Category: DMZ

Somebody had to be held responsible for this dereliction of duty and it ended up being a ROK Marine Corps 2-Star General:

The border crossing near the western island of Ganghwa by the 24-year-old man, surnamed Kim, became known after North Korea reported Sunday that a “runaway” returned home in the border city of Kaesong with coronavirus symptoms and that the entire city was blocked off to prevent the spread of the virus.

South Korean officials said Kim had been under investigation over allegations he raped a female defector.

According to the JCS’ probe results, Kim was caught on the military’s surveillance equipment seven times — five on its monitoring cameras, twice on thermal observation devices (TODs) — including his arrival in the North, but troops failed to identify him as a person trying to cross the border.

The defector passed through a drainage tunnel running underneath barbed wire fences to evade South Korean border guards before reaching the shore and swimming a few kilometers to North Korea. 

The fences set up inside the drainage tunnel were in poor condition, allowing the defector to pass through them easily, they said. It took just around 10 minutes for Kim to pass through the channel and reach the river separating the two Koreas.

The JCS will seek disciplinary measures against those accountable, including the dismissal of Maj. Gen. Baek Gyeong-sun as commander of the Marine Corps’ 2nd Division in charge of border security at the area, officials said. 

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

I doubt anyone who follows inter-Korean issues ever expected this to last very long:

North Korea appears to have dispatched soldiers to some empty guard posts inside the Demilitarized Zone, sources said Thursday, following its warnings that it would beef up its military presence in border areas.

On Wednesday, the General Staff of the (North) Korean People’s Army vowed to set up “civil police posts,” which had been withdrawn from the DMZ under an inter-Korean military agreement, as part of next steps against South Korea after the demolition of the inter-Korean liaison office in the border town of Kaesong.

According to the military sources, several soldiers were spotted being dispatched to empty sentry posts inside the buffer zone from late Wednesday. 

North Korea is believed to have around 150 such posts, and some of them were vacated in accordance with the inter-Korean tension-reducing pact signed in Sept. 19, 2018.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

North Korea has renewed its claims that it did not hijack Korean Air flight YS-11 back in 1969:

After half a century, North Korea still insists it did not kidnap the South Korean passengers aboard Korean Air Lines flight YS-11 in 1969, according to a letter released by a United Nations human rights agency Monday.    
   
The incident in question refers to the hijacking of Korean Air Lines (KAL) flight YS-11, which was carrying four crew members and 46 passengers, on Dec. 11, 1969. The plane was destined for Gimpo International Airport, but after taking off from Gangneung, Gangwon, a North Korean spy aboard the plane forced the pilots to redirect the plane to land near Wonsan in North Korea that afternoon.    
   
Pyongyang claimed the pilots had voluntarily defected in protest of the military junta that ruled South Korea at the time.    
   
Thirty-nine passengers were repatriated back to the South two months later, but 11 never returned.   

Joong Ang Ilbo via a reader tip

You can read more at the link, but the North Koreans made this same claim immediately after the hijacking. The North Koreans even put the two pilots, Yu Byong-ha and Choe Sok-man on radio where they confirmed this claim.  However, these claims were dismissed by the ROK authorities because the two pilots were both decorated ROK Air Force veterans who the investigation determined had no reason to defect. 

In fact the ROK authorities investigated the backgrounds of all 46 passengers on board the plane and cleared everyone except for two men, Han Chang-gi and Paek In-yong.  The ROK authorities could not find any background information on these two men leading them to believe they were the hijackers. The pilots’ so called confession on the radio was likely due to the threats made against them by the North Koreans. 

This hijacking ended up causing a huge uproar within South Korean society because this provocation was directed solely at civilians unlike past provocations that were primarily directed at military and government targets. What is really sad about this, is that today in South Korea there is probably a good amount of people who actually believe North Korea’s claim.

You can read much more about this hijacking at the below link:

Does anyone believe this excuse from the ROK military that the North Koreans unintentionally fired at a guard post because of the fog?:

 Several gunshots from North Korea hit a South Korean guard post inside the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) on Sunday, prompting the South to fire back, but the North’s firings do not appear to have been intentional, an official said.

South Korean soldiers on guard duty at the unit in the central border town of Cheorwon heard gunshots at around 7:41 a.m. and found four bullet marks on a wall of the guard post, according to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

In accordance with the response manual, the military then fired a total of 20 shots in response — 10 rounds each time — and issued broadcast warnings, it added. No casualties or damage to South Korean facilities were reported. 

It is not known if North Korea sustained any damage. 

“We also sent a notice to the North Korean side via the inter-Korean communication line at around 9:35 a.m., and called for its explanation,” a JCS officer said. 

North Korea has given no response yet. 

The military is closely looking into the incident to learn more details by analyzing pieces of evidence, including shells found at the scene, as well as the North’s motivations for the firing. It does not appear to be an intentional provocation, according to the officer. 

“It was quite foggy and the North Korean soldiers usually rotate shifts around that time,” the JCS officer said, adding that no unusual movements by the North’s military have been detected.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but the only way I can see the fog being a factor is that a North Korean soldier tripped over something and did not have his weapon on safe and it just happened to hit the ROK guard post. And this just happened to occur a day after Kim Jong-un made his first appearance in 20 days.