Tag: Kim Yong-chol

Members from the conservative Liberty Korea Party, including LKP leader Hong Joon-pyo (4th from L, front row), hold a rally to criticize a visit by Kim Yong-chol, the chief of the eight-member North Korean delegation, at Cheonggye Plaza in Seoul on Feb. 26, 2018. Kim is an alleged mastermind of a 2010 North Korean torpedo attack on the South Korean corvette Cheonan that killed 46 sailors. (Yonhap)

Via a reader tip come this article that explains how South Korean protesters tried to block the bridge taking the North Korean delegation back to North Korea:

Protesters attempted to block vehicles carrying a controversial North Korean delegation to the closing ceremony of the Pyeongchang Winter Olympic Games as they crossed the Demilitarised Zone into South Korea on Sunday morning.

Around 100 conservative politicians and activists staged a sit-in demonstration at the Tongil Bridge, according to local broadcaster YTN, accusing the delegation’s leader of being behind a deadly 2010 attack on a South Korean warship.

South Korean authorities deployed more than 2.500 police officers to control the protests. To avoid a clash, the motorcade took an alternative route via Jeonjin bridge, which is a military crossing, according to the Chosun Ilbo.  [The Times]

You can read more at the link, but I hope General Brooks gets on the phone and asks President Moon that if he can open a road for the murderer of 46 ROK sailors, if he can also open the road to the THAAD site?

It is pretty clear that the Kim regime sent Kim Yong-chol as part of the South Korean delegation to rub the Cheonan attack in the face of South Korea’s conservatives:

Political parties collided Monday over a controversial visit to Seoul by a North Korean official who is accused of masterminding deadly military attacks in 2010.

The main opposition Liberty Korea Party (LKP) staged a massive rally in central Seoul berating the liberal government for embracing Kim Yong-chol as the chief of the North’s delegation to the closing ceremony of the PyeongChang Winter Olympics despite his alleged role in the two attacks.

Kim, a vice chairman of the Central Committee of the North’s ruling Workers’ Party, has been accused of leading the torpedo attack on the South Korean warship Cheonan and the bombardment of the border island of Yeonpyeong. The attacks killed a total of 50 South Koreans.

“We will fight until the end against the Moon Jae-in government that has pressed ahead with its decision to allow the visit by Kim Yong-chol despite public concerns and objections,” Kim Sung-tae, the LKP floor leader, said during the rally.

“The raison d’etre of our party is to protect the free democracy system here,” he added.

Describing Kim as a “murderer” and “war criminal,” conservatives here had called for the cancellation of Kim’s three-day visit to the South.

They argue that the visit by Kim — who is under a set of local and international sanctions — will help the North’s “deceptive peace offensive” to weaken the current sanctions regime, sow discord among South Koreans and drive a wedge between Seoul and Washington.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but this would be like a US President giving the red carpet treatment to the mastermind of the USS Cole bombing.  Instead the US gave him Gitmo.  That is the treatment Kim Yong-chol deserves, not VIP treatment at the Walker Hill Hotel.

It had to be uncomfortable for General Brooks sharing a VIP box with someone like Kim Yong-chol who planned the murder of 46 South Korean sailors.

Protesters including the bereaved families of the 46 crewmen killed in the 2010 sinking of the Cheonan warship stage a rally in Seoul on Feb. 24, 2018, to oppose the planned visit to South Korea by Kim Yong-chol, a vice chairman of the Central Committee of the North’s ruling Workers’ Party. Kim is set to cross the border on Feb. 25 for a three-day visit as the head of an eight-member delegation to the closing ceremony of the PyeongChang Winter Olympics. He is believed to be behind the North’s sinking of the South Korean corvette and the shelling of a border island in 2010. (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:

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.

I guess we will see what happens, but I don’t expect Ivanka Trump will stray from the White House’s current maximum pressure position in regards to North Korea if they do meet:

The chances of Washington-Pyongyang talks over the latter’s nuclear program seem to be growing, with high-level officials from the two countries coming to South Korea for the closing ceremony of the PyeongChang Winter Olympics.

Attention to any possible contact is high, especially after it belatedly became known the two sides had planned a meeting when U.S. Vice President Mike Pence and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s sister Kim Yo-jong participated in the opening ceremony.

Cheong Wa Dae and the Ministry of Unification said Thursday Kim Yong-chol, head of the Workers’ Party of Korea’s United Front Department, would visit the South from Sunday to Tuesday, along with seven other delegates including Ri Son-gwon, chairman of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland.

They will attend the closing ceremony that will take place on Sunday. Cheong Wa Dae said the rest of their itinerary has not been confirmed, although it is expected they will have a separate meeting with President Moon Jae-in at Cheong Wa Dae.

The high-profile North Korean delegation’s visit was announced hours after the White House and Cheong Wa Dae confirmed Ivanka Trump, daughter and adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump, would make a four-day visit here from Friday to Monday.

She is scheduled to have talks with Moon over dinner at the presidential office on the first day of her visit. Ivanka Trump will also have a separate event with first lady Kim Jung-sook, as well as attending the closing ceremony.

As the periods of the two delegations’ stays overlap, expectations are growing over a possible meeting.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link, but I am willing to bet the Moon administration intentionally created this scheduling overlap in an effort to try and get a meeting to happen.

This file photo shows North Korea’s Gen. Kim Yong-chol, whom some specialists in South Korea believe has been tapped as the country’s new point man for handling cross-border affairs. A report written by the Youido Institute, a think tank of the ruling party, said on Jan. 18, 2016, that Kim is likely to succeed Kim Yang-gon, who died in a car accident in December, as the secretary of the North’s Workers’ Party in charge of inter-Korean issues. The general, who leads the party’s intelligence operations bureau, is known as the man who masterminded major provocations against the South, including the sinking of a naval ship, shelling attack on a border island and the planting of land mines to hurt South Korean soldiers. (Yonhap)

Good @Michael_NKLW summary of Kim Yong-chol, who heads North Korea's Reconnaissance General Bureau https://t.co/qmAJRNWWQ0

— Adam Cathcart (@adamcathcart) January 3, 2015