Yesterday, the Chosun Ilbo reported that 22 North Koreans who had come across the West Sea border near Yeonpyeong-do in two small boats during the Lunar New Year holiday had been returned to North Korea.
According to the ROK Navy and National Intelligence Service, the 22 had been clam fishing along the coast of Hwanghae-do when their unpowered boats were dragged south by the sea currents on the morning of Feb 8. During investigation, the North Koreans expressed their desire to return to the North, so they were sent back via an overland route the next night.
The Chosun Ilbo was skeptical for a number of reasons — the seas were quiet on Feb 8, and the boats reportedly contained a large number of women and children. Even if the government’s explanation was true, it meant the North Koreans were out at dawn catching clams the day after Lunar New Year (even in the North, it’s a three-day holiday), and North Koreans don’t usually catch clams in winter; they dig up short-neck clams, which are exported to places like, well, South Korea through China. A North Korean economy expert pointed out that North Korean grain production is believed to have fallen by 20% last year due to floods. If the North Koreans were out catching clams rather than digging export-valuable short-neck clams, it’s evidence that the North is in dire straits.
Now today, a “source well-versed in North Korea” told Yonhap News Agency that the 22 — 14 women and eight men including three teenagers — had been immediately executed upon their return to the Workers’ Paradise:
“A rumor spread in South Hwanghae Province that (the security agency) secretly executed the 22 people immediately after they were returned,” the source said.
“People in the province are shocked by the fact that all of the 22 people were shot and killed without exception, such being sent to a prison camp,” the source said.
Go straight to the firing squad. Do not pass Yodok.
Of course, even if they were executed, it might not have been because they tried to defect. Maybe they were shot for fishing without a license:
South Korean intelligence officials, contacted by Yonhap News Agency, said they were not aware of the rumored execution and would try to verify it.
South Korean intelligence acknowledged there is a possibility that the returnees were executed because of their unauthorized fishing.
“I’m not aware of whether they were executed or not, but that’s possible because they went fishing with no authorization from the North Korean maritime authorities,” a government official said, requesting anonymity.
I’d hate to see what the penalty is for catching undersized crabs.
19 Comments
of course they were executed. His name is Kim Jong Il.
I find it very hard to believe they decided to go back to North Korea on their own will. It smells like a lie.
Chosun ilbo is my father’s favorite and only, daily on-line paper. When I look at him, I understand why he likes it. It tells him what he wants to hear, exactly.
before discovering naver, it was my window to Korea, too.
They really try hard, though, to bring sensational, damaging accusations against the Korean left, Noh Moo Hyun, and Kim Dae Jung. They even have a op/ed guy named Kim Dae Jung, who writes sensationally ill stuff towards the 3 above. I sometimes wonder if he’ll change his name if Kim Dae Jung dies.
Chosun will find the story that makes L.N.K. look bad, and it will be the first to do that. All in all, though Chosun carries a big gun in the Korean press. Way better firepower than the Korea Times. Just with their stance, they capture minimum 30% of Korea’s readership.
Lord have mercy on these people.
If this is true, then someone in the South Korean Government should be shot dead.
#2 Why should South Korea be responsable for the actions of the North?
#3: Because they have a constitutional responsibility to take in Nork refugees.
No way to verify, but no way to disbelieve news like that — North Korea is an evil that makes the impossible real.
Is there a constitutional responsibility to keep them?
Remember Korean words like ‘jung’ ‘han’ min-jok’ are uncountable nouns.
Roh the great stateman of the south should do so explaining.
Edit:
“should do some explaining”
“Is there a constitutional responsibility to keep them?”
You’re assuming the South Korean government is telling the truth. Who is the head of the NIS again?
#5: There is if they were actual refugees.
I understand that this is the wrong place to state the obvious, but the most likely explanation is that these families were testing the openness of the new administration to economic refugees/escapees from the north.
i thought either Okamoto or Rhee Syng Man wrote into HunBup, that much like how the ROChina imagines that Qing Dynasty Chinese land is all of ROChina,
North Koreans are all technically citizens of the Republic of Korea.
thus, unlike Josonjeok in China, North Koreans from North Korea gain automatic South Korean citizenship, if they make it over.
I may be in error.
If these people articulated a well founded fear of persecution — if you’re a North Korean, just being AWOL is enough — then sending them back violated Articles 2 and 3 of the ROK Constitution, the Convention on Refugees, and the Convention Against Torture.
The government’s story is absolutely implausible.
Wow, if S Korea really turned back a group of attempted refugees, claiming that they were lost fishermen, that would be bad news, and as far as I know, unprecedented. Has the SK govt ever directly rejected NK refugees before?
I guess that depends on how you define “directly.”
To be fair, the U.S. government has a pretty mixed record of it own here.
#2, ditto.
Those KCIA Commies should be executed. Rho brought in many pro-North and anti-American Jolla Commies into this most important agency in Korea.
There was an announcement in newspaper that 13 of the most senior officers in KCIA would be fired.
I think they should not only be fired but investigated and executed.
Maybe all thirteen of them if necessary.
“anti-American Jolla Commies”
I know these people all too well. They are liars and crooks! There is a flag airline carrier in Korea that are from Jolla province. Their M.O. is stealing and cheating from their vendors. There was a time when the Yangban would not allow them on the sidewalks, for good reason. Rotten scum.
Whether they were executed or not, being sent to North Korea is a death sentence.
The story was buried on the morning news, and came on right after the handball update. The Chosun Ilbo has it now, in English: http://english.chosun.com/w21d.....80009.html
Strange they had to run a picture of people protesting China in the US, rather than something closer to home. Oh, and if you go to the Korea Times site you can see citizens mourning the death of Namdaemun.
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