West Sea Crisis in Korea

Since 1945, the US has maintained a continuous military presence in South Korea, with an estimated 28,500 US troops currently stationed in South Korea.  Sixty-five years later, the US still retains wartime operational control over South Korean forces, and the US and South Korean militaries routinely conduct joint war-simulation exercises near the DMZ and within contested waters off the Korean peninsula.  These combined drills are an overt show of force, displaying the sophistication of US and South Korean military technology.  North Korea condemns the military exercises as provocative because it regards these maneuvers as a possible smokescreen for a real attack.

Naval Skirmishes Amid an Ongoing State of War
Compiled by Nan Kim, Alliance of Scholars Concerned about Korea (asck.org)

• The Korean War has never formally ended.  Only a temporary armistice suspended the military hostilities in 1953, but peace treaty talks in Geneva broke down in 1954.  Millions of Koreans remain separated from their family members due to the continued state of war and division in Korea.

• Without a permanent peace treaty, the two Koreas have not agreed upon a mutual recognition of maritime borders, and they lack the formal diplomatic channels that could help prevent the escalation of border clashes both on land and at sea, particularly in the contested waters off Korea’s west coast.  According to Leon Sigal, former editorial board member of the New York Times, “Those waters have been troubled ever since . . . 1953, when the US Navy unilaterally imposed a ceasefire line at sea north of the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) on land.  North Korea has long objected to this Northern Limit Line (NLL), which is not recognized internationally.  It wants the MDL line extended out to sea” (Arms Control Today, Nov 2010).

• Naval firefights over the NLL have intensified in recent years.  In June 1999, one such skirmish led to the sinking of a North Korean vessel, killing “at least 17 and as many as 80 North Korean sailors” (Reuters, Jan 26, 2010).  In June 2002, “A clash between South and North Korean naval vessels in the Yellow Sea [sank] one South Korean frigate and [killed] six South Korean sailors and an estimated 13 North Koreans” (Reuters, Jan 26, 2010).  In 2009, both sides threatened each other with a third West Sea skirmish.

• Prior South Korean administrations made progress in resolving the mutual claims over contested waters, but those diplomatic efforts were abandoned by the current Lee administration, which has taken a hostile stance toward North Korea.

• In October 2007, an inter-Korean summit meeting between Roh Moo-Hyun, the previous South Korean president (2003-2008), and Kim Jong Il yielded a declaration that committed both sides to concrete measures toward improving inter-Korean relations.  Both pledged to negotiate a joint fishing area and agreed to a proposal to create a “peace and cooperation zone” in the West Sea, which was aimed at transforming the heavily militarized waters into a maritime region for economic cooperation.  Significantly, in that declaration North Korea agreed to leave the NLL intact.

• Yet, within months, President-elect Lee Myung-bak rescinded the October 4 Declaration and later abrogated the inter-Korean accord from the historic 2000 summit, which had provided a common approach for both North Korea and South Korea to work toward reconciliation and eventual reunification.

• Relations deteriorated further in 2009 when North Korea protested South Korea’s decision to fully participate in a US-led naval interdiction initiative, which North Korea regarded as a violation of its national sovereignty.  In response, North Korea renounced all diplomatic and military agreements with South Korea.

• In November 2009, “a North Korean patrol boat crossed the NLL into the contested waters — precisely what the 2007 summit had sought to forestall — and a South Korean vessel fired warning shots at it.  The North returned fire and the South opened up, severely damaging the North Korean vessel and causing an unknown number of casualties” (Sigal, Arms Control Today, Nov 2010).

• In March 2010, the Cheonan, a 1,200-ton South Korean navy corvette, was severed in half and sank in the waters off Baengnyeong Island, the northern-most of the West Sea Islands in the contested waters near the NLL.  Forty-six South Korean sailors died in the sinking.

• The Joint Civil-Military Investigation Group (JIG), a multinational commission led by South Korea, concluded after nearly two months of investigation that a North Korean torpedo sank the Cheonan.  This interpretation has been accepted, with few exceptions, as incontrovertible fact by most mainstream media outlets.

• However, the plausibility of the JIG’s conclusions has been challenged by rigorous scientific and empirical analyses by scholars such as physicist Seunghun Lee (University of Virginia) and political scientist Jae-Jung Suh (Johns Hopkins University) as well as by independent investigations carried out by the South Korean news organization Hankyorehand civic groups such People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy.  They have uncovered tampered evidence and a long list of factual inconsistencies.

• For a detailed synthesis of the multiple independent investigations into the Cheonan sinking, see the Hani.tv documentary, “Beneath the Surface” (bit.ly/cheonan).

• Perhaps the most compelling evidence that casts doubt upon the JIG’s findings is the fact that, despite the tragic loss of 49 lives, nearly all of the 58 surviving crew members escaped serious injury, and the ship’s internal instruments remained intact.  In contrast, scientists have modeled that a torpedo explosion would have sent crew members “flying like bullets” into the surrounding equipment, fracturing bones and likely resulting in fatalities from the explosion’s concussive force.  Yet, autopsies revealed that all of the Cheonan victims died of drowning, not from the injuries they sustained.  As Lee and Suh explain, “the ship’s and crew’s condition is not consistent with the damage expected of an outside explosion” caused by a torpedo, which would have produced a tremendous shock wave (Asia-Pacific Journal, July12, 2010).

• In an article published in July that assessed the evidence regarding the Cheonan sinking, historian Mark E. Caprio (Rikkyo University, Tokyo) wrote: “Confrontational conditions have existed along the Korean peninsula since its division at the end of World War II in 1945.  The exceptionally aggressive attitude taken by the present ROK regime increases the potential for more tragic incidents — planned or accidental — between the two Koreas, which may also pull in allies on both sides.  The US-ROK refusal to participate in negotiations until Pyongyang apologizes for an incident it insists it did not commit, and their decision to pressure the DPRK by holding massive new joint war exercises and by inflicting still more economic sanctions, demonstrates macho but also greatly increases the possibility of more Cheonan-like incidents, and in the gravest scenario a second Korean War” (Asia-Pacific Journal, July 26, 2010)