Tag: North Korea

I am willing to bet that if a similar situation at the JSA were to play out again the North Koreans will probably commit bigger armistice violations by going across the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) and try to drag the defector back.  In such a case would the US and ROK troops shoot at them?  I hope this is a response the JSA guards are trained to execute if need be:

North Korea violated an armistice agreement with South Korea this month when North Korean soldiers shot and wounded a North Korean soldier as he defected across their border and it must not do so again, South Korea’s defense minister said on Monday.

The defector, a North Korean soldier identified only by his surname, Oh, was critically wounded but has been recovering in hospital in South Korea.

The incident comes at a time of heightened tension between North Korea and the international community over its nuclear weapons program, but the North has not publicly responded to the defection at the sensitive border.

South Korean Minister of Defence Song Young-moo issued his warning to the North while on a visit to the border where he commended South Korean soldiers at a Joint Security Area (JSA), in the so-called Truce Village of Panmunjom, in the demilitarized zone, for rescuing the defector.

A North Korean border guard briefly crossed the border with the South in the chase for the defector on Nov. 13 – a video released by the U.N. Command (UNC) in Seoul showed – a violation of the ceasefire accord between North and South at the end of the 1950-53 Korean War.

“Shooting towards the South at a defecting person, that’s a violation of the armistice agreement,” Song said.  [Reuters]

You can read more at the link.

Using high-decibel speakers, SK starts to broadcast into NK re the defector who crossed the MDL. FM radio station "Voice of Freedom" broadcasting that he survived the mass shooting, is being treated at Ajou & was found to be suffering from malnutrition.https://t.co/RxTy4ontKr

— Noon in Korea (@NoonInKorea) November 26, 2017

The “grind down” strategy by China against the US Navy appears to be working judging by recent incidents:

In regard to China, in particular, neither the Obama nor the Trump administrations has shifted forces to the Pacific in sufficient enough numbers or capability, said James R. Holmes, professor of strategy at the US Naval War College.

“China has come to this commonsense realization, and understands that it can grind down adversary sea services just by being active in its ‘near seas,’ mainly the China seas,” said Holmes. “Imposing a swift ‘optempo’ on your opponent, meaning keeping him on the go all the time, wearies him over time. And while that hasn’t been a direct cause of this year’s mishaps, it does contribute to crew fatigue, cut down on training time, and thus exacerbate the factors our navy cited in its recent collision reports.”

In response, the Navy has two options, said Holmes. “We can build up our navy to a level where it can do all of these things without wearing out crews and hardware, or we can ‘pivot’ or ‘re-balance’ more of our forces to the Pacific theater.”

Holmes points out that while large, the 7th Fleet represents only a part of the US Navy. “If we can no longer overpower opponents in both the Atlantic and Pacific, then we need to make some hard choices about where to apply the bulk of our effort — and accept that that means accepting risk in the other theater.”  [CNN]

Report on Federico Tenga teaching Bitcoin course at North Korea's PUST: https://t.co/wVqSdEA5HM

— Curtis Melvin 커티스 멜빈 (@CurtisMelvin) November 24, 2017

The usual caveats apply when it comes to these unnamed sources out of North Korea because it is so hard to independently verify what they are saying.  This source could just be telling a journalist looking for a click bait headline what they want to hear:

An artificial earthquake caused by a North Korean nuclear test in September reportedly caused buildings to collapse and killed scores of people, including schoolchildren, South Korean media reported this week.

On Sept. 3, North Korea conducted its sixth nuclear test, successfully detonating a hydrogen bomb — one that could fit onto an intercontinental missile (ICBM).

The blast produced two shallow earthquakes in the Punggye-ri region, where North Korea’s nuclear test facility is located, U.S. and Chinese government seismologists reported at the time. Authorities in Japan, South Korea and numerous nongovernment experts in the United States confirmed that the earthquakes were likely the result of a nuclear test.

An unnamed source, who recently visited a village about 8 kilometers from Punggye-ri, described the damage to the South and North Development (SAND), a research institute that works with defectors from the North, according to the South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo.

The source said houses and a school collapsed in the village of Sindong-ri and that dozens of people were killed and injured, the paper reported.

“September 3 was a Sunday, but some 150 students were waiting in their classrooms to do some work,” the source said, according to Chosun Ilbo. “Casualties occurred when half of the school building crumbled.”  [Voice of America]

You can read more at the link, but if this is true the team at 38 North who analyze commercial satellite imagery should be able to confirm if there has been collapsed buildings in the days after the nuclear test. So far I have seen no reports from them confirming damaged buildings after the earthquake in North Korea.

China to close main border bridge to North Korea from today, Japan's Yomiuri reports https://t.co/ONava6h9BF

— Alastair Gale (@AlastairGale) November 24, 2017

I was a bit surprised that the North Korean guards at the JSA did not try to go across the MDL and drag the defector back across and maybe that is what the Kim regime expected them to do as well:

North Korea suffered acute embarrassment on November 13 when a border guard fled first by jeep and then on foot across the joint security area (JSA) with South Korea.

The defector, identified only by his surname Oh, sped in a jeep towards the South before losing control and crashing into a ditch. He sprinted the final few metres as North Korea guards opened fire.

Now those border guards are believed to be taking the full force of Kim Jong-un’s fury for the incident – with all believed to have lost their positions.

Yonhap News, a Seoul-based news agency, believes all border guards have been replaced at the border in a huge security overhaul.

And they said an intelligence source had told them the guards were also in danger of cruel punishment at the hands of Kim’s security agents.

The unnamed source told the agency: “Signs were detected that North Korea has replaced all border security officials following the defection.  [UK-Express]

You can read more at the link, but imagine some very senior Kim regime officials are displeased with this defection and people will be held accountable for letting it happen.  In addition the soldier’s family will be held accountable as well for his defection and are probably already in a labor camp somewhere as punishment.

The North Korean soldier shot while defecting to South Korea across the JSA will live.  However, his poor medical condition before he was even shot is drawing increased scrutiny in South Korea:

The revelation that the man had a severe parasitic infection — Lee said he had never seen such a case except in medical textbooks — and that his stomach contained raw corn kernels prompted widespread shock in South Korea. North Korean front-line soldiers were supposed to be elite troops, yet this man had worms not seen in South Korea since the 1970s and had been eating uncooked corn?

Oh also has tuberculosis and hepatitis B, Lee said. And, at 5 feet 5 inches tall and weighing about 130 pounds, he is several inches shorter and 20 pounds lighter than the average male 18-year-old South Korean.

There is intense interest in the soldier, and military intelligence officers reportedly are eager to question him about his escape, but Lee has been fending them off. The soldier is showing signs of depression and post-traumatic stress, and it will take about a month before he is well enough to answer questions, the doctor said.  [Washington Post]

You can read the rest at the link, but just think there are 25 million people in North Korea with probably many other bad health conditions which will need to be considered in a unification scenario.

By the way the soldier’s trauma surgeon Lee Cook-jong is a bit of celebrity in South Korea:

This is not Lee’s first time in the spotlight. The surgeon became a national hero in 2011 when he saved the life of a ship captain who had been shot by Somali pirates.

After pirates seized a chemical freighter near the Gulf of Aden in 2011, South Korean commandos stormed the ship and the pirates shot the captain six times during the rescue attempt.

Lee was waiting at a hospital in Oman and saved the captain’s life, earning a reputation as the country’s leading trauma surgeon. There was even a popular medical drama based on this story, “Golden Time.” The title was a reference to Lee’s frequent reminder that it is the hour after a severe injury that is most important for saving someone’s life.  [Washington Post]

The Jeep the solider drove to JSA is a Chinese-made vehicle: BJ2020. There is high probability that the defector is a driver, who served at least the rank of a battalion cadre/above. Unlike ROK, where nearly every adult knows how to drive, that's often not the case in NK. pic.twitter.com/x4Hlk4CnR8

— Seongmin, Ink. (@SeongminInk) November 22, 2017

This will probably be an award these soldiers will remember for the rest of their lives considering the unusual circumstances leading to the award and who presented it to them:

In recognition for their efforts in rescuing a North Korean defector, Nov.13, Gen. Vincent K. Brooks, United Nations Command, Combined Forces Command and U.S. Forces Korea commander, awarded Joint Security Area Soldiers the Army Commendation medal, during a ceremony Nov. 23.

Awardees are Sgt. 1st Class Noh Yeong Soo, Sgt. 1st Class Song Seoung Hyeon, Sgt. Robert Hartfield, Maj. Jeffery Schmidt, Lt. Col. Kwon Young Hwan, and Lt. Col. Matthew Farmer  [USFK Facebook]

You can watch video of the award presentation at this link on the USFK Facebook site as well.  Basically the soldiers received an ARCOM because they were able to pull the North Korean defector to safety while at the same not escalating the situation or violating the armistice like the North Korean soldiers had already done.