This has to continue to be infuriating for the families of the deceased sailors killed by this attack:
The wreckage of the Cheonan frigate displayed at the Navy’s 2nd Fleet Command in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province / Yonhap
North Korea has again denied its involvement in a torpedo attack of the South’s Cheonan frigate in 2010, expressing discomfort over Seoul repeatedly laying responsibility on Pyongyang.
The regime has for years claimed no responsibility for the tragic incident that left 46 South Korean sailors dead. But the latest in a series of verbal conflicts came on Monday when Kim Yong-chol, vice chairman of the regime’s ruling Workers’ Party’s Central Committee, sarcastically vented his anger about the incident.
In a recent meeting with South Korean journalists, Kim introduced himself as “the man who the South claims masterminded the attack.”
A group of South Korean musicians visited the North for three days beginning Sunday in a move to enhance a festive and reconciliatory inter-Korean mood ahead of the planned summit between President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un later this month.
The remark came about a month after the ranking North Korean official visited Seoul on the sidelines of the PyeongChang Winter Olympics. At that time, South Korean activists and opposition parties denounced President Moon for allowing the alleged “Cheonan culprit” to visit the South. [Korea Times]
You can read more at the link, but it seems pretty clear the ROK government is not going to make any demands for the North Koreans to come clean on this murder of 46 ROK servicemembers.
A memorial service for the eighth anniversary of the sinking of the Cheonan warship in a North Korean torpedo attack takes place at a cenotaph on Baengnyeong Island in the northern Yellow Sea on March 24, 2018. (Yonhap)
Unsurprisingly the Moon administration is claiming they can’t blame the North Koreans for sinking the Cheonan while the Kim regime rubs this sinking in their faces by sending the mastermind of the attack to the closing ceremony of the Winter Olympics:
Kim Yong-chol
The South Korean government said Friday that it is difficult to pinpoint who led North Korea’s deadly sinking of the warship Cheonan in 2010, amid controversy surrounding a planned visit by a senior Pyongyang official widely suspected of masterminding the attack.
Kim Yong-chol, a top North Korean official, will come to the South for a three-day visit on Sunday as the head of the North’s high-level delegation to PyeongChang Winter Olympics closing ceremony later in the day. Conservatives and families of the 46 victims are strongly opposing his visit.
“It is clear that North Korea was blamed for the warship sinking and Kim was leading North Korea’s reconnaissance bureau at that time,” Baik Tae-hyun, spokesman at Seoul’s unification ministry, told a press briefing.
“But it is also the fact that there is a limitation in pinpointing who was responsible for the incident.” [Yonhap]
The radical leftists in South Korea probably think that former Presidents Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye swam out and sunk the Cheonan before pinning the blame on North Korea. This reminds me just like what happened in 2002 after the West Sea Naval Battle where six ROK sailors were killed by a North Korean attack. The left wing Roh Moo-hyun administration deflected blame for the attack and actually blamed the sailors:
In commemoration of the second anniversary of the West Sea naval battle, memorial services were held at the headquarters of the Navy’s 2nd Fleet in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province on Tuesday. Hwang Eun-tae, father of the late Petty Officer First Class Hwang Do-hyun, weeps while reading a letter in front of his son’s portrait.
The father said, “My son is buried in the National Cemetery. But I’m going to take my son’s remains to my family burial site in my hometown.” Having watched the situation develop, he thought his son who was killed by North Korean soldiers was considered nothing more than a criminal.
Some parents said that they are more scared of people who consider the U.S. a bigger enemy than North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, who killed their son. We lose courage to defend the country, when we hear that a wife whose husband fell in the battle is preparing to leave this country. Reading a condolence letter from the USFK commander to mark the second anniversary, the wife said, “The Americans remember my husband and his brothers-in-arms better than Koreans… Frankly, I hate Korea.”
I can only imagine the frustration the surviving family members of the 46 sailors who died on the Cheonan will experience when they see the red carpet laid out by the ROK government for a murderer like Kim Yong-chol.
U.S. Vice President Mike Pence visits the Cheonan Memorial at the West Sea Protection Hall, in Pyeongtaek, Korea, Feb. 9, where he was escorted by Mr. Kim, Lok hyun, museum director. Vice President Pence toured the museum, along with Vincent K. Brooks, commanding general U.S. Forces Korea, Combined Forces Command, United Nations Command and Gen. Kim, Byeong Joo, deputy commander, Combined Forces Command, and visited the memorial dedicated to the 46 crewmen from the Cheonan warship who lost their lives in 2010 members who lost their lives. (U.S. Army Photos by Staff Sgt. David Chapman, USFK)
Family members of the 46 South Korean sailors killed in a North Korean torpedo attack in March 2010 offer a silent tribute at the National Cemetery in Daejeon, central South Korea, on March 5, 2016. (Yonhap)
Via a reader tip comes news that the North Korean general who masterminded the sinking of the Cheonan that leftists still believe was not executed by North Korea has died:
A powerful North Korean general who Seoul believes was behind the sinking of a South Korean warship and the shelling of one of its islands in 2010 has died, state media said Monday.
Kim Kyok-Sik died on Sunday of respiratory failure while suffering from an unidentified type of cancer, according to Rodong Shinmun, the newspaper of the North’s ruling Workers’ Party. He was 77.
“The comrade served in very important positions… in the military for a long time, making great contributions to firmly protect our socialist motherland,” it said.
The four-star general was named by South Korea as being the operational commander behind the sinking of the Cheonan navy corvette in March 2010 and the shelling eight months later of the border island of Yeonpyeong.
A South Korean-led investigation involving a team of international experts concluded the Cheonan was sunk by a North Korean submarine torpedo and Seoul cut trade and aid links to Pyongyang in response. [AFP]
U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter (2nd from R) and South Korean Defense Minister Han Min-koo (2nd from L) visit the Navy’s 2nd Fleet Command in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, on April 10, 2015, to pay tribute to 46 South Korean sailors killed in the sinking of the country’s warship Cheonan in 2010 by North Korea. (Yonhap)
The North Koreans figure they can probably just wait out the Park administration and eventually have the sanctions removed without taking responsibility for the murder of the 104 South Korean sailors:
North Korea on Tuesday ruled out any apology over the 2010 sinking of the South Korean navel corvette Cheonan, and demanded Seoul lift sanctions imposed after the incident in which Pyongyang has always denied involvement.
Two days ahead of the fifth anniversary of the sinking, in which 46 South Korean seamen died, the North’s top military body, the National Defence Commission (NDC), condemned Seoul’s steadfast insistence on the “cock-and-bull” idea that Pyongyang was responsible.
The Cheonan was carrying 104 personnel when it sank near the disputed Yellow Sea maritime border between North and South Korea on March 26.
A South Korean-led investigation involving a team of international experts concluded it was sunk by a North Korean submarine torpedo.
Despite Pyongyang’s heated denials, Seoul responded with the so-called “May 24 measures” — which amounted to an effective trade embargo on North Korea which remains in place today.
South Korea has insisted it will only consider lifting the sanctions after the North acknowledges its responsibility and apologises.
The NDC statement on Tuesday demanded the immediate end of the trade embargo, arguing that it had been “cooked up under the absurd pretext of the … fictitious story” of North Korean involvement in the Cheonan sinking.
“The South should clearly understand that its sophism that ‘apology’ and ‘expression of regret’ have to precede the lifting of the ‘step’ can never work,” a spokesman for the NDC’s policy department said in the statement carried by the North’s official KCNA news agency.
Calling for an apology in such circumstances amounted to an “intolerable mockery” of the North’s dignity, the spokesman said [AFP]
