Guest contributor: The following article is taken from the blog “what’s
left,”
by permission of the author.
While the South Korean government announced on May 20 that
it has overwhelming evidence that one of its warships was sunk by a torpedo
fired by a North Korean submarine, there is, in fact, no direct link between
North Korea and the sunken ship. And it seems very unlikely that North Korea
had anything to do with it.
That’s not my conclusion. It’s the conclusion of Won
See-hoon, director of South Korea’s National Intelligence. Won told a South
Korean parliamentary committee in early April, less than two weeks after the
South Korean warship, the Cheonan, sank in waters off Baengnyeong Island, that
there was no evidence linking North Korea to the Cheonan’s sinking. (1)
 Defense Minister Kim Tae-young initially ruled out torpedo attack |
South Korea’s Defense Minister Kim Tae-young backed him up,
pointing out that the Cheonan’s crew had not detected a torpedo (2), while Lee
Ki-sik, head of the marine operations office at the South Korean joint chiefs
of staff agreed that “No North Korean warships have been detected…(in) the
waters where the accident took place.” (3)
Notice he said “accident.”
Soon after the sinking of the South Korean warship, the
Cheonan, Defense Minister Kim Tae-young ruled out a North Korean torpedo
attack, noting that a torpedo would have been spotted, and no torpedo had been
spotted. Intelligence chief Won See-hoon, said there was no evidence linking
North Korea to the Cheonan’s sinking.
Defense Ministry officials added that they had not detected
any North Korean submarines in the area at the time of the incident. (4)
According to Lee, “We didn’t detect any movement by North Korean submarines
near” the area where the Cheonan went down. (5)
When speculation persisted that the Cheonan had been sunk by
a North Korean torpedo, the Defense Ministry called another press conference to
reiterate “there was no unusual North Korean activities detected at the time of
the disaster.” (6)
A ministry spokesman, Won Tae-jae, told reporters that “With
regard to this case, no particular activities by North Korean submarines or
semi-submarines…have been verified. I am saying again that there were no activities
that could be directly linked to” the Cheonan’s sinking. (7)
Rear Admiral Lee, the head of the marine operations office,
added that, “We closely watched the movement of the North’s vessels, including
submarines and semi-submersibles, at the time of the sinking. But military did
not detect any North Korean submarines near the country’s western sea border.”
(8)
North Korea has vehemently denied any involvement in the
sinking.
So, a North Korean submarine is now said to have fired a
torpedo which sank the Cheonan, but in the immediate aftermath of the sinking
the South Korean navy detected no North Korean naval vessels, including
submarines, in the area. Indeed, immediately following the incident defense
minister Lee ruled out a North Korean torpedo attack, noting that a torpedo
would have been spotted, and no torpedo had been spotted. (9)
The case gets weaker still.
It’s unlikely that a single torpedo could split a 1,200 ton
warship in two. Baek Seung-joo, an analyst with the Korea Institute for Defense
Analysis says that “If a single torpedo or floating mine causes a naval patrol
vessel to split in half and sink, we will have to rewrite our military
doctrine.” (10)
The Cheonan sank in shallow, rapidly running, waters, in
which it’s virtually impossible for submarines to operate. “Some people are
pointing the finger at North Korea,” notes Song Young-moo, a former South
Korean navy chief of staff, “but anyone with knowledge about the waters where
the shipwreck occurred would not draw that conclusion so easily.” (11)
Contrary to what looks like an improbable
North-Korea-torpedo-hypothesis, the evidence points to the Cheonan splitting in
two and sinking because it ran aground upon a reef, a real possibility given
the shallow waters in which the warship was operating. According to Go
Yeong-jae, the South Korean Coast Guard captain who rescued 56 of the stricken
warship’s crew, he “received an order …that a naval patrol vessel had run
aground in the waters 1.2 miles to the southwest of Baengnyeong Island, and
that we were to move there quickly to rescue them.” (12)
So how is it that what looked like no North Korean
involvement in the Cheonan’s sinking, according to the South Korean military in
the days immediately following the incident, has now become, one and half
months later, an open and shut case of North Korean aggression, according to
government-appointed investigators?
The answer has much to do with the electoral fortunes of
South Korea’s ruling Grand National Party, and the party’s need to marshal
support for a tougher stance on the North. Lurking in the wings are US arms
manufacturers who stand to profit if South Korean president Lee Myung-bak wins
public backing for beefed up spending on sonar equipment and warships to deter
a North Korean threat – all the more likely with the Cheonan incident chalked
up to North Korean aggression.
 South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, a North Korea-phobe |
Lee is a North Korea-phobe who prefers a confrontational
stance toward his neighbor to the north to the policy of peaceful coexistence
and growing cooperation favored by his recent predecessors (and by Pyongyang,
as well. It’s worth mentioning that North Korea supports a policy of peace and
cooperation. South Korea, under its hawkish president, does not.) Fabricating a
case against the North serves Lee in a number of ways. If voters in the South
can be persuaded that the North is indeed a menace—and it looks like this is
exactly what is happening—Lee’s hawkish policies will be embraced as the right
ones for present circumstances. This will prove immeasurably helpful in upcoming
mayoral and gubernatorial elections in June.
What’s more, Lee’s foreign policy rests on the goal of
forcing the collapse of North Korea. When he took office in February 2008, he
set about reversing a 10-year-old policy of unconditional aid to the North. He
has also refused to move ahead on cross-border economic projects. (13) The
claim that the sinking of the Cheonan is due to an unprovoked North Korean
torpedo attack makes it easier for Lee to drum up support for his
confrontational stance.
Finally, the RAND Corporation is urging South Korea to buy
sensors to detect North Korean submarines and more warships to intercept North
Korean naval vessels. (14) An unequivocal US-lackey—protesters have called the
security perimeter around Lee’s office “the U.S. state of South Korea” (15)—Lee
would be pleased to hand US corporations fat contracts to furnish the South
Korean military with more hardware.
The United States, too, has motivations to fabricate a case
against North Korea. One is to justify the continued presence, 65 years after
the end of WWII, of US troops on Japanese soil. Many Japanese bristle at what
is effectively a permanent occupation of their country by more than a token
contingent of US troops. There are 60,000 US soldiers, airmen and sailors in
Japan. Washington, and the Japanese government—which, when it isn’t willingly
collaborating with its own occupiers, is forced into submission by the
considerable leverage Washington exercises—justifies the US troop presence
through the sheer sophistry of presenting North Korea as an ongoing threat. The
claim that North Korea sunk the Cheonan in an unprovoked attack strengthens
Washington’s case for occupation. Not surprisingly, US Secretary of State
Hilary Clinton has seized on the Cheonan incident to underline “the importance
of the America-Japanese alliance, and the presence of American troops on
Japanese soil.” (16)
Given these political realities, it comes as no surprise
that from the start members of Lee’s party blamed the sinking of the Cheonan on
a North Korean torpedo, (17) just as members of the Bush administration
immediately blamed 9/11 on Saddam Hussein, and then proceeded to look for
evidence to substantiate their case, in the hopes of justifying an already
planned invasion. (Later, the Bush administration fabricated an intelligence
dossier on Iraq’s banned weapons.) In fact, the reason the ministry of defense
felt the need to reiterate there was no evidence of a North Korean link was the
persistent speculation of GNP politicians that North Korea was the culprit. Lee
himself, ever hostile to his northern neighbor, said his “intuition” told him
that North Korea was to blame. (18) Today, opposition parties accuse Lee of
using “red scare” tactics to garner support as the June 2 elections draw near.
(19) And leaders of South Korea’s four main opposition parties, as well as a
number of civil groups, have issued a joint statement denouncing the
government’s findings as untrustworthy. Woo Sang-ho, a spokesman for South
Korea’s Democratic Party has called the probe results “insufficient proof and
questioned whether the North was involved at all.” (20)
Lee announced, even before the inquiry rendered its
findings, that a task force will be launched to overhaul the national security
system and bulk up the military to prepare itself for threats from North Korea.
(21) He even prepared a package of sanctions against the North in the event the
inquiry confirmed what his intuition told him. (22) No wonder civil society
groups denounced the inquiry’s findings, arguing that “The probe started after
the conclusions had already been drawn.” (23)
Jung Sung-ki, a staff reporter for The Korean Times, has
raised a number of questions about the inquiry’s findings. The inquiry
concluded that “two North Korean submarines, one 300-ton Sango class and the
other 130-ton Yeono class, were involved in the attack. Under the cover of the
Sango class, the midget Yeono class submarine approached the Cheonan and
launched the CHT-02D torpedo manufactured by North Korea.” But “’Sango class
submarines…do not have an advanced system to guide homing weapons,’ an expert
at a missile manufacturer told The Korea Times on condition of anonymity. ‘If a
smaller class submarine was involved, there is a bigger question mark.’” (24)
“Rear Adm. Moon Byung-ok, spokesman for [the official
inquiry] told reporters, ‘We confirmed that two submarines left their base two
or three days prior to the attack and returned to the port two or three days
after the assault.’” But earlier “South Korean and U.S. military authorities
confirmed several times that there had been no sign of North Korean
infiltration in the” area in which the Cheonan went down. (25)
“In addition, Moon’s team reversed its position on whether
or not there was a column of water following an air bubble effect” (caused by
an underwater explosion.) “Earlier, the team said there were no sailors who had
witnessed a column of water. But during [a] briefing session, the team said a
soldier onshore at Baengnyeong Island witnessed ‘an approximately
100-meter-high pillar of white,’ adding that the phenomenon was consistent with
a shockwave and bubble effect.” (26)
The inquiry produced a torpedo propeller recovered by
fishing vessels that it said perfectly match the schematics of a North Korean
torpedo. “But it seemed that the collected parts had been corroding at least
for several months.” (27)
Finally, the investigators “claim the Korean word written on
the driving shaft of the propeller parts was same as that seen on a North
Korean torpedo discovered by the South …seven years ago.” But the “’word is not
inscribed on the part but written on it,’ an analyst said, adding that “’the
lettering issue is dubious.’” (28)
On August 2, 1964, the United States announced that three
North Vietnamese torpedo boats had launched an unprovoked attacked on the USS
Maddox, a US Navy destroyer, in the Gulf of Tonkin. The incident handed US
president Lyndon Johnson the Congressional support he needed to step up
military intervention in Vietnam. In 1971, the New York Times reported that the
Pentagon Papers, a secret Pentagon report, revealed that the incident had been
faked to provide a pretext for escalated military intervention. There had been
no attack.
The Cheonan incident has all the markings of another Gulf of
Tonkin incident. And as usual, the aggressor is accusing the intended victim of
an unprovoked attack to justify a policy of aggression under the pretext of
self-defense.
______
1. Kang Hyun-kyung, “Ruling camp differs over NK involvement
in disaster”, The Korea Times, April 7, 2010.
2. Nicole Finnemann, “The sinking of the Cheonan”, Korea
Economic Institute, April 1, 2010.
http://newsmanager.commpartners.com/kei/issues/2010-04-01/1.html
3. “Military leadership adding to Cheonan chaos with
contradictory statements”, The Hankyoreh, March 31, 2010.
4. “Birds or North Korean midget submarine?” The Korea
Times, April 16, 2010.
6. “Military plays down N.K. foul play”, The Korea Herald,
April 2, 2010.
8. “No subs near Cheonan: Ministry”, JoongAng Daily, April
2, 2010.
9. Jean H. Lee, “South Korea says mine from the North may
have sunk warship”, The Washington Post, March 30, 2010.
10. “What caused the Cheonan to sink?” The Chosun Ilbo,
March 29, 2010.
12. “Military leadership adding to Cheonan chaos with
contradictory statements”, The Hankyoreh, March 31, 2010.
13. Blaine Harden, “Brawl Near Koreas’ Border,” The
Washington Post, December 3, 2008.
14. “Kim So-hyun, “A touchstone of Lee’s leadership”, The
Korea Herald, May 13, 2010.
15. The New York Times, June 12, 2008.
16. Mark Landler, “Clinton condemns attack on South Korean
Ship”, The New York Times, May 21, 2010.
17. Kang Hyun-kyung, “Ruling camp differs over NK
involvement in disaster”, The Korea Times, April 7, 2010.
18. “Kim So-hyun, “A touchstone of Lee’s leadership”, Korea
Herald, May 13, 2010.
19. Kang Hyun-kyung, “Ruling camp differs over NK
involvement in disaster”, The Korea Times, April 7, 2010; Choe Sang-Hun, “South
Korean sailors say blast that sank their ship came from outside vessel”, The
New York Times, April 8, 2010.
20. Cho Jae-eun, “Probe satisfies some, others have doubts”,
JoongAng Daily, May 21, 2010.
21. “Kim So-hyun, “A touchstone of Lee’s leadership”, The
Korea Herald, May 13, 2010.
22. “Seoul prepares sanctions over Cheonan sinking”, The
Choson Ilbo, May 13, 2010.
23. Cho Jae-eun, “Probe satisfies some, others have doubts”,
JoongAng Daily, May 21, 2010.
24. Jung Sung-ki, “Questions raised about ‘smoking gun’”,
The Korea Times, May 20, 2010.
Most of the articles cited here are posted on Tim Beal’s
DPRK-North Korea website, , an invaluable
resource for anyone interested in Korea.
Updated May 23, 20110.
