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Editorial
"A Serious Escalation"
18 KOREA IT TIMES | December 2010
N. Korea's attack on Yeongpyeong Island
Seoul, November 24, 2010--In wake of
North Korea's artillery bombardment of
the South Korean island Yeonpyeong on
Tuesday November 23, the nation is on
edge. Analysts are referring to this situation
as 'a pattern of aggressive actions' by
the communist government when it feels
under stress or threatened.
The South Korean military went to "crisis
status" and threatened military strikes
to the North after they fired dozens of
shells at the South Korean island, killing
two South Korean soldiers and setting off
an exchange of fire in one of the fiercest
clashes between the two sides in decades.
The South Korean Defense Ministry said
that in addition to the two soldiers who
were killed, 15 other soldiers and 3 civilians
were wounded.
The chief presidential spokesman,
Hong Sang-pyo, commented that
President Lee Myung-bak would assure "a
strenuous retaliation" if there was any further
provocation, as the government officials
met with security-related ministers
and senior aides in the underground situation
room at the Blue House.
The official North Korean news agency
said in a brief statement on Tuesday night
that the South "recklessly fired into our sea
area." The attack on Yeonpyeong came as
70,000 South Korean troops were beginning
an annual nationwide military drill
called 'Safeguarding the Nation'. The exercise
has been harshly criticized by
Pyongyang as "simulating an invasion of
the North" and "a means to provoke a
war." American officials said the South's
military exercise had been announced well
in advance, and should not have come as
a surprise to the North.
Yeonpyeong Island sits just two miles
from the Northern Limit Line, the disputed
sea border which the North does not
recognize, and only eight miles from the
coast of North Korea. A garrison of roughly
1,000 South Korean marines and nearly
1,600 civilians occupies the island; fishermen
make up most of the civilians there.
This incident instigated a fleeing response
of over 200 residents by ferry or fishing
boat from Yeonpyeong Island to the mainland
town of Incheon, South Korean news
media reported.
Artillery conflicts between the two
countries have not been unusual in recent
years, but Pyongyang's attack on a civilian-populated
target was different from
previous moves. They usually take the
form of military clashes in disputed waters
around Yeonpyeong Island. North and
South Korean warships have fought in
these waters three times since 1999. The
most recent clash came last November,
when an exchange of fire damaged patrol
vessels of both nations.
Their already tense relations have worsened
causing what John Swenson-Wright,
an expert with the Royal Institute for
International Affairs calls "a serious escalation."
Although the North and South
have clashed at sea before, most notably
was the sinking of a South Korean warship,
the Cheonan, which resulted in the
death of 46 sailors in March 2010. If the
sinking was the work of the North, it
would be the most lethal military attack
since the end of the Korean War in 1953.
Choi Jin-wook, a North Korea expert at
the Korea Institute for National
Unification, a research institute in Seoul,
linked the North's deliberate provocation
against the South to food aid saying "It's a
sign of North Korea's increasing frustration."
He added "Washington has turned a
deaf ear to Pyongyang and North Korea is
saying, 'Look here. We're still alive. We
can cause trouble. You can't ignore us.' "
The North's immediate desperation has