Moon Administration May Have Covered Up North Korean Killing to Not Interfere with UN Speech
I don’t think this is going to get much traction considering the control of most of the media the Moon administration has, but I am sure South Korean conservative politicians are enjoying this payback after what former President Park went through:
In response to the controversy over the reporting time to Moon, Kim Chong-in, interim leader of the main opposition People Power Party (PPP), said the incident is a national disaster due to the Moon administration’s lackluster security awareness.
“The Moon administration’s rosy prospects have led to the loss of a precious life of a South Korean citizen,” he said.
“President Moon needs to explain what he did for three days from Monday.”
He added that the government may have wanted to hide something from the public by disclosing the incident three days later.The current situation leaves Moon in a similar situation to that faced by his predecessor in the wake of the Sewol ferry sinking in 2014. While the ferry carrying more than 300 passengers was sinking, the rescue operations were bungled, causing people to speculate on what then-President Park was doing for the first critical seven hours. Many still question the claims of presidential aides that she was receiving updates at her residence.
Korea Times via a reader tip
Rep. Joo Ho-young, the PPP floor leader, said President Moon should have attended the ministerial meeting on early Wednesday morning considering the severity of the incident.
“It is questionable about President Moon’s follow-up measures. It is not comprehensible whether President Moon was unaware of the incident or he ignored it,” Joo said.
You can read more at the link.
In regards to the 2018 fire control radar incident between Korea and Japan, there are rumors that the rescue operation that precipitated the incident was not a rescue operation but an operation to capture North Koreans who were accused of trying to assassinate Kim Jong-un. Specifically, the North Koreans in question tried to kill Kim Jong-un, failed and attempted to escape to Japan by fishing boat. The NK government contacted the pro-NK current SK government and requested that the assassins be captured and repatriated. The pro-NK SK government obliged and sent a destroyer and coast guard cutter to capture them. During the operation, a Japanese aircraft shows up and the destroyer used its FC radar to chase the plane away. The pro-NK SK government hands back the would be assassins and gets into good graces with the NK government(for a very short while) and gets ammunition for its anti-Japanese efforts.
If the above is true, it certainly shows the tendency of the current government to easily sacrifice the basic duties and ideals of freedom and democracy to please the North.
@TOK, the scenario you described seems far fetched to me. I don’t see how the Moon administration could keep an entire ship of ROK Naval personnel quiet for so long if such a thing happened.
easily.. that is how he does it…
GI, the whole crew may not have known. It need only be a few key officers. And they could already have had “accidents” to avoid being a liability.
Mind you, I don’t write good science-fiction, so that’s probably not what happened; but the “shut up and follow orders” school of military service does have a long and distinguished history
@GIKorea, as stated by setnaffa, as far as the crew was concerned they were in a “rescue operation.” The officers may have known, but they may not have know the full story. Besides, NK fisherman who drifted southwards were usually sent back after being picked up, so no one on the ships, probably gave it a second thought.
Going further there is one thing that does not make sense.
It seems that the ROKN destroyer was the first ship on the scene having arrived around 12:30pm or so. The Japanese plane arrived at the scene around 3pm. Two and a half hours later, the ship along with a ROK Coast Guard cutter were still on the scene. Strangely, for a ship supposedly on a rescue mission, the destroyer did not lower its boats to pick up the North Koreans, but stayed there until the cutter arrived. It was the cutter that eventually lowered its boats to pick them up. From the video released by the Japanese, the cutter probably arrived within the last half hour or so.
Which begs the question. The destroyer could have picked up the survivors and left, probably within the hour or so. Why did it stay there and watch over the NK fishing boat for two hours?
If I were to dare an explanation, I think it has to do something with the same reason, why there are coast guard personnel on US Navy ships during drug interdiction missions. Navy personnel cannot arrest people. Law enforcement personnel such as coast guardsmen can. Maybe the North Koreans on that boat were people that needed to be arrested?
BTW, this is now being reported in some South Korean news outlets, as per the link below;
https://www.news1.kr/articles/?4066680
GIKorea, as setnaffa stated, the whole crew may not have known. When I was serving in the ROKN, there were a lot of times where us enlisted sailors had no idea what we were up to during our patrols. Only the key officers knew, and they knew how to keep their mouths shut.
Besides, there were a lot of cases of North Korean fishermen drifting south after their boats broke down and being sent back to NK after being rescued. So, except for those who knew the story, no one will give second thought about some North Koreans on board a fishing boat far our from NK territorial waters.
BTW, some Korean media outlets are covering this story
https://biz.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2020/09/23/2020092301533.html?utm_source=naver&utm_medium=original&utm_campaign=biz
BTW, some Korean media outlets are covering this story. Unfortunately the articles are in Korean.