From wharms@soback.kornet.nm.kr
Date: Fri, 20 Sep 1996 05:32:26 -0900
From: Bill Harms 
To: moogoonghwa 
Subject: Submarine infiltration incident

Korea Herald 20 September 1996

By Kim Kyung-ho Staff reporter 

The infiltration of North Korean agents into South Korea is threatening to
run aground inter-Korean relations. It irritated the South Korean
government, which has been patiently waiting for Pyongyang to change its
hostile attitude. 

Dismissing the possibility that the submarine became stranded during a
training exercise, South Korean officials took the incident as an act of
provocation. President Kim Young-sam said yesterday the infiltration by a
submarine is an act of armed provocation, not a mere dispatching of spies. 

On Wednesday, security-related ministers termed the incident a direct threat
to the security of South Korea as well as a severe violation of the 1953
Korean Armistice and pledged stern countermeasures. A Defense Ministry
official said it seemed that the North Korean submarine had planned to land
armed agents, but its crewmen also had to come ashore after the submarine
with an engine trouble ran aground. 

The infiltration is certain to further narrow the room for Seoul to show a
conciliatory gesture toward Pyongyang in a bid to lure it into four-way
peace talks proposed by South Korea and the United States, which would also
involve China. While announcing a decision last week to boycott a North
Korean investment seminar following Pyongyang's refusal to invite all South
Korean applicants, Seoul made it clear it would continue limited economic
cooperation with the North. 

During a trip to Latin American nations earlier this month, President Kim
Young-sam said South Korea would give $350,000 to North Korea to help it
restore a drug plant damaged by last year's floods. Unlike last year,
Foreign Minister Gong Ro-myung has also been planning to avoid mentioning
the human rights situation in North Korea in his keynote speech to the U.N.
General Assembly next week. 

An official at the Foreign Ministry said the infiltration of North Korean
agents would strengthen the voice of those in the government who insist on
tough action against the North at the United Nations. Another ministry
official raised the need for a wider look into details of the incident
before taking countermeasures, cautiously suggesting there is a possibility
the submarine became stranded. He said his ministry has no immediate plan to
take the case to the U.N. Security Council. 

Washington's initial response to the infiltration was also reserved. In a
regular news briefing Wednesday, U.S. State Department spokesman Nicholas
Burns referred an answer to a question on the incident to the South
Korean government, saying Washington has no independent knowledge of it. 

``We don't know what the motivation was for these people to come ashore...I
think it's too early to jump to conclusions,'' he said. ``Our long range
objective here is to work with the South Korean government to try to
convince the North Koreans to engage in a diplomatic discussion for peace on
the Korean Peninsula and for a peace treaty that would finally end the
Korean War.'' South Korean analysts who regard the infiltration as a
deliberate provocative act indicate there may be a conflict between
political hard-liners and economic pragmatists in Pyongyang on the future
course for North Korea. 

They say North Korean hawks, seemingly gaining the upper hand over
technocrats, may have attempted to increase tension on the Korean Peninsula
in a bid to push its demand for a peace treaty with the United States,
excluding the South. The infiltration may also have been designed to turn
North Korean people's attention from internal difficulties, including a
sharp food shortage. 

Whatever North Korea's real intention may be, a North Korea watcher here
says the incident shows how difficult it will be to make a peace arrangement
with North Korea, which continues to stick to its decades-long strategy of
communizing the South. 






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