SEOUL - Korean authorities are having severe problems avoiding a most
inconvenient truth: North Korea was behind the sinking of the corvette Cheonan
with a loss of 46 lives on March 26.
The salvaging of the stern portion of the 1,200-ton vessel, containing most of
the bodies of the drowned sailors, exposed for all to see the gaping hole that
tore the vessel asunder - and was clearly not the kind of gash one might expect
from an "internal explosion" of ammunition or running aground.
Admittedly the live-on-TV show of the vessel rising from the deep and onto a
salvage boat was not so close up for the world to examine the exact nature of
the damage. That was up to an
investigative team, one of whose leaders said, in understatement, that chances
of "an external explosion" were "higher than that of an internal explosion".
Then, a few minutes later, the co-leader of the team, Yoon Dok-yong, upgraded
the chances of "external explosion" - presumably a mine or torpedo - to "very
high".
Credit President Lee Myung-bak with doing his best to reduce emotions that
could lead to recriminations. If there's one thing Lee does not want, it's to
risk a "second Korean War" or even a prolonged naval engagement in the disputed
waters of the West (Yellow) Sea where the ship went down on routine patrol
three weeks ago.
As suspicions mount, however, Lee has to face up to the question of how to
respond to what is surely one of the more audacious assaults on South Korean
forces since the end of the Korean War of the early 1950s. In his wish to avoid
an armed confrontation that could escalate to a crisis, he may be at odds with
Defense Minister Kim Tae-young, whom he told earlier to play down suggestions
that North Korea may be to blame.
The defense minister was at it again on Friday, however, calling the sinking "a
grave national security issue" as pressure mounts on Lee to adopt a strong
position. South Korean television networks have begun showing bits and pieces
of wreckage while divers search the depths for more shreds of evidence as
to what really happened.
Conservative Koreans, meanwhile, are beginning to compare the sinking of the Cheonan
to the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon of September 11,
2001, in which more than 3,000 people died.
Just as 9/11 shook Americans out of their lethargy and awakened them to the
dangers of terrorism by foreign forces, the conservatives are saying, so the Cheonan
incident may be a wake-up call to the threat of war in the West Sea and perhaps
all along the line between the two Koreas. No one imagines that a second Korean
War will really happen, but the danger remains of shootouts at least across the
borders with North Korea both at sea and along the demilitarized zone that
stretches 250 kilometers across the Korean peninsula.
Lee, for his part, appears reluctant to hold North Korea responsible if only
because South Korea might then have to retaliate. "What's wrong with the
government in coping with the emergency is they're not really talking about
what to do when it becomes proven," said Jeon Jae-wook, chief strategy officer
at a scientific research firm in Seoul.
Jeon believes North Korean strategists carefully selected a target that was
large enough to demonstrate the North's strength in the disputed West Sea
waters but not so large as to bring about a war. "They carefully calculated
what would be the tolerable in terms of numbers," he said. "We still have an
option of a limited strike, but everyone says we may have to wait until the
truth comes out."
Choi Young-jae at the National Unification Advisory Council, which plays a
consulting role for Lee, believes "we cannot retaliate with military action"
but will have to bring the case before the United Nations and the International
Court of Justice in the Hague.
In any case, the sinking of the Cheonan has stymied the protracted
process of persuading North Korea to return to six-party talks on its nuclear
weapons program. North Korea appeared to be about to return to the talks, last
held in December 2008, before the ship went down on routine patrol south of the
Northern Limit Line, set by the United Nations Command in 1956 below which
North Korean boats cannot venture.
At the Korea Institute of National Unification, affiliated with the Unification
Ministry, analyst Choi Jin-wook described six-party talks as "ruined,
collapsed". And at the Sejong Institute, which has strong ties with the
government, analyst Paik Hak-soon warned that Lee "should be very alert about
disruptive aspects" of acting prematurely.
North Korea in recent years has challenged the validity of the line in bloody
clashes, most recently in November when a South Korean corvette, similar to the
one that was sunk, poured cannon fire onto a North Korean patrol boat, sending
it back to port in flames. In the same area, a North Korean boat was sunk with
possibly 40 sailors aboard in June 1999, and six South Korean sailors were
killed and their patrol boat sunk when North Koreans opened fire on them in
June 2002.
North Korea has remained officially silent on the incident, but one defector
has been widely quoted as talking about a meeting in February in which the top
North Korean naval commander in the region said North Korea had to avenge the
incident in November.
South Koreans say the sinking of the Cheonan is a tragedy comparable in
a sense with 9/11 in the shock of surprise, of attack by an unknown force and
the need to determine the nature of that force and to unite against it. In the
case of 9/11, the names of the attackers, their origins and source of funds and
inspirations became known almost immediately.
Lee has made much of the difference in outlook between his government and that
of Kim Dae-jung, who initiated the "Sunshine" policy in 1998, and his
successor, Roh Moo-hyun, who perpetuated the same policy. He has repeatedly
said North Korea has to give up its nuclear program as a precondition for
resumption of the aid lavished on the North before he defeated another
reconciliation-minded candidate in December 2007.
Lee's conservatism, however, is tempered by his emphasis on economic success -
and his strong desire not to let a military crisis slow down South Korea's
ever-rising gross national product. Nor does he want armed clashes with North
Korea to interfere with the role bestowed on him this week at the global summit
on nuclear strategy in Washington when South Korea was chosen to host the next
such summit in 2012.
That year is significant as the 100th anniversary of the birth of Kim Jong-il's
father, Kim Il-sung, who died in July 1994 but remains officially the North's
"eternal president". North Koreans celebrated the 98th anniversary of his birth
on Thursday with fireworks, rallies and electronic signs saying "General Kim
Il-sung is our sun" and "we will live forever with the president", according to
Pyongyang's Korean Central News Agency.
The year in 2012 is portentous for yet another reason. That's when the United
States formally transfers "operational control" over Korean forces in war time
to South Korean command. The Americans insist South Koreans are ready to take
over, but South Korean commanders have expressed misgivings.
No one seems to have more misgivings than Lee, a former businessman who somehow
avoided the South Korean draft as a young man and never served in the armed
forces. As leader of his country, he would like nothing better than to turn the
episode into the topic of endless recriminations and rhetoric - anything but
shooting and killing.
Donald Kirk is the author, most recently, of Korea Betrayed: Kim
Dae Jung and Sunshine.
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