determine the exact time.
Similar artillery exercises Nov. 23 were met with a rain of North Korean shells that killed two marines and two construction workers, destroyed homes and shops and raised fears of renewed war between the rivals. The North says the waters around the island are its territory. The assault was the first by the North to target a civilian area since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War.
The South Korean statement said the impending Yeonpyeong drills are part of "routine, justified" exercises that the South regularly conducts to protect its islands off the west coast. Representatives of the American-led U.N. Command that oversees the armistice that ended the Korean War will observe the drills on the island, which is just seven miles (11 kilometers) from North Korean shores.
Marines will fire artillery away from North Korea, toward waters southwest of the island. "We are holding the drills with full preparation to deal with" any attacks from the North, a Joint Chiefs of Staff officer said, speaking on condition of anonymity, citing department rules.
Baek Seung-joo, of the state-run Korea Institute for Defense Analyses in Seoul, said North Korea is unlikely to shell South Korea again in response to the drills because it knows Seoul's response will be strong.
The North might ramp up its threatening rhetoric, Baek said, or conduct its own artillery drills "as part of a face-saving measure." But, he said, "Another provocation would be a suicidal act."
Shortly after the South announced the drills, Richardson arrived in North Korea on a flight from Beijing and was greeted at the airport by North Korean diplomat Ri Gun, according to Associated Press Television News.
In Beijing, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg held closed-door meetings with Chinese State Councilor Dai Bingguo. Beijing's top foreign policy official returned last week from talks in Pyongyang with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. China has come under growing pressure to push ally North Korea to change its behavior.
A former U.N. ambassador, Richardson often has been an unofficial diplomatic troubleshooter, including missions to secure the release of hostages in Sudan, Iraq and North Korea.
In Beijing, before flying to Pyongyang, Richardson said, "My message to them will be we need peace, we need to stop some of these aggressive actions, especially with respect to South Korea."
Richardson said he requested a visit to the North's main nuclear facility at Yongbyon. The Democratic governor, who leaves office at the end of the month, was invited to North Korea by Kim Kye Gwan, who has served as the country's chief negotiator in stalled six-nation nuclear disarmament talks. Richardson is expected to return to Beijing on Monday.
The U.S. State Department has said Richardson isn't delivering a message to North Korea from the U.S. government. However, Richardson's contacts with North Korean officials may provide insights for diplomats trying to persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program.
Pyongyang is believed to be seeking bilateral talks with the United States before returning to six-nation nuclear disarmament negotiations hosted by China. Those talks also include South Korea, Japan, and Russia.
North Korea's Foreign Ministry, in a statement carried Thursday by the country's official Korean Central News Agency, said: "Though we support all proposals for dialogue, including the six-way talks, out of desire to prevent a war on the Korean peninsula and realize denuclearization, we will never beg for dialogue."
The ministry said North Korea wants peace so it can secure foreign investments and build a powerful and prosperous country in 2012, the 100th anniversary of the birth of the country's founder, Kim Il Sung, father of Kim Jong Il.
The ministry also accused the United States of avoiding proposals for dialogue and creating a warlike atmosphere on the Korean peninsula.
Pyongyang's main Rodong Sinmun newspaper, in a commentary carried by KCNA, blamed the tensions on South Korea's conservative government and its "policy of confrontation" with the North, and said deepening distrust is "bound to lead to military clashes."
Associated Press writers Christopher Bodeen in Beijing and Kim Kwang-tae in Seoul contributed to this report.
[Buildup] [Provocation]
-
Military Chiefs of Staff: “A Yeongnam Monopoly”
President Lee’s High School Junior named next Army Chief of Staff
By Kwon Hyuk-chul, Staff Writer
The government announced that it has named General Kim Sang-ki, commander of the Republic of Korea Third Army, as the next chief of staff of the Army, replacing General Hwang Eui-don, who was virtually forced out after just six months on the job. Kim is a graduate of Dongji Commercial High School in Pohang, from which President Lee Myung-bak also graduated.
[Corruption]
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S. Korea's dilemma? North's unschooled masses, not nukes
By Tom Lasseter | McClatchy Newspapers
SEOUL — As politicians and analysts argue about the health of Kim Jong-il and his totalitarian regime in North Korea, Woo Kee-sup is troubled by a more basic concern — if the North were to fall, how many of its 24 million residents would be ready to live in a modern society?
Running a small private school that works with North Korean defectors in their teens and 20s, Woo has a firsthand look at students produced by the educational system in the Hermit Kingdom, and the news isn't good, he says.
"Some of them have graduated from high school in North Korea, but their learning capacity is very poor," said Woo, a 64-year-old retired technology executive. "In some cases, we start out teaching them at the elementary school level."
[Education] [Media]
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PSPD strongly denounces North Korea firing artillery at Yeonpyeong Island of South Korea
- Both North and South Korea should put all the efforts not to have further military hostilities
- Fundamental measures are required to prevent the vicious circle of armed clashes in the Yellow Sea
Yesterday(Nov 23), North Korea launched around 170 artillery fires at Yeonpyeong Island where ‘Hogook’ military exercise was being conducted by the South Korean military, and South Korea exchanged 80 artillery fires in response. It has been one year that North and South naval forces confronted and exchanged fires in the Yellow Sea(Nov 10, 2009). Reportedly, two marines and two civilians were killed and 18 people, including 3 civilians, were wounded in Yeonpyeong Island. Supposedly, North Korea also got considerable damage.
[Clash]
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Amid Tension, South Korea Holds Nationwide Air-Raid Drill
By MARK McDONALD
Published: December 15, 2010
SEOUL, South Korea — Air-raid sirens blared, traffic stopped, fighter planes roared overhead and schoolchildren were hustled into subway stations on Wednesday as South Korea, still tense after an artillery exchange with North Korea three weeks ago, held its biggest civil defense drill in decades.
[Buildup]
-
The distance is large for North Korean defectors who want to live in South Korea
Defectors must shed their identity in order to join South Korean society
By Lee Je-hoon, Staff Writer
“Kim," a North Korean defector living in South Korea, still cannot forget the events of June 2002. A university student at the time, Kim joined friends in crying out "Daehanminguk!" (Republic of Korea!) in the streets to cheer during the Korea-Japan World Cup. He had the strong feeling that he truly had become a citizen of the Republic of Korea.
[Refugee reception]
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Yonphyong Island Shelling Branded as Provocation to DPRK
Pyongyang, December 14 (KCNA) -- The south Korean authorities have misled public opinion by asserting that the recent case of the Yonphyong Island shelling occurred due to the DPRK. This is nothing but a revelation of the scheme to dodge their criminal responsibility for the grave military provocation and finally ignite a war of aggression against the DPRK by kicking off another armed clash on a larger scale.
Rodong Sinmun Tuesday says this in a signed article.
Terming the shelling incident a provocation to the DPRK as it was carefully worked out in advance and deliberately perpetrated by the south Korean warmongers under the wire-pulling of the U.S. from A to Z, the article goes on to say:
The gravity of the incident finds itself in the fact that it was an intentional firing to kick off the military clash with the DPRK and a premeditated provocation aimed at thoroughly destroying the inter-Korean relations and igniting a war of aggression against the DPRK.
This is clearly evidenced by the racket for confrontation and war frantically staged by the puppet forces with the incident as a momentum.
The puppet group, in collusion with the U.S., has already worked out various scenarios for preemptive attack on the DPRK and is watching for a chance to put them into practice. What remains for them to do is to kick off a tremendous armed provocation going beyond the Yonphyong Island shelling and then ignite another Korean war.
The south Korean bellicose forces can never take issue with the legitimate self-defensive countermeasure taken by the DPRK nor can they dodge the blame for having committed the hideous provocation to drive the Korean Peninsula into touch-and-go situation.
It is a pipedream for the south Korean authorities to seek a way out in doing harm to the fellow countrymen by force of arms with help of foreign forces. Their desperate moves for confrontation with the DPRK and provocation to unleash a war against it will only reveal their bellicose nature before the entire nation and the world.
[Clash]
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One nuclear backpack makes Seoul sea of fire; NK residents
North Korean soldiers and residents have mentioned the possibility that nuclear weapons may be used against South Korea amid the recent radical claims of “nuclear war on the Korean Peninsula” by the North, Open Radio for North Korea reported Tuesday.
Earlier, Nodong Sinmun, a mouthpiece paper of North Korea’s Workers’ Party, reported that “the betrayal of South Korea has heightened the tension between the North and South and created dark cloud of nuclear war on the Korean Peninsula.”
“We will make Seoul a sea of fire without fail if anyone invade our territory, airspace and waters even by 0.001 millimeter,” Uriminzok, the Internet site of North Korea’s Commission for Peaceful Unification of the Fatherland, also said on Nov. 28
According to the radio, an inside source of North Korea said that there are rumors spreading among North Korean residents that “Seoul could be a sea of fire when we detonate a nuclear bomb brought in a backpack and then immediately South Korea surrenders.”
[War]
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Marines recount NK's deadly shelling of Yeonpyeong
In their first official accounts of North Korea's deadly attack on Yeonpyeong last month, South Korean marines stationed on the western frontline island recounted Tuesday their shock and frustration as they tried desperately to fight back despite a barrage of incoming shells.
The gripping accounts, released by the Marine Corps, cover the gamut of events that took place on Nov. 23 when North Korea fired about 170 shells toward the small fishing community inhabited by some 1,400 civilians and guarded by at least 1,000 marines.
[Clash]
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SKorea stages mass evacuation drill amid tension
By HYUNG-JIN KIM and KIM KWANG-TAE
The Associated Press
Wednesday, December 15, 2010; 3:08 AM
SEOUL, South Korea -- South Koreans stopped their cars, donned gas masks and ducked into underground shelters Wednesday in the country's biggest-ever evacuation drill - a government attempt to prepare traditionally indifferent citizens for possible new attacks by North Korea.
Fears of war on the divided Korean peninsula have intensified since the rivals fired artillery shells at each other last month across their tense western sea border. Four South Koreans on a front-line island were killed; the North's casualties are unknown.
[Buildup]
-
Seoul to stage civil defense drill
Source: Global Times [08:12 December 14 2010] Comments South Korea will stage a major civil defense drill this week amid continuing high tensions on the Korean Peninsula, AFP quoted officials as saying Monday.
The drill will take place at 2 pm tomorrow, with a dozen South Korean fighter jets flying across the country to simulate air strikes, the National Emergency Management Agency said, according to AFP.
[Buildup]
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NPCK on DPRK Ready for Escalated Skirmish and All-out War
Pyongyang, December 11 (KCNA) -- The war confab of the U.S. imperialists and the south Korean warmongers is, in fact, little short of a declaration of an all-out war aimed at the escalated skirmish, declared a spokesman for the National Peace Committee of Korea in a statement released on Saturday.
He went on to say:
The U.S. imperialists and the puppet warmongers held a meeting of the chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of south Korea and the U.S. in Seoul on December 8 at which they discussed a very dangerous war scenario calling on the puppet forces and the U.S. imperialist aggressor forces to mount a military attack on the DPRK under the pretext of "deterring provocation" of someone.
The U.S. imperialists openly approved the puppet forces' plan to attack the DPRK by mobilizing all fighters and warships, etc. not bound to the existing "rules and regulations for battles," touting "their right to self-defence." They, at the same time, declared they would consider the proposal for supporting the puppet forces with "information about north Korea" and with "F-22 Raptors" advertised by them as the "most sophisticated fighters in the world" in case of a war between the north and the south of Korea.
[Buildup]
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Fascists of S. Korea Sentence University Professor to Prison Terms
Pyongyang, December 13 (KCNA) -- The south Korean puppet Supreme Court sentenced Honorary Professor Kang Jong Gu of Tongguk National University to two years in prison and suspension of qualification and three years in stay of execution on charge of the violation of the ill-famed "National Security Law" on Dec. 9.
The puppet Supreme Court at a trial held that day took the above-said action against him on charges that he visited Pyongyang in August 2001 and wrote in the visitor's book in Mangyongdae the slogan "Let's achieve the cause of reunification by inheriting the spirit of Mangyongdae" and posted on the internet articles encouraging and praising the north.
[Human rights]
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S.Korea 'Was Ready to Strike' North During Yeonpyeong Attack
South Korea says it was ready to launch an air strike if North Korea had fired a third artillery wave against Yeonpyeong Island last month. "A decision was made to mobilize fighter jets and strike targets if North Korea conducted a third artillery shelling," a high-ranking Cheong Wa Dae official told reporters.
"At that time, a decision had been reached in the underground command bunker at Cheong Wa Dae to respond with fighter jets in the event of a third attack. Fighter planes, including F-15K jets, were airborne following the second wave."
The official said, "Even at the time of the first and second waves of the attack, President Lee Myung-bak asked several times, 'Is there anything we can do with our fighter jets?'" But the Joint Chiefs of Staff reported they would have to be prepared for massive casualties in case the conflict escalates, "so we could not reach a decision."
[Clash] [Casualties]
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Signs Suggest that N.Korean Regime Is Cracking
South Korean, U.S. and Japanese foreign ministry officials talked about the possibility that the North Korean regime has lost control and gone off the rails since the artillery attack on Yeonpyeong Island, it emerged Friday. On Thursday, President Lee Myung-bak said North Koreans are now much aware of the outside world. "I feel reunification is now not far off."
A senior government official said, "Having watched the North launch a series of provocations such as the torpedo attack on the Navy corvette Cheonan, its uranium enrichment program and the shelling of Yeonpyeong Island, officials in Seoul, Washington and Tokyo recently discussed the need to look at the North's latest movements from a completely new viewpoint."
He said some officials saw the Yeonpyeong attack as merely another round in a familiar pattern of provocations, "but others said that it shows that the situation on the Korean Peninsula has entered a new phase." This may mean the regime "has lost control internally," he added.
[Buildup] [Takeover] [Self delusion]
-
Pro-N.Korean Websites Beat Censor
Pro-North Korean websites are persistently eluding the forces of South Korean law that are trying to shut them down.
One forum that was blocked after the North's artillery attack on Yeonpyeong Island has immediately popped up again under a slightly different web address.
The opening screen features a photograph of former North Korean leader Kim Il-sung and carries the words "The North is no longer taboo." It also says, "It's wrong to limit access to this forum. Immediately withdraw curbs on freedom of expression." A thread discussing the situation in the West Sea is full of pro-North Korean comments, questioning whether Pyongyang was really behind the provocations.
In another section, articles from the North's official Rodong Sinmun daily appear in real time. "No matter how cunning the machinations of the warmongers [South Korea] may be, they will not be able to halt the advance of [North Korea]. They will face the same fate as a moth driven to a flame," one fulminates. At present, the forum has 1,500 comments, photographs and movies. It even contains a program that enables access to websites blocked in South Korea.
[Human rights]
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Live-Fire Drills on All Coasts This Week
The military is carrying out live-fire drills at 27 sites in all coastal areas from Monday to Friday, it announced Sunday.
These include 15 sites on the west coast, including Anma Island, Daecheon Port, Miyeo Island and Eocheong Island. Pohang, Gangneung, and sea surrounding Ulleung Island are part of the six sites on the east coast, and another six on the south coast include Yukji Island, Geoje Island, and Jeju Island.
Although the five West Sea islands have not been designated as drill sites, a military source said there is a possibility of live-fire exercises taking place there on short notice based on weather and strategic considerations. The exercises follow North Korea's attack on Yeonpyeong, one of the five islands, last month.
[Buildup]
-
How Sunshine Policy Fueled N.Korea's Nuclear Development
North Korea's nuclear and missile capabilities grew substantially under the Sunshine Policy during the Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun administrations, and the North now reportedly has about a dozen nuclear weapons. Pyongyang is also operating hundreds or even thousands of uranium enrichment centrifuges, whose existence South Korean leftwingers denied.
"As a result of the former administrations' deliberate disregard under a decade of the Sunshine Policy, the crisis is now coming to a head," a Cheong Wa Dae staffer said Monday.
[SK NK policy] [Lee Myung-bak]
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GNP commences national security drive
Observers say the Lee government has moved to dodge criticisms of security incompetence and cite a “quasi-wartime state” to justify railroading legislation
» A shot of the Korean peninsula captured by a U.S. satellite, Oct. 29. North Korea is covered in darkness. This picture from a U.S. Navy research center was made public through the homepage of Radio Free Asia on Dec. 10.
By Ahn Chang-hyun, Staff Writer
“Yeonpyeong Island was turned into a sea of fire, yet we have these out-of-their-minds pro-North Korea types and North Korea puppets calling for dialogue to build a permanent peace regime.”
This was the statement made by Grand National Party floor leader Kim Moo-sung during a Nov. 28 meeting with journalists. The “out-of-their-minds pro-North Korea types and North Korea puppets” he referred to were the Democratic Party and other opposition parties. During the National Assembly’s adoption of a resolution denouncing North Korea on Nov. 25, opposition parties had tried to insert a phrase about “building a permanent peace regime,” which was rejected by the ruling GNP.
[SK NK policy] [Buildup]
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We are ready to wage full-scale war: NK
North Korea has lashed out at South Korea and the United States for the meeting between their joint chiefs of staff regarding the North’s recent artillery shelling on a border island of the South in the Yellow Sea.
“The Korean Peninsula has been escalated into the situation of full-scale war due to provocative scheme by the United States and pro-war fanatics of the South,” the (North) Korean Central News Agency quoted Saturday the spokesman of the (North) Korea’s National People’s Council for Protection of Peace, a propaganda mouthpiece of the North against the South, as saying in a statement. “Our military and all the citizens are ready to deal with all, whether it is limited or full-scale war.”
North Korea claimed that it has regarded the meeting of the joint chiefs of staff between the two allies as the declaration of war meaning that they actually intended to break out a total war through the expansion of the skirmishes in a dangerous conspiracy of attacking the North militarily.
[Zero]
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South Korea to Stage Firing Drills Off Coasts
By REUTERS
Published: December 12, 2010
SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea will conduct live-fire drills at sea on Monday, The latest in a series of military exercises taking place against a backdrop of heightened tension with North Korea, a military official said on Sunday.
"The drills running through December 17 are routine," the official, who declined to be named, told Reuters.
However, the official added that islands near the disputed maritime border off the west coast that were the scene of an exchange of fire last month were not currently included in the exercises.
Tensions on the Korean peninsula rose sharply after North Korea shelled the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong, killing four people, on November 23. The South has vowed to hit back hard against its neighbor if Pyongyang repeats the attack.
North Korea appears to have made few concessions when Chinese State Councilor Dai Bingguo met the isolated North's leader Kim Jong-il last week, the Yonhap News Agency reported, citing an unnamed Seoul official.
Washington is pressing China to rein its ally Pyongyang, and U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates will visit China next month.
(Reporting by Ju-min Park; Editing by Alex Richardson)
[Media]
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Hyundai Irregular Workers’ Factory Occupation Ends after 25 Days
10 December 2010
Wol-san Liem
Research Institute for Alternative Workers Movements
Yesterday (December 9), members of the Hyundai Motors Irregular Workers Chapter of the Korean Metal Workers Union (KMWU) left factory 1 of the Hyundai Plant in Ulsan. Their departure marked the end of a 25-day long occupation, which they had endured without adequate food, water or bedding.
[Labour]
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Gas Masks for All Residents in 5 West Sea Islands
The government plans to supply gas masks to all residents on and in the vicinity of the five West Sea islands close to the inter-Korean maritime border by 2012 to guard against possible chemical attacks from North Korea.
The National Emergency Management Agency says it will spend US$4.2 million next year to purchase additional gas masks for civil defense personnel and secure the budget in 2012 to distribute the protective gear to everyone.
Officials say while up to 80 percent of people living on the five islands that have been exposed to North Korean attacks are equipped, only 30 to 40 percent in the nearby areas are provided with the masks.
[Buildup]
-
Act First, Report Later, Defense Chief Tells Officers
Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin on Tuesday ordered frontline commanders to respond to any North Korean provocations first and report up the chain of command afterward. The order came in response to criticism that no one in the military was willing to take responsibility for firmly repelling North Korea's artillery attack on Yeonpyeong Island for fear of escalation.
At an emergency meeting with 150 major field commanders at the ministry, Kim said, "Try to suppress North Korean acts of provocation as best as you can, but if it does launch a provocation, guarantee the right of self-defense of your subordinate commanders and deliver a powerful response until the source of the threat is removed."
[Buildup]
-
N.Korean Defectors Want to Serve in Special Reserve Force
Hundreds of North Korean defectors have denounced Pyongyang's shelling of Yeonpyeong Island last month and are urging the government to set up a special reserve force made up of those who fled the North. The North Korean People's Liberation Front, a group of defectors who served in the military there, said Tuesday it has received a petition signed by over 330 North Korean defectors so far.
-
Fire Fight at Yeonpyeong: The Manufacturing of Crisis
By Tim Beal | 12:47 BeiJing Time,Tuesday, December 7, 20100
Korean brinkmanship, American strategic paralysis, and the road to war[1]
The exchange of artillery fire between South and North Korea on 23 November had predictable results – a great increase of tension on the peninsula, a show of force by the United States, and a torrent of silly media articles and pontificating from the security industry. Zbigniew Brzezinski, who as Jimmy Carter’s National Security Advisor armed the Mujahideen in order to draw the Soviet Union into Afghanistan thereby starting that long and continuing war (and 9/11 for that matter), opined that
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Seoul 'Blew Chance to Stop N.Korean Provocations'
Military experts say South Korea missed a chance to break the vicious cycle of ever bolder North Korean provocations and meek responses from the South. They say it is a pity South Korea's F-15K fighter jets took no action after they were scrambled in response to the North Korean artillery attack on Yeonpyeong Island on Nov. 23.
Kim Hee-sang, a retired Army lieutenant general and chief of the Korea Institute for National Security Affairs, said, "At the time, the North's Mig-23 fighters took off, but they are no match for F-15Ks. If an aerial dogfight had broken out, the North would have suffered a crushing defeat and we could have delivered a clear message that they must pay the price for a provocation."
[Buildup] [Military balance]
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We Need to Show N.Korea We Are Willing to Fight Back
The South Korean military began a weeklong live-fire drill off all three coasts of the country on Monday as North Korea continued to issue the customary threats of "all-out war." It appears that Kim Jong-il and his private army are enjoying threatening South Korea more than ever.
[Buildup]
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New Defense Chief Pledges Tougher Response to Provocations
The new defense minister, Kim Kwan-jin, has stressed the need to exercise South Korea's right to defend itself against any further military provocation by North Korea.
Kim was speaking Monday in his first meeting with reporters since he took office. "I've instructed the military to respond in self-defense to any provocation by the North," Kim said. "Self-defense is a concept whereby we retaliate if the enemy attacks first."
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Presidential committee recommends extending mandatory military service
The committee, convened after the Cheonan sinking, has proposed a range of defense reforms
» Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin heads to the press room at the Ministry of National Defense to explain the plan submitted by the presidential committee for the advancement of national defense, Dec. 6. (Yonhap News Agency)
By Kwon Hyuk-chul, Staff Writer
A presidential committee for the advancement of national defense presented a plan to President Lee Myung-bak on Monday that would restore the mandatory military service period in the Army to its previous level of 24 months. The period has been undergoing continuous reduction, with the goal of shortening it to 18 months by 2014. Recent recruits serve just over 21 months.
[Buildup][ROK military]
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Decades later, Supreme Court clears men of espionage
Since the Lee administration took office, prosecutors have unusually begun to appeal not-guilty verdicts in espionage retrials
By Song Gyung-hwa
The Supreme Court has handed down a not-guilty verdict in an appeal of a retrial case of a man who spent time in prison after unfairly being accused of being a spy. The ruling is significant as the first not-guilty verdict handed down by the Supreme Court in several cases brought to the Court by prosecutors. Since the start of the Lee Myung-bak administration, prosecutors have broken with usual practice by appealing not-guilty verdicts in retrials of spy cases.
The Third Division of the Supreme Court confirmed a not-guilty verdict Monday in the retrial of Kim Seong-gyu, 70, Oh Ju-seok, 77, Song Seok-min, 60, and Ahn Gyo-do, 68, who were charged with engaging in espionage activity after being won over by a North Korean agent with the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan.
[Human rights] [Lee Myung-bak]
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S. Korea advised to double number of marines to counter N. Korea
By Lee Chi-dong
SEOUL, Dec. 6 (Yonhap) -- A presidential security panel proposed Monday that South Korea more than double the number of its marines, a core force in defending the country's western border islands, and reverse the ongoing reduction of mandatory military service period for all armed forces, sources said.
The policy suggestions, reported to President Lee Myung-bak, came after North Korea's Nov. 23 deadly shelling of Yeonpyeong Island close to the border between the two Koreas in the Yellow Sea. The deadly attack killed two marines and two civilians, and put the government under renewed pressure to plug security loopholes already laid bare in the sinking of a South Korean naval ship in March by the North's sudden torpedo attack that left 46 sailors dead.
The Commission for National Security Review, launched after the ship sinking, said South Korea should turn the Marine Corp into "Rapid Reaction Force" and increase the number of marines to around 12,000 from the current 5,000 by creating another division, the sources said, asking not to be named before a formal government announcement on the report.
The commission also called for restoring the 24-month military service period, according to the sources.
South Korea has been curtailing the period under the "Military Reform Plan 2020" crafted in 2005 by the former Roh Moo-hyun administration, which sought to ease military tensions on the peninsula by engaging the North.
The military service term is highly sensitive in a country where all male adults who are physically and mentally healthy are obliged to serve in the military with a monthly pay of about US$100.
The panel also recommended reinstating advantages for those who served in the military when hiring civil servants and public firm employees, a system abolished in 1999 following strong protests against it by women's rights groups, the sources said.
lcd@yna.co.kr
[Buildup] [ROK military]
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North Korea: Showing off nukes, shelling the south
December 2nd, 2010
Author: Aidan Foster-Carter, Leeds University
On November 22 a leading US nuclear scientist reported seeing facilities which suggest that Pyongyang has got much further in enriching uranium than had been thought. As if that were not bombshell enough, next day North Korean artillery without warning shelled military and civilian targets on Yeonpyeong: one of five South Korean islands in the Yellow Sea, close to North Korea. Two marines and two civilians were killed, 18 persons were injured. The won fell and stock markets in Seoul remained volatile for the rest of the week, but did not plummet.
[Clash] [LWR]
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Factsheet: WEST SEA CRISIS IN KOREA
Nan Kim
Introduction
John McGlynn
The factsheet that follows, prepared by Nan Kim in conjunction with members of the National Campaign to End the Korean War, provides an informative overview of the dangerous military standoff that has been unfolding on the Korean Peninsula ever since South Korea conducted a 4-hour artillery exercise on November 23. The exercise was conducted on Yeonpyeong Island, populated at the time by 1,000 South Korean soldiers and 1,300 civilians, about 12 kilometers from North Korea's coastline. The North, which several times asked the South to cancel the exercise prior to its start, and then called for a halt to the exercise when shells landed closer and closer to the North Korean coastline , responded with direct shelling of the island. This resulted in the killing of two South Korean soldiers and two civilian contractors working on a military base. (Pyongyang later expressed regret for the civilian deaths.). See CSPAN report here.
[Clash] [Casualties]
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Many Youngsters Complacent About N.Korean Threat
Experts trace a marked lack of urgency felt by young South Koreans about national security, a complacent attitude toward the North Korean threat and shortcomings in education.
The Chosun Ilbo and the Korean Federation of Teachers Associations conducted a survey of 1,240 students from 5th to 12th grade in Seoul last week and found that 43 percent either did not know about the Nov. 23 attack on Yeonpyeong Island or believed that South Korean military drills had caused the North to fire.
When asked who was responsible for sinking the South Korean Navy corvette Cheonan in March, 36 percent of the students did not point the finger at North Korea. Some 26 percent did not know that the Korean War started because the North invaded the South.
Experts said that the scrapping of classes in schools over the last 10 years educating students about the North Korean threat and some teachers painting a rosy picture of the North are responsible for the flawed views students have about the communist country.
Only 57 percent said the artillery attack on Yeonpyeong Island was a North Korean provocation. The remaining 43 percent said "pointless" South Korean military exercises had provoked the attack, or South Korea launched the first attack.
[Public opinion] [MISCOM]
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Korean Politicians Tremble at WikiLeaks Cables
The WikiLeaks disclosure of U.S. diplomatic telegrams is proving a big headache for both the ruling and opposition parties in Korea. The telegrams already disclosed contain the full names of high-ranking diplomatic officials together with their off-the-record remarks.
The cables are a compendium of informal reports by U.S. diplomats all over the world to their masters at the State Department, analyzing the political situation of countries and reporting on encounters with influential figures.
There are apparently 1,980 diplomatic telegrams from the U.S. Embassy in Seoul in the WikiLeaks cache, 480 from 2007, 367 from 2008, 690 from 2009 and 102 from 2010.
One diplomatic source said on Sunday, "Our embassies overseas report analysis of the political situation of the respective countries in much the same way. Diplomats meet politicians and civil servants of the countries where they are working and generate reports on things like the inclination of the current government and election outlook. The U.S. Embassy in Seoul did something along the same lines."
The trouble is that the sources of the information are mentioned by name. Korean politicians regardless of party affiliation are reportedly pressing their aides to get their hands on the WikiLeaks documents as soon as possible so they can work out ways to limit damage they may suffer. If they were indiscreet about fellow politicians or presidential candidates in the past, they could find themselves in an awkward situation.
The Korean and U.S. governments are reportedly trying to figure out what the cables WikiLeaks is releasing piecemeal may contain and how to react. But one diplomatic source said, "Nobody knows which particular telegrams have been leaked."
englishnews@chosun.com / Dec. 06, 2010 13:01 KST
[WikiLeaks] [Client]
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N.Korea 'Suffered More Damage Than South in Artillery Fire'
North Korea suffered significantly more casualties in an exchange of artillery fire when the North attacked the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong on Nov. 23, the Kyodo news agency reported.
"An anonymous source was told by a North Korean government official that the North suffered several times more casualties than South Korea, where four people were killed," it said.
But the North Korean official did not mention any civilian casualties.
Meanwhile, the National Intelligence Service here disclosed satellite images of areas near the North Korean artillery positions but said only it is analyzing how much damage the North suffered.
The North's official KCNA news agency in attempt to put the cart before the horse reported on Nov. 27, "The enemy's shells landed indiscriminately in areas near civilian homes located far away from the artillery positions."
[Clash] [Casualties]
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N.Korean Textbooks Put Focus on Disparaging S.Korea
North Korean geography textbooks, the main source of information for students there about South Korea, distort or disparage South Korea's economic development by way of exalting the North Korean system, an academic here says.
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S.Korea to hold artillery exercises at 29 coastal locations
N.Korea has responded by reminding S.Korea of the possibility of “full-scale war”
By Kwon Hyuk-chul, Staff Writer
Amid heightening military tensions between North Korea and South Korea following the shelling of Yeonpyeong Island, the Joint Chiefs of Staff announced Sunday that they plans to hold maritime firing exercises between Dec. 6 and 12 at a total of 29 locations, including the waters near Daecheong Island in the five West Sea islands as well as the East and South Seas. Observers have expressed concern that the simultaneously occurring exercises by South Korea may lead to another military clash with North Korea.
The sites for the exercises as planned by the Joint Chiefs of Staff include 16 locations in the West Sea, including the waters southwest of Daecheong Island and the Gyeongnyeolbi Archipelago, as well as seven locations in the East Sea and six in the South Sea. The areas around Yeonpyeong and Baengnyeong Islands were not included among the locations for the exercises. Military authorities plan to fix a time for resuming firing exercises at Yeonpyeong Island that takes into account resident safety issues and weather conditions.
North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported on Sunday that the situation on the Korean Peninsula was “racing faster and faster toward an extreme, out-of-control situation.”
“If full-scale war erupts between North and South, this will have a grave impact not only on the Choson (Korean) Peninsula but also on peace and security in the region,” the report continued.
This marks the first time since the Nov. 23 attack on Yeonpyeong Island that North Korea has used the term “full-scale war.” Analysts say it is likely intended to deter South Korea from additional military actions by reminding it of the possibility of all-out warfare.
[Buildup]
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Leading pro-democracy intellectual dies at 81
Lee Young-hee was a leading critic of authoritarian administrations that took power after the Korean War
By Lee Moon-young
Lee Young-hee, a national symbol of an intellectual activist and a major figure in the journalist sector, passed away Sunday at the age of 81.
Lee, a former Hanyang University professor emeritus and editorial adviser for the Hankyoreh, died at around 12:40 a.m. Sunday at Green Hospital in the Myeonmok neighborhood of Seoul’s Jungnang District, where he had been hospitalized for chronic illness.
Lee’s life was a long battle with the anti-intellectualism and anti-democracy forces that had him dismissed twice each from press and university positions and arrested a total of five times. Following his imprisonment in 1980 after the new military regime of Chun Doo-hwan fingered him as one of the ringleaders behind the Gwangju Uprising, the French daily Le Monde called him “an intellectual mentor.”
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S. Korea Reportedly Begins Naval Firing Drills
By MARK McDONALD
Published: December 6, 2010
SEOUL, South Korea — Brushing aside North Korean warnings of war, South Korea reportedly began live fire artillery drills on Monday, less than two weeks after the North’s shelling of a South Korean island sharply escalated tensions between them.
The drills were reported by local media outlets and wire services, citing anonymous officials at the Joint Chiefs of Staff. But a Defense Ministry spokesman declined Monday afternoon to confirm that the exercises had actually begun.
[Buildup]
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Spiralling out of Control: The Risk of a New Korean War
By Gregory Elich
Global Research, December 4, 2010
An artillery duel between North and South Korean forces on November 23 has set in motion a series of events which threaten to spiral out of control.
On November 22, South Korea began its annual military exercise, involving including 70,000 troops, dozens of South Korean and U.S. warships and some 500 aircraft. The following day, South Korean artillery stationed on Yeonpyeong Island began a live ammunition drill, firing shells into the surrounding sea.
Lee Myung-bak has already achieved his dream of demolishing the Sunshine Policy. Relations between the two Koreas are at their lowest point since the end of military dictatorship in South Korea. Now he aims to deliberately trigger armed conflict in order to demonstrate "toughness," and not incidentally, drive the final nail into the coffin of the Sunshine Policy. Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin feels that the risk of war is low. "It will be difficult for North Korea to conduct a full-scale war because there are some elements of insecurity in the country, such as the national economy and power transfer." (18) Those may be arguments against North Korea's ability to successfully sustain a long-term war over the course of a year or two, but it seriously misreads the ability and will of the North Korean military to put up a determined fight. The extent of possible South Korean air strikes on the North is not clear, but anything other than an extremely limited and localized action is likely to trigger total war. And that is a war that the U.S. will inevitably be drawn into. Even presuming a quick defeat of the North (which would be unlikely), eighty percent of North Korea is mountainous, providing ideal terrain for North Korean forces to conduct guerrilla warfare. The U.S. could find itself involved in another failing military occupation. With both sides heavily armed, the consequences could be much worse for Koreans, and casualties could reach alarming totals. Four million Koreans died in the Korean War. Even one percent of that total in a new war would be unconscionable, and Lee Myung-bak is deluded if he believes he can ride the tiger of armed conflict and remain in control of the path it takes.
[Clash] [Lee Myung-bak] [War]
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North and South Korea Exchange Fire and its Aftermath
by Nicole Finnemann and Abe Kim (nmf@keia.org)
On December 1, South Korea and the United States wrapped up high-profile naval exercises in the Yellow Sea. The drills, which were in direct response to North Korea’s November 23 artillery attack on Yeonpyeong Island which killed 2 South Korean marines and 2 civilians, ended without incident. The South Korean officials announced that more military drills were to follow, though dates were not yet specified. The South Korean military also deployed additional artillery and multiple rocket launchers on the Yeonpyeong Island and discussed the possibility of deploying Israeli-made cruise missiles capable of reaching Kim Jong-il's palace. But as the USS George Washington aircraft carrier and other U.S. warships headed back to their base in Japan, many expected the North to strike again especially in response to these recent US-South Korea exercises. And this is only the beginning of a series of tense exchanges to come on the Korean peninsula.
[Clash]
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NKorea lambasts SKorea's new defense chief
HYUNG-JIN KIM
The Associated Press
Sunday, December 5, 2010; 1:28 AM
SEOUL, South Korea -- North Korea lambasted South Korea's new defense chief Sunday for threatening to launch air strikes against the North and accused the South of causing "uncontrollable, extreme" tension on the peninsula.
The South's Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin told a confirmation hearing last week that jets would bomb the North if it stages another attack like the shelling on a front-line island that killed four South Koreans. Kim took office Saturday, replacing a predecessor who resigned amid criticism that South Korea's response to the Nov. 23 shelling was too slow and weak.
The North's official Korean Central News Agency issued a statement Sunday accusing the South of staging a series of "frantic provocations" including the defense minister's remarks.
[Clash]
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S.Korea Paid Astronomical Sums to N.Korea
South Korea gave North Korea an astronomical US$2.98 billion during the Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun administrations from 1998-2008, according to a government tally announced Thursday. That is 1.5 times more than the amount of aid China gave to North Korea over the same period, which totaled $1.9 billion.
The government and private businesses gave (sic) North Korea $1.84 billion through commercial trade, $544.23 million for package tours to the Mt. Kumgang resort, $450 million for an inter-Korean summit, $41.31 million in land use fees and wages for North Korean workers at the Kaesong Industrial Complex and $30.03 million as part of various social and cultural exchanges, according to internal documents of the Unification Ministry and other government agencies.
[Media] [Spin]
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Defense minister-designate voices support for self-defense (sic) air raids
Analysts say his comments are likely political, since intelligence for air strikes lies with USFK
» Defense Minister-designate Kim Kwan-jin answers questions from lawmakers during his confirmation hearing the National Assembly, Dec. 3. (Photo by Tak Ki-hyoung)
By Lee Se-young
At his nomination hearing Friday, Defense Minister-designate Kim Kwan-jin made a distinction between the rules of engagement and the right to self-defense and said that he would “definitely attack” North Korea with aircraft in the event of another provocation from the country.
Speaking at the National Assembly National Defense Committee hearing Friday, Kim said, “The rules of engagement are valid as a guideline in the event of an unintended clash [between North Korea and South Korea], but if we suffer a provocation first, this falls in the scope of self-defense rights, and we can punish an enemy threat sufficiently until the root of it has been completely eliminated.”
The statement is based on Article 51 of the U.N. Charter, which states that a country may use military force in self-defense when it suffers an armed attack by another country.
Experts are divided on where the exercise of self-defense rights through aerial bombing in response to an artillery attack is actually feasible in reality. This disagreement owes to the military characteristics of the Korean Peninsula, where even a small accidental clash can erupt into all-out war, and with the presence of the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK), the actual administrators of the armistice system. Large and small military clashes with North Korea have occurred in the past, but the U.S. has consistently restrained South Korean forces from responding forcefully.
Those who believe a self-defense air raid is possible argue that there is no problem
unless a significant amount of time has passed since the time of the attack or the air raid extends to the rear of the attack area.
“Once a situation breaks out, there is no way for the U.N. Command to initiate measures,” said University of North Korea Studies Professor Ham Taek-young. “You can find a number of cases where South Korean forces have undertaken military operations independently without approval from the U.N. Command.”
The refutations of this argument have been considerable.
“Carrying out an air raid essentially means going from a cease-fire into a stage of war,” said Research Institute for Peace and Reunification of Korea researcher Go Yeong-dae. “It is impossible in a situation where authority for crisis management during the cease-fire lies with the South Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command.”
Another constraint on the South Korean military’s ability to act independently is the fact that USFK possess the core intelligence assets supporting airborne forces.
Some analysts have interpreted Kim’s argument about responding based on self-defense powers as simply a politically motivated statement.
[Buildup] [Sovereignty] [OPCON]
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Military responds to Tokyo Shimbun’s prediction of strike on Gyeonggi Province
Military officials say they have both the intelligence to predict and forces to repel such an attack
By Kwon Hyuck-chul, Staff Writer
Since North Korea’s artillery attack on Yeonpyeong Island, there has been concern that North Korea could use its long-range guns to fire on the greater Seoul area. Quoting a “source knowledgeable about North Korea,” the Tokyo Shimbun reported Thursday that an official in the North Korean Defense Ministry’s reconnaissance bureau said North Korea could launch new artillery strikes at Gyeonggi Province within the month.
A South Korean military official also said Friday that to prepare for this possibility, the military was examining ways to neutralize North Korea’s long-range artillery concentrated along the western sector of the front line.
North Korea reportedly has about 10,000 artillery pieces deployed near the DMZ. Of these, about 200 are 170mm self-propelled artillery and 200 are 240mm multiple rocket launchers deployed in the western sector, with ranges far enough to hit the greater Seoul area. The maximum range of the 240mm multiple rocket launcher is 60km, while the long-range guns can hit northern Gyeonggi Province, all of Seoul, Gwacheon, Anyang and Siheung.
Military officials say North Korea’s long-range guns could launch up to 17,000 shells at the greater Seoul area in an hour. If this were to happen, they say some 3.25 million civilians and soldiers could be killed or wounded.
[Casualties] [Buildup]
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South Korean Outlines Muscular Military Posture
By MARK McDONALD
Published: December 3, 2010
SEOUL, South Korea — The four-star general chosen as South Korea’s new defense minister said Friday that the South would use airstrikes against North Korea if it carried out further attacks.
“If the enemy attacks our people and territory again, I will use force to punish the enemy to make sure it doesn’t even dare think about it again,” the minister-designate, Kim Kwan-jin, said in confirmation hearings on Friday.
His comments provided the first details of a muscular new military posture announced by President Lee Myung-bak last week. Mr. Lee’s government has come under fierce criticism for what is widely seen here as a feeble response to the North Korean shelling of a South Korean island last month.
[Buildup][Media] [Spin] [Inversion]
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Military Defends Response to N.Korean Attack
South Korean K-9 self-propelled howitzers fired back at North Korean artillery positions on Nov. 23, when the North attacked Yeonpyeong Island, but the shells fell way short of their targets, a commercial satellite image shown by the National Intelligence Service at the National Assembly Intelligence Committee on Wednesday and Thursday shows.
Lawmakers on the committee said some North Korean coastal artillery positions in Mudo seem to have suffered damage, but multiple rocket launcher positions in Kaemori appear intact since artillery impact points are seen only in nearby paddy and dry fields.
The satellite image on the left shows impact points of South Korean artillery shells on North Korean barracks on Mudo and the one on the right those landing in rice paddies and fields on Kaemori, missing the North's MRL positions. /Courtesy of National Intelligence Service Yet the military maintains based on analysis of classified military satellite images that its artillery fire "inflicted huge damage" also to the North's MRL positions.
"About a dozen shells landed within coastal artillery positions in Mudo," Grand National Party Rep. Kwon Yong-se, who chairs the committee, said after reviewing the satellite photos of the Mudo area.
"The points of our military's artillery impact lie in a straight line between two North Korean military barracks, about 100 m apart, and close to another structure. Some impact points are within 50 m from barracks. We can assume that the North Korean military suffered considerable damage," he added.
Each K-9 shell has a killing range of 50 m.
But Democratic Party members of the committee Choi Jae-sung and Park Young-sun told reporters a different story, saying no shells hit barracks, and only three points of impact lie within a 50 m radius of barracks while the rest landed in paddy and dry fields."
But a spokesman for the Joint Chiefs of Staff said, "After analyzing military satellite images, which have much higher resolution than commercial photos, we confirmed that many of the shells landed in and around MRL positions. Claims based on commercial satellite images that shells landed only in fields or fell into the sea are far from reliable."
[Clash] {Casualties]
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Satellite image shows damages in NK artillery site
A satellite image shows the points of impact of South Korea’s artillery shells in a North Korean military base on the islet of Mudo off the western waters of the Korean Peninsula. The red circle suggests a shell hit one of the barracks at the base, while yellow circles mark other points of impact. The image was disclosed during a National Assembly Intelligence Committee meeting.
/ Korea Times
'15 rounds hit coastal artillery base'
By Jung Sung-ki
About 15 of the 80 rounds fired from South Korea’s self-propelled howitzers in a counterattack to the North’s Nov. 23 shelling of Yeonpyeong Island hit a North Korean artillery base on the islet of Mudo, causing substantial damage, a lawmaker of the ruling Grand National Party (GNP) said Thursday.
North Korea fired about 170 rounds from 122mm multiple rocket launchers and coastal artillery guns deployed in the Gaemeori region and on Mudo toward the border island. About 90 of them landed in residential areas as well as a South Korean marine base on the island, killing two South Korean marines and two civilians.
[Clash] [Casualties]
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Tension in the Koreas
Yesterday, November 23rd, North Korea fired scores of artillery shells at the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong, killing at least four (two soldiers, two civilians), wounding 18 more, destroying several houses, and setting numerous fires in one of the most serious clashes between the two countries in decades. North Korea claimed it was a response to earlier shells fired by South Korea - which the South acknowledged had been fired, but as an exercise, and not into North Korean territory. 70,000 South Korean troops were beginning an annual nationwide military drill called "Safeguarding the Nation" in the area, near the spot where a South Korean naval vessel was sunk in March, killing 46 sailors - which Seoul also blamed on North Korea. This attack coupled with recent revelations about the North's nuclear capabilities and escalating threats and counter-threats have raised tensions around the region - even as athletes from both Koreas continue to compete on a world stage, against each other and other nations, in the Asian Games in China. [Editor's Note: I will be out for the Thanksgiving holiday. Next entry will be published on 11/29] (33 photos total)[Collection of photos]
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Kim Jong-un 'Ordered Attack in Early November'
North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's son and heir Jong-un ordered the military in early November to prepare for an artillery attack on South Korea, the Asahi Shimbun reported on Wednesday quoting a source.
The Japanese daily quoted the source, who is familiar with North Korea-China relations, as saying, "Early last month, the North Korean military issued instructions in Kim Jong-un's name to senior military commanders to get ready to counter the enemy's provocations any time(sic)." The source quoted an unnamed North Korean Army officer as commenting on the artillery attack on Yeonpyeong. "It had been planned. We had been preparing for that for a long time."
[Clash] [Media][Provocation]
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Military suggests counterfire caused 'many casualties' in N. Korea
SEOUL, Dec. 2 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's military suggested Thursday that it had inflicted "many casualties" on North Korea when it returned artillery fire in response to the North's Nov. 23 bombardment on a southern island.
"Satellite images show our shells landed on a cluster of barracks in North Korea, so we presume there have been many casualties and considerable property damage," said a senior official at the South's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS).
The South is still analyzing images taken by its own satellite to assess the extent of damages and casualties on the North's side, the official said on the condition of anonymity. He declined to elaborate further, but the remarks were the military's first mention of human casualties in North Korea.
[Intelligence] [Warning] [Clash] {casualties]
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Presbyterian Church in the Republic of Korea (PROK) Campaign for a Peace Treaty in the Korean Peninsula
Written by Presbyterian Church in the Republic of Korea (PROK)
December 1, 2010
Dear Friends in Ecumenical Organizations and Partner Churches,
Warmest greetings of peace!
Peace should neither be an aberration from what the people believe it to be, nor a fabrication of those whose interests is the continued enmity within a nation or between nations. The Presbyterian Church in the Republic of Korea (PROK) pursues peace inspired by the God peace and grounded in the person of Jesus Christ, the prince of peace.
Contemporary history unfolded with so much violence inflicted on people and communities and the Korean nation is one of the most affected by the consequences of war. At this historical juncture, the church has to assert its vision and mission of peace.
[Peace Treaty]
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Spies Intercepted Plans for Yeonpyeong Attack in August
The National Intelligence Service intercepted hints that North Korea was planning to shell Yeonpyeong Island, three months before the arrack, it emerged on Wednesday.
Members of the National Assembly Intelligence Committee quoted NIS Director Won Sei-hoon as saying the agency knew from wiretapping that the North Korean regime ordered the military to prepare to attack the five islands in the West Sea. He said the NIS submitted the intelligence report to President Lee Myung-bak.
Committee members said since the North is constantly making such threats, the government apparently failed to take it seriously.
In this satellite photo released by the U.S. private intelligence agency Stratfor, rice paddies and fields in North Korea bear traces of South Korean artillery shells. /Courtesy of www.stratfor.com Asked what the military and the government did, Won said it was difficult to intercept further North Korean military communication before and on the day of attack because the North used landlines rather than wireless communication to carry out operations. Any damage the North suffered in the South's counterstrike is difficult to assess for the same reason, he added.
[Intelligence][Clash] [Warning]
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S.Korea to resume artillery exercises on Yeonpyeong
One former general says the military should focus on deterring provocations to restore stability to the region
» Marines stationed on Yeonpyeong Island travel on a military truck, Dec. 1. (Photo by Rhee Jong-chan)
By Lee Sei-young
Artillery exercises by a South Korean Marine unit stationed on Yeonpyeong Island are scheduled to resume shortly following their suspension in the wake of North Korea’s sudden artillery attack. The strong likelihood of additional attacks from North Korea, which has claimed the nearby waters to be its own in a long-standing territorial dispute, and the South Korean military’s declaration of “certain punishment” in the event of another provocation have sparked concerns about a return to hostilities between North Korea and South Korea.
[Clash] [Buildup]
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National Security Law police bookings soar under Lee administration
A civic organization says the 43 percent warrant rejection rate means the law has been administered arbitrarily
By Kim Min-kyoung
According to an analysis of applications of the National Security Law, the number of people booked on violation of the law has risen sharply from 35 in 2006 to 130 this year as of October. But with an arrest warrant rejection rate of a full 43.3 percent over the past three years, civil society groups are charging that with an increase in arbitrary application and overuse of the law by investigative bodies, humans rights infringements based on the law are returning to their past levels.
[NSL] [Human rights] [Lee Myung-bak]
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S. Korea confirms prior knowledge of N. Korea’s artillery attack
» Won Sei-hoon
South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) was confirmed on Wednesday to have wiretapped and caught the information that North Korea was planning to shell five islands in the West Sea three months before the attack. Their response, however, was sloppy. With this new admission, the people’s blame on Lee Myung-bak government and South Korean military for their overall incompetence is likely to rise.
In a meeting of the National Assembly Intelligence Committee, NIS Director Won Sei-hoon answered, “Yes,” to the lawmakers’ question of whether the NIS knew that North Korea ordered its military to prepare for artillery attack on the five islands from intercepting a North Korean military communication last August, according to the committee members. Won said the NIS submitted the intelligence report to President Lee Myung-bak.
Won was quoted as saying, “Since North Korea was constantly making such threats, the military anticipated North Korea’s shelling on the waters south of the Northern Limit Line (NLL).”
Won said it was difficult to intercept North Korean military communications before and on the day of attack, as North Korea used landlines instead of wireless communication.
[Clash] [Warning] [Intelligence]
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South Korean lawmakers slam government's spies
By HYUNG-JIN KIM
The Associated Press
Thursday, December 2, 2010; 3:09 AM
SEOUL, South Korea -- South Korean lawmakers slammed the government Thursday over revelations the country's spies failed to take seriously intelligence from August that indicated North Korea might attack a front-line island.
South Korean spy chief Won Sei-hoon's surprise acknowledgment of the intelligence breakdown came a week after the North rained artillery shells on that island, Yeonpyeong, a tiny enclave of civilians and military bases located near a disputed maritime border that has long been the focus of North Korean anger and violence.
Four South Koreans - two marines and two civilians - died, and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, facing strong criticism, has since replaced his defense minister and vowed to bolster troops in the area.
Won told lawmakers in a private briefing Wednesday that South Korea had intercepted North Korean military communications in August that indicated Pyongyang was preparing to attack Yeonpyeong and other front-line islands. Won didn't expect that attack to be on civilian areas and considered it a "routine threat," according to the office of lawmaker Choi Jae-sung who attended the closed-door session.
[Clash] [Intelligence] [Warning]
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Yeonpyeong Attack 'Aimed to Bolster Kim Jong-un'
North Korea's artillery attack on Yeonpyeong Island in the West Sea on Nov. 23 was an attempt to establish a record of achievements for Kim Jong-il's son and heir Jong-un, experts speculate.
One government official on Tuesday said, "We've noticed that the North has internally touted Kim Jong-un as an artillery expert."
[Succession] [Clash] [Motive]
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The Best Weapons Are Useless if Strategy Is Inept
The National Assembly's Defense Committee has approved a W300.5 billion supplementary budget the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Defense Acquisition Program Administration requested for emergency weapons procurement after North Korea's artillery attack on Yeonpyeong Island (US$1=W1,156).
The JCS and DAPA had asked for W263.6 billion for weapons but raised the amount to W455.6 billion at the request of the Defense Committee. The committee then approved a kind of halfway house. The military plans to use the money to buy K-9 self-propelled howitzers, precision guided weapons, mid-range GPS guided bombs, bunker-buster missiles, Swedish anti-artillery radars and unmanned aerial reconnaissance drones to be mounted on naval vessels. The weapons will be stationed on or near South Korea's five West Sea islands.
[Buildup]
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Gov't Must Provide Proper Information to the World Press
The international press has been reporting the situation on the Korean Peninsula every day since North Korea shelled Yeonpyeong Island on Tuesday last week. Some 250 foreign correspondents report from Seoul on economic trends and public sentiment as well as the military confrontation in the West Sea and the diplomatic war developing in Northeast Asia.
Not all are accurate. CNN on Sunday reported that North Korea fired ground-to-air missiles, and on Saturday it claimed that police fired tear gas at demonstrators urging the government to respond with a retaliatory attack on North Korea.
[Media] [[Dilemma]
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What WikiLeaks Reveals About Attitudes to N.Korea
In January, then Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan said a number of high ranking North Korean diplomats overseas recently defected to the South. "Their defection remains as a secret in order for the intelligence authorities of South Korea and the United States to obtain as much information as possible," according an American embassy cable published by WikiLeaks on Tuesday.
Yu made the remarks to Robert King, the U.S. special envoy for North Korean Human Rights who was visiting the South. He added that the situation in North Korea was becoming more and more chaotic.
In another cable, Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister Cheng Guoping, then ambassador to Kazakhstan, told his U.S. counterpart Richard Hoagland on June 8, 2009, "It seems that the succession to Kim Jong-il in North Korea is being hastily carried out, rather than in a meticulously planned manner, because his health is deteriorating. North Korea didn't have time to make plans for the succession."
WikiLeaks divulged some 250,000 U.S. diplomatic telegrams since Sunday, picked up by the New York Times and the Guardian. The New York Times reported on Monday, "Over an official lunch in late February, a top South Korean diplomat confidently told the American ambassador, Kathleen Stephens, that the fall would come 'two to three years' after the death of Kim Jong-il, the country's ailing leader, Ms. Stephens later cabled Washington. A new, younger generation of Chinese leaders 'would be comfortable with a reunited Korea controlled by Seoul and anchored to the United States in a benign alliance, the diplomat, Chun Yung-woo, predicted'"
[Takeover] [Capture]
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S.Korea 'Unlikely' to Have Damaged N.Korean Artillery Positions
Choe Thae-bok (right), the chairman of the North's Supreme People's Assembly and secretary of the Workers Party's Central Committee, leaves Beijing Capital International Airport on arrival in China on Tuesday. /AP-Yonhap The military claims it inflicted serious damage on North Korean artillery positions in a counterattack last week to the shelling of Yeonpyeong Island, but others say there was probably none at all.
One North Korean defector who was a soldier at an artillery battery, told the Chosun Ilbo on Tuesday, "It's likely that no North Korean 122-mm multiple rocket launchers were damaged in South Korean military bombardments. Unless they fire another round of shots, they are brought back into the bunkers in less than seven minutes. If the South Korean response came 13 minutes later, that would give them more than enough time to evacuate."
"It seems that one artillery battery was mobilized for the attack and around 108 rounds landed on Yeonpyeong Island and surrounding waters," the defector said. One artillery battery has nine of MRLs with 12 launching tubes each and is divided into communications, surveillance and surveying squads. Each MRL is manned by nine soldiers, including a leader and gunner.
Unlike 240-mm MRLs, the 122-mm versions are not fired from the backs of trucks but must be dismounted and placed on a launching pad. They are pulled by mid-sized trucks. After firing 12 rounds, they move 2 km and prepare to fire the next salvo. The 122-mm MRLs have a range of between 20 km to 24 km and each round weighs 17 kg, the defector said.
"The 240-mm MRLs are based at the military corps level, while the 122-mm versions are deployed at the infantry regimental level," the defector said. "The artillery battery responsible for shelling Yeonpyeong Island is apparently under the Fourth Army Corps." North Korea also has 107-mm MRLs but does not use them often and turns to the 122-mm ones during training.
"The North holds artillery drills twice a year in spring and summer and only 12 rounds are fired each time," he added. "Unlike regular coastal artillery or howitzers, MRLs are capable of delivering intensive damage on a set target and riddle them with holes." He said North Korea's claim to have "aimed" its shots at South Korean artillery positions is implausible, suggesting it deliberately targeted civilians.
[Clash][Military balance]
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WikiLeaks Cables Embarrass S.Korean Diplomats
Classified U.S. diplomatic cables unveiled by WikiLeaks expose potentially embarrassing comments made by named South Korean officials in closed-door meetings with their American counterparts. But a Foreign Ministry official on Tuesday said it would be "inappropriate" to comment on the diplomatic documents of another country.
The diplomatic cables relay comments made by foreign minister Kim Sung-hwan and chief presidential secretary for foreign affairs and security Chun Young-woo speculating about a sudden collapse of the North Korean regime and China's North Korea policy.
"Although Kim Jong-il (KJI) remained firmly in control of the regime for now, he was unlikely to live beyond 2015," one quotes Unification Minister Hyun In-taek as saying. Hyun is also quoted as saying that Chinese officials believe unification should be pursued led by South Korea.
"South Korea's diplomatic activities have been fully exposed," said one diplomatic source. "This is terrible. We anticipate problems in diplomatic efforts with China," said another.
The Foreign Ministry is worried that other countries could perceive the comments in the leaked cables as reflecting Seoul's official stance, especially since these off-the-cuff remarks were not based on accurate data but reflected the personal opinions of officials.
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Civic organizations call for dialogue with N.Korea as military continues drills
Organizations say that a peaceful resolution is the only way to recover regional stability and peace
By Kim Min-kyung
About 20 labor, civic and social organizations, including opposition parties, the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), MINBYUN-Lawyers for a Democratic Society and the Korea Alliance of Progressive Movements (KAPM), issued an emergency joint statement Tuesday that called a peaceful resolution through dialogue the only way to recover stability and peace on the Korean Peninsula.
Holding a press conference at the Korea Press Foundation in Seoul’s Jung-gu neighborhood Tuesday morning, the groups called for the immediate suspension of all words and acts that could cause another armed clash, the immediate restart of six-party talks involving North Korea and South Korea and surrounding nations, the execution of a special zone of peace and cooperation in the West Sea and other measures to reduce tensions.
Women Corea also held a press conference in front of the Ministry of Defense on Tuesday afternoon in which they called on North Korea and South Korea to hold talks so that the situation does not deteriorate any further.
[Engagement]
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Air skirmish might have taken place on the day of Yeonpyeong conflict
Korean fighter jets, including F-15K, along with the fighters off from the U.S. aircraft carrier George Washington, flew high into the sky above the West Sea on Nov. 29 during the second day of South Korea-U.S. joint military drill.
The drill aims to shoot enemy aircraft in case of a war with the North.
In fact, on Nov. 23, the day of the North’s shelling on Yeonpyeong Island, an air fight was in the near verge of outbreak between the South and the North. Soon after the North’s artillery attack, South Korean four KF-16s and F-15s each made an emergency sortie. Around that time, a total of five North Korean MIG 23s were patrolling over the area near the five islands in border waters of the sea. It was a critical moment. If the South Korean fighters fired off against the military base of the North or the MIG-23s, a war couldn’t have been avoided.
Experts assume the goddess of victory would have sided with the South if there were an actual clash. “The radar, equipment, and electronic devices of the South Korean fighters far excel those of the North fighters, so the latters would have been shot down,” said an official from the Korea Air Force.
[Buildup]
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Lee expresses humility and hardline response in address
Observers say Lee may increase S.Korea’s West Sea military presence and consolidate international pressure on N.Korea
By Hwang Joon-bum
President Lee Myung-bak’s address Monday is being summarized as consisting mainly of “humility toward the people of South Korea” and an “ultra-hardline response to North Korea.” Analysts say it shows the president’s perception of the current crisis facing him and its solution following the North Korean artillery attack on Yeonpyeong Island.
Although even North Korea acknowledged the attack to be a “provocation (sic),” President Lee has faced harsh criticism domestically. Surveys show that more than 70 percent of South Koreans, conservative and progressive alike, feel that the military and Lee Myung-bak administration did not respond appropriately at the time of the attack. The fact that the president began his address Monday with what amounted to an apology to the people of South Korea reflected a consideration of this situation.
[Manipulation] [Lee Myung-bak] [Buildup]
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S.Korea to Stage Fresh Firing Drill on Yeonpyeong Island
A government source on Monday said, "There has been strong criticism that we responded too passively to the artillery attack on Yeonpyeong Island, so we decided to stage the same kind of fire drill as the one we carried out on the island on Nov. 23 to display our determination." He added the timing of the drill will not be announced in advance.
The military will fire in a southwesterly direction, using K-9 self-propelled howitzers. The Joint Chiefs of Staff considered staging the drill on Tuesday but delayed it at the request of the U.S. military.
Early last week, the North shelled the island, claiming that the South had fired shells at its territorial waters, and has since continued to threaten a "physical retaliatory counterattack" if South Korean military exercises continue.
Each MLRS carries 12 rocket shells with a diameter of 227 mm. Each shell is filled with about 500 cluster munitions, each of which has the detonating power of a single hand grenade. They are more powerful than the North Korean MLRS.
With a range of 32 to 45km, the South's MLRS can hit inland areas in the North as well as MLRS deployed on the western coast. They were first used during the Gulf War in 1991.
Military authorities are determined to launch surgical strikes by mobilizing fighter planes depending on the magnitude of future North Korean provocations.
[Clash] [Buildup]
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Yeonpyeong Island Declared Off Limits
Yeonpyeong Island became off limits as of noon on Monday at the request of the Marine Corps unit there after North Korea's attack on the island last week. The military banned all access to roads on the southwestern tip of the island where North Korean costal artillery positions can be seen. As a result, all reporters covering the North Korean side there had to withdraw.
Volunteers build wooden prefabricated homes for the residents of Yeonpyeong Island at an elementary school ground on the island on Monday. On Monday, the second day of the joint South Korean-U.S. drills, the military deployed six more K-9 self-propelled guns and a first batch of six multiple launch rocket system vehicles on Yeonpyeong Island in the West Sea.
The K-9 guns and MLRS vehicles were seen being unloaded and sent to their respective positions on the island that day. As a result, the number of the K-9 guns on the island increased from the previous six to 12, and the MLRS vehicles were deployed for the first time.
After the island was under artillery attack from North Korea, military authorities decided to deploy a total of 18 more K-9 guns on the island in preparation for further attack from the North's coastal artillery guns.
The MLRS is a weapons system with a range of 36 km that can pulverize North Korean coastal artillery positions, as it can fire 12 130-mm rockets in just 60 seconds.
When Yeonpyeong Island was attacked, the South Korean military had only six K-9 guns on the island, with which it could respond to a fusillade of shells fired by the North Korean coastal artillery guns and MLRS vehicles. Worse yet, it had to respond to the attack only with three of the guns during the initial stage of the attack, because three others were not working properly.
[Clash] [Buildup]
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Gov't to Boost Spending on West Sea Defenses
South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff, Defense Acquisition Program Administration and other military authorities on Monday presented lawmakers with a W455.6 billion supplementary budget necessary for emergency weapons procurement following North Korea's artillery attack last week on Yeonpyeong Island in the West Sea (US$1=W1,154).
[Buildup]
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Army Lacks Ships to Take Troops to West Sea Islands
Inflatable rubber dinghies may have to be used to transport troops to other islands in the West Sea from Baeknyeong in case of further attacks from North Korea because of a shortage of troop transport vessels.
The rubber boats can carry seven to nine soldiers and travel at around 40 km/h, but are vulnerable to high waves and there are not enough of them to transport the large numbers of troops needed in an emergency on neighboring islands such as Daecheong and Socheong. Daecheong Island is around 7 km from Baeknyeong and takes around 20 minutes to reach by boat.
[Buildup]
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Gov't Mulls Turning Baeknyeong into Forward Deployment Base
The government is looking into using Baeknyeong Island in the West Sea as a forward-deployment base supporting marines in case of an amphibious landing on North Korea's west coast. "The presidential defense committee is looking into the possibility of turning the five West Sea islands including Baeknyeong into launching platforms for marine landings on North Korea's west coast in times of conflict and stationing strategic missiles with a range of some 500 km there," a government source said Monday.
[Buildup]
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Lee Blasts N.Korea's 'Inhumane' Attack on Yeonpyeong Island
President Lee Myung-bak addressed South Korea at 10 a.m. Monday on North Korea's shelling of Yeonpyeong Island last week which left four dead and 18 wounded.
During a seven-minute speech Lee expressed outrage over the North's ruthless attack on civilians, calling it an "inhumane" crime.
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70% Support Military Action Against N.Korea
Nearly 70 percent of the South Koreans support limited military actions in response to North Korea's shelling of Yeonpyeong Island last Tuesday. This contrasts starkly with the mood in April, after North Korea sank the Navy corvette Cheonan, when less than 30 percent said they support military action.
[Buildup]
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[News Briefing] S. Korea proposed summit with N. Korea, WikiLeaks reports
South Korea contacted North Korea for an inter-Korean summit late last year, a U.S. diplomatic cable showed Tuesday.
The cable, first obtained by online whistleblower WikiLeaks and released by the Guardian and the New York Times reveals that Kim Sung-hwan, then-national security adviser to South Korean President Lee Myung-bak and current Foreign Minister, and Kurt Campbell, U.S. assistant secretary of state for Easy Asian and Pacific affairs discussed the issue on Feb. 3.
According to the cable, the talks failed because Seoul rejected Pyongyang’s demand for economic aid as a precondition.
The context of the diplomatic cable is as follows.
“During a February 3 meeting with Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell, on prospects for a North-South summit, ROK National Security Adviser Kim Sung-hwan clarified remarks that President Lee made in an interview with the BBC in Davos. Kim said that, beginning last fall, the ROK has had contact with the DPRK about a summit. The North, however, has demanded that Seoul provide a certain amount of economic aid prior to any summit. That precondition was unacceptable, Kim stressed, noting that the Blue House had emphasized to the ROK press this week that President Lee would never ‘buy’ a summit with the North.”
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The politics of public opinion in S.Korea
By Park Chang-sik, Editorial Writer
There was a noteworthy transformation in the structure of public consciousness in 2010. The three pieces of black magic that block the development of democratic opinion in Korean society - North Korea, South Korea’s clannish media and political regionalism - have all lost their power. In the first half of the year, the Lee Myung-bak administration engaged in blatant exaggerations to use the sinking of the Cheonan in the June 2 local elections, while the clannish media, well-connected to both the government and big business, played the role of advanced guard. In the past, the people would have bought this. Unexpectedly, however, the ruling Grand National Party lost badly in the election. The solid performance and victories of non-GNP candidates in the Busan and South Gyeongsang Province region are grounds to believe that regionalism is waning.
The same trend has been evident since the artillery attack on Yeonpyeong Island. According to a poll by pollsters Real Media on Nov. 24, 44.8 percent of respondents favor a strong military response against North Korea, even if it leads to escalation. 33.5 percent feel escalation should be avoided, even if the military response followed the rules of engagement, while 16.2 percent feel a military response should be avoided in favor of a political and economic response, for a combined total of 49.7 percent.
Despite the fact that the poll took place right after the artillery attack, when public anger was high against North Korea’s provocation, the Lee Myung-bak government’s keynote position of responding militarily even if it meant escalating the situation did not received 50 percent support, while the opposition’s position of peace management by avoiding escalation received more support.
This confirms once again that when specifically considering the issue of how to manage North Korea, the South Korean people are keeping a cool head rather than being swept away with emotion. There is sufficient possibility that like the case with the Cheonan, as time passes, support for a strong military response regardless of escalation will decrease, while support for the latter two options will increase.
[Public opinion] [Buildup]
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Yeonpyeong attack uniting South Korean public around harsher policy toward North
By Keith B. Richburg
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 29, 2010; 10:21 PM
SEOUL - With a brazen daytime artillery barrage of a civilian-inhabited island, North Korea's reclusive leaders may have achieved something that had previously eluded South Korea's president, Lee Myung-bak: uniting the South Korean public around a more aggressive policy toward the North.
This Story
Yeonpyeong attack uniting South Korean public around harsher policy toward North
Report: North Korean official to visit China
Lee took office in 2008 vowing to end the decade-long "sunshine policy" of his two predecessors, which increased political and economic ties with North Korea as a way of reducing military tension on the Korean Peninsula. But Lee found the Korean public deeply divided, with little appetite among many for a return to a more confrontational approach.
[Buildup] [Public opinion]
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