Photo ripped off from AP.
It now appears that at least one of the terrorists involved in the tragedy in Beslan, North Ossetia, Russia was an ethnic Korean. This afternoon, after Russia’s RIA-Novosti, quoting a Russian official, reported that Koreans were involved in the attack, the Korean Embassy in Moscow and local Korean media went into a flurry trying to learn the identity of the persons in question (and, more to the point, whether they were South Korean, North Korean, or ethnic Korean Russians):
Reporting about the hostage-takers, local news agencies, including RIA-Novosti, have quoted Sergei Fridinsky, the country’s deputy prosecutor, as saying that, “There were Chechens, Ingush, Tatars, Kazakhs and Koreans among the attackers.”
When they referred to “Koreans,” they meant ethnic Koreans of Russia, better known as “Kareiski,” which is translated here in the Korean language as “Koryo-in,” according to sources.
The Kareiski were people of the Choson Kingdom who moved to the far-eastern part of Russia during the period from the mid-19th century to the early 20th century. They were forced to move to Central Asia by Joseph Stalin in 1937 and now about 470,000 are estimated to live in Russia and the CIS, including in the states of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.
The Korean government is taking a low-key approach to the revelation:
Despite efforts to establish an exact picture of the situation in Russia, Seoul was taking a low-key approach as any clumsy action could lead to diplomatic problems and put nationals at greater risk… “They are basically Russian nationals, not Koreans,” [Foreign Ministry Russian Bureau head] Lee Yang-gu said. “So it is not desirable for us to deal with the issue directly with Russia at the government level.”
One of the big concerns for the Foreign Ministry — skinheads:
Police disclosed Tuesday that a North Korean was murdered by skinheads in Vladivostok, Russia. Quoting the statements of witnesses, the police remarked that ten youths assaulted three North Koreans on Saturday, with one victim stabbed with a lethal weapon and killed. Although at that time, there were a lot of witnesses at the spot, nobody helped the North Koreans, who were in danger, and the attackers escaped.
Though about 100 North Korea-born laborers held a protest demonstration following the incident, the police dispersed the demonstrators. There are approximately 1,400 North Korean working in Russia’s Maritime Province, including 500 construction workers in Vladivostok.
Don’t know whether to believe the reports about the Koreans at Beslan, but I’m sure we’ll get more information as it comes in.
5 Comments
This fixation with people of Korean ethnicity around the world — with the exception of hapless North Korean refugees — is bound to lead to sticky spots. For every Michelle Wie, there is going to be a Robert Kim or worse.
For every Clinton there’s a Bush in the world…
Well, the Russian state news-agencies reported about a group of 10 Saudi-Arabians among the terrorists in Beslan shortly after the massacre. These rumors haven’t been confirmed yet. But I don’t deny the possibility, that ethnic Koreans could have been among the Beslan murderers.
Reading the news this morning, it appears that there were NO ethnic Koreans in the group.
Doesn’t surprise me, either.
But they did find one Oriental looking body amongst the hostage dead. Does that count?
Sort of late but from my understanding of former soviet regions back in their hey day, massive migration of various ethnicities throughout central asia and other areas was a state program to integrate body politic. To unite the morale of commradship I suppose. I actually have a russian friend whose step father is ethnic Korean Russian.