UPDATE: A picture of the victim, Park Wang-ja has been released:
Also a report from CNN shows that there are plenty of unanswered questions in regards to this killing:
Unification Minister Kim Ho-nyeon said Sunday that there were many unanswered questions about the shooting, such as how the middle-aged victim was able to cover a distance of 2 miles (3.3 kilometers) within 20 minutes walking on a beach. [CNN]
I wonder if she went for a jog on the beach?
This report pretty much debunks any claims of a fence that needed to be climbed:
A 23-year-old college student, Lee In-bok, said that he saw a woman strolling along the beach around 4:50 a.m. when he was with his friends there to see sunrise.
“About 5 to 10 minutes later, there were sounds of a gun twice, with an interval of about 10 seconds, and a scream. We saw a person on the ground and three soldiers moving to the person, touching her with their feet as if they were checking whether she was dead. We felt the soldiers watching us, so we returned to the hotel. We thought it was part of their drill,” he said.
Unlike Hyundai’s claim, Lee said people could enter the “restricted” zone easily and that there was nothing like fences, but simply a small brook.
A friend of Park also said she herself had strolled to the zone during the daytime the day before, and did not even know it was a restricted area because there was neither a fence nor a signboard.
[Korea Times]
Great not only isn’t there a fence but appears there wasn’t even a sign on the beach to warn tourists of the restricted area.
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Original Posting: A typical North Korean reaction to the killing of the South Korean civilian at the Geumgang Mountain Resort:
But in the statement from a North Korean tourism bureau, Pyongyang said the tourist “intruded deep into the area under the military control of the North side all alone at dawn,” noting that even her “shoes got wet.”
The North said its soldier spotted the tourist and ordered her to stop, but that she ran away. The soldier “repeatedly shouted” at her to stop and fired warning shots, but then “could not but open fire” at the woman, according to the statement from the Guidance Bureau for Comprehensive Development of Scenic Spots.
“The responsibility for the incident entirely rests with the South side,” the bureau said in the statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.
The statement called for Seoul to apologize and take measures to prevent it from happening again. [Associated Press]
What would be so typical of South Korea would be if the ROK government actually apologized for North Korea killing one of their citizens. The North Koreans are responsible for chaperoning the South Korean civilians so matter what happened they are responsible for the death of the woman.
Anyway it appears at least North Korea is not even telling the truth about what happened because none of the South Korean witnesses heard any verbal warnings just gun shots:
Yonhap news agency cited a tourist who returned from the resort Friday as saying he saw a middle-aged woman dressed in black walking along the beach before hearing two gunshots and a scream about 10 minutes later.
“When I looked at the direction where the gunshots were heard, there was one person collapsed and three soldiers ran out of a forest and touched the person with their feet as if trying to see if that person is alive,” Yonhap quoted 23-year-old Lee In-bok, a college student, as saying.
Lee told Yonhap that he and five others witnessed the incident while at the beach to watch the sunrise and that they were about 300 meters away.
The North Koreans probably feel South Korean President Lee Myung-bak is politically weak right now due to the Cows Gone Wild madness and can get away with their demands with no repercussions, which is probably what will happen.
10:34 pm on July 13th, 2008 1
South Korea will give an apology. South Koreas are puppies to the NorKors and Chinese.
[Reply]
11:13 pm on July 13th, 2008 2
Thank goodness the South Korean people are focused on Mad Cow disease from US beef these days instead of those nice North Korean folks.
[Reply]
11:24 pm on July 13th, 2008 3
This situation is very dangerous — not necessarily for the North, but those that have supported the North in the past in the SOUTH. If the Koreans start saying that Park was “murdered” and it spreads on the internet — the wave of hatred on the hot summer days will be intense. The progressives are putting a full-court press urging calm because they know that the rage from this incident can be hurled fully on them.
Thus far, both conservative and progressive media want to keep the lid on the situation — and so does LMB.
He needs the North to shot the soldier who shot Park — whether him or someone else. A sacrificial scapegoat is required to cool things off. He needs to have a “full investigation” — though it can be short — to appease the Southerners — and then they can hang the guilty perp (anyone will do). Then this will be swept under the carpet.
IF NOT, there will be BIG trouble ahead. If the North doesn’t bend, its South Korean sympathizers will fry in Hell during the summer heat — the peak season when Koreans take out all their pent up rage on people.
The denial by the North is the standard ploy — the bluff and bluster to get the other side to back down and give them breathing space. But now they need to find someone to shoot to appease the South.
[Reply]
11:36 pm on July 13th, 2008 4
I’d say there’s a pretty good chance the North Korean bullet that killed the 53-yr old South Korean tourist was paid for by the Sunshine Policy. Payback is a bitch, isn’t it?
[Reply]
1:50 am on July 14th, 2008 5
Kalani is right that public anger is growing as details of the shooting emerge. However, mass protests are unlikely as the demo-loving Left is playing down the incident. Despite all the warm and fuzzy yarn spinning about high school girls kickstarting the anti-beef movement on Agora, unions, the KTU, and other organizations had been voicing their opposition to the lifting of the ban for several weeks before the rallies began. Unless activist organizations stir up the pot with a media campaign and protests, the issue isn’t going to inspire large-scale demonstrations.
[Reply]
3:55 am on July 14th, 2008 6
I doubt there will be any mass protests as well because the mass protests in Korea can only happen when the professional protesters on the Korean left organize and attend them.
I think at worst this will lead to inter-Korean tours being canceled for good instead of the current suspension. The whole while the North Koreans will blame 2MB for the increased tensions.
This is just further evidence of the failure of the Sunshine Policy.
[Reply]
7:40 am on July 14th, 2008 7
[...] 2: This story in the Korea Times (h/t ROK Drop) seems to indicate that there was a witness to the shooting and that there were no substantial [...]
12:32 pm on July 14th, 2008 8
[...] the site ROK Drop puts it bluntly, “there’s a pretty good chance the North Korean bullet that killed the [...]
7:58 am on July 15th, 2008 9
[...] Korean government is further disputing the North Korean accounts of what happened in regards to the shooting of a South Korean tourist as the Geumgang [...]
9:44 am on July 15th, 2008 10
@ #4
”
I’d say there’s a pretty good chance the North Korean bullet that killed the 53-yr old South Korean tourist was paid for by the Sunshine Policy. Payback is a bitch, isn’t it?
”
ouch!!! but sooo true.
but NK will keep biting the hand that feeds them.
it’s just KJI diplmacy…..and it works.
KJI wins dammnit.
he can guarantee his regime until he dies.
that’s all he wants. he doesn’t give a rat’s ass as long as he doesn’t have to be exiled.
[Reply]
5:05 pm on August 16th, 2008 11
[...] the site ROK Drop puts it bluntly, “there’s a pretty good chance the North Korean bullet that killed the [...]