The sinking of the Cheonan

The South Korean government announced on May 20 that they had evidence supporting the claim that North Korea had sunk the South Korean Cheonan warship with a torpedo fired from a submarine.

Won See-hoon, director of South Korea's National Intelligence, stated to a parliamentary committee in early April (less than two weeks after the incident) that there was no evidence that North Korea attacked the Cheonan. South Korean Defense Minister Kim Tae-young also said the same thing, stating that warship's crew didn't detect a torpedo. Lee Ki-sik, head of the marine operations office at South Korea's joint chiefs of staff, said, “No North Korean warships have been detected…(in) the waters where the accident took place.”

South Korean Defense Ministry officials have been quoted as saying, “We didn’t detect any movement by North Korean submarines nearby.”

A ministry spokesman, Won Tae-jae, told reporters that “With regard to this case, no particular activities by North Korean submarines or semi-submarines…have been verified. I am saying again that there were no activities that could be directly linked to [the sinking].”

South Korean Read Admiral Lee said, “We closely watched the movement of the North’s vessels, including submarines and semi-submersibles, at the time of the sinking. But military did not detect any North Korean submarines near the country’s western sea border.”

So far, North Korea has denied responsibility for the incident. North Korean analysts and investigators have been denied access to the data and materials from the South's inquiry of the incident. If the official story is solid, then why are they afraid of letting the North verify the proof?

It is unlikely that a torpedo could split a 1,200 ton warship in half as the official story goes. Baek Seung-joo, an analyst with the Korea Institute for Defense Analysis commented that, “If a single torpedo or floating mine causes a naval patrol vessel to split in half and sink, we will have to rewrite our military doctrine.”

The warship sank in some shallow waters that submarines have trouble accessing, according to one Southern naval leader. “Some people are pointing the finger at North Korea,” notes Song Young-moo, a former South Korean navy chief of staff, “but anyone with knowledge about the waters where the shipwreck occurred would not draw that conclusion so easily.”

It is possible that the area in which the Cheonan was operating could have been the problem. It is highly possible that the ship could have crashed into a reef. But can a reef crack a warship in two? According to Go Yeong-jae, the South Korean Coast Guard captain who rescued 56 of the stricken warship’s crew, he “received an order …that a naval patrol vessel had run aground in the waters 1.2 miles to the southwest of Baengnyeong Island, and that we were to move there quickly to rescue them.”

The South's inquiry into the alleged torpedo attack stated they had found a torpedo propeller that matches the North Korean model. “But it seemed that the collected parts had been corroding at least for several months,” observers said.

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak has taken a very tough position on North Korea. Lee is a known warhawk and advocates aggressive policies towards the North. He ended a ten year plan for South Korean aid to the North when he first took office in 2008, and refused to continue with cross-border economic projects.

President Lee aims to build support for his policies by blaming the Cheonan sinking on the North. This way he can have an excuse to spend millions of dollars on military equipment in order to help his masters in the US arms industry. The RAND Corporation, for example, has already urged Lee to purchase their navy sensors.

The United States also has every reason to support the claim that the North carried out a torpedo attack. Washington wants to use this as an excuse to keep its 60,000 military personnel based in Japan despite the Japanese citizens disapproval of having US troops occupy their country.

South Korean opposition parties also claim that Lee Myung-bak is fabricating evidence and using "red scare" tactics to build up support for his policies before the upcoming election in June. Woo Sang-ho, a spokesman for South Korea’s Democratic Party has called the probe results “insufficient proof and questioned whether the North was involved at all,” according to JoongAng Daily.

Seoul drew up plans for sanctions against the North and overhauled their national security right before the beginning of the investigation of the Cheonan incident. Civil society groups have denounced the inquiry’s findings because of this, arguing that “The probe started after the conclusions had already been drawn.”

Jung Sung-ki, a staff reporter for The Korean Times, has raised a number of questions about the inquiry’s findings. The inquiry concluded that “two North Korean submarines, one 300-ton Sango class and the other 130-ton Yeono class, were involved in the attack. Under the cover of the Sango class, the midget Yeono class submarine approached the Cheonan and launched the CHT-02D torpedo manufactured by North Korea.” But “’Sango class submarines…do not have an advanced system to guide homing weapons,’ an expert at a missile manufacturer told The Korea Times on condition of anonymity. ‘If a smaller class submarine was involved, there is a bigger question mark.’”

Russia has stated recently that it is sending navy officials to look into the South Korean inquiry. Moscow claims it has its own theory about the incident, and that if Russia was involved in the investigation from the beginning the findings would be more impartial.

This "sinking" of the Cheonan is reminiscent of the Gulf of Tonkin incident, in which the US fabricated a story about North Vietnam sinking the USS Maddox. This was used as an excuse to attack North Vietnam. Now we see America and South Korea fabricating evidence in order to carry out an aggressive strategy towards North Korea under the pretext of "self-defense."