South Korea Faces Domestic Skeptics Over Evidence Against North Korea

[Better Believe It]

South Korea Faces Domestic Skeptics Over Evidence Against North
By Ben Richardson and Saeromi Shin
May 30, 2010

May 30 (Bloomberg) -- South Korea’s government is trying to stem skepticism about an inquiry that blamed North Korea for the sinking of a warship, according to local media reports.

Prime Minister Chung Un Chan ordered the government to find a way to stop groundless rumors spreading on the Cheonan’s sinking, the JoongAng Daily said yesterday. Prosecutors questioned a former member of the panel that probed the incident over his critical comments, the paper said. The Joint Chiefs of Staff sued a lawmaker for defamation after she said video footage of the ship splitting apart existed, a claim the military denies, Yonhap News reported.

Almost one in four South Koreans say they don’t trust the findings of the multinational panel, according to a poll commissioned by Hankook Ilbo on May 24. North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency yesterday accused the South’s “puppet military of trying to cover up the truth about the sinking” by seeking to silence opposition lawmakers with the lawsuit.

Lee Jung Hee, a lawmaker with an opposition party, the Democratic Labor Party, was sued for defamation by seven people at South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, Yonhap News reported May 25.

Lee said during a speech in parliament that while the Defense Ministry had said there was no feed from a thermal observation device showing the moment the warship’s stern and bow split apart, such a video did exist

Prosecutors May 28 questioned Shin Sang-cheol, who runs Seoprise, a Web-based political magazine, over his assertion that the Cheonan sank in an accident and that the evidence linking the North to the torpedo was tampered with, the JoonAng said. Shin served on the panel that probed the sinking.

The magnified photograph of writing on the torpedo showed that the marking was written on top of a rusted surface, the newspaper cited Shin as saying. The Defense Ministry asked the National Assembly to eject Shin from the investigation for “arousing public mistrust,” the report said.

North Korea warned the UN to be wary of evidence that it said falsely accuses the country of torpedoing the warship, likening the case to the claims of weapons of mass destruction that the U.S. used to justify its war against Iraq in 2003.

Twenty-four percent of respondents said they didn’t trust the government’s evidence, with more skepticism among younger and better-educated people, the Hankook Ilbo poll found. Almost 90 percent of people over 60 trusted the findings, while only 70 percent of those in their 40s did.

Read the full article at:

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-05-29/south-korea-faces-domestic-skeptics-over-evidence-against-north.html

[Poll_Blind]

1. "Almost one in four" is the same percentage of rabid, insane Bush supporters when he was prez.

Food for thought.

PB

[Forkboy]

2. Both parties have their 25 percenters.

Those who act as if the party they belong to can do no wrong. We have some right here on DU. Also food for thought. :)

[Better Believe It]

3. But the "one in four" in South Korea are not right-wing tea bagger types. So what's your point?

But the one in four in South Korea are probably are younger people and probably in most cases liberals/progressives who are not supporters of the conservative South Korean regime.

Food for thoughts.

[Better Believe It]

4. "China is still questioning the authenticity of the investigation"

Korea, Japan fail to persuade China to censure N.Korea
May 30, 2010


But Paik Haksoon, of the Sejong Institute think-tank, said Wen's comments "indicate that China is still questioning the authenticity and authority of the investigation".

"There would be no point of taking this issue to the UN Security Council without securing support from China in advance," Paik told AFP.

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/1059905/1/.html

[Shadow Creature]

5. China always sides with N Korea

even if only in public to keep the Kim Jong Il from doing anything too crazy.

China does big trade with S Korea as it props up Mad Kim's plantation

[New Dawn]

6. Also read this article:

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/LE05Dg01.html

[ShamelessHussy]

7. I'm another skeptic (nt)

[dflprincess]

8. If South Korea tries to make their case to the U.N.

they should hire Colin Powell - that should convince everyone they'd been attacked :sarcasm:.

And, for the right price, I'm sure Powell would be willing to shill for them. It worked for Bush.

[Better Believe It]

9. Good point

[NNN0LHI]

10. Those skeptics better be damn careful

Last time hostilities broke out on the peninsula first thing the South Korean government did was round up anyone that was construed as leftist or sympathetic to the north and killed them and threw them into mass graves. I think they would do it again too.

Don

---------------------------------------------------

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/05/18/mass-killings-in-south-ko_n_102322.html

Mass Killings In South Korea In 1950 Kept Hidden From History

CHARLES J. HANLEY | May 18, 2008 01:26 PM EST |

SEOUL, South Korea — One journalist's bid to report mass murder in South Korea in 1950 was blocked by his British publisher. Another correspondent was denounced as a possibly treasonous fabricator when he did report it. In South Korea, down the generations, fear silenced those who knew.

Fifty-eight years ago, at the outbreak of the Korean War, South Korean authorities secretively executed, usually without legal process, tens of thousands of southern leftists and others rightly or wrongly identified as sympathizers. Today a government Truth and Reconciliation Commission is working to dig up the facts, and the remains of victims.

How could such a bloodbath have been hidden from history?

Among the Koreans who witnessed, took part in or lost family members to the mass killings, the events were hardly hidden, but they became a "public secret," barely whispered about through four decades of right-wing dictatorship here.

"The family couldn't talk about it, or we'd be stigmatized as leftists," said Kim Chong-hyun, 70, leader of an organization of families seeking redress for their loved ones' deaths in 1950.

[Better Believe It]

11. Mass killings in some cases sanctioned by U.S. officers.

To outmaneuver a possible fifth column in the Republic of Korea, President Syngman Rhee's régime assassinated its "enemies of the state"—South Koreans suspected of being communists, pro-North Korea, and leftist—by imprisoning them for political re-education in the Gukmin Bodo Ryeonmaeng (National Rehabilitation and Guidance League, also known as the Bodo League). The true purpose of the anti–communist Bodo League, abetted by the United States Army Military Government in Korea (USAMGIK), was the régime's assassination of some 10,000 to 100,000 "enemies of the state" whom they dumped in trenches, mines, and the sea, before and after the 25 June 1950 North Korean invasion. Contemporary calculations report some 200,000 to 1,200,000.<135> USAMGIK officers were present at one political execution site; at least one US officer sanctioned the mass killings of political prisoners whom the North Koreans would free upon conquering the peninsular south.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_War