Park Jung-hwan, the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is present at the general meeting of the National Defense Commission held at the National Assembly on the afternoon of the 17th and reports on the situation related to the 22nd Division’s return to the coast (presumed). Newsis
The Joint Chiefs of Staff said on the 16th that at 7:20 am, a North Korean man was captured and investigated near a civilian control line in Goseong-gun, Gangwon-do. It is believed that the man, wearing a wetsuit, swam, crossed the northern limit line of the East Sea, and then passed through the drainage passage below the coastal iron fence near the Unification Observatory. The military previously confirmed that a man moving along the national highway at 4:20 am on a closed circuit TV.
This incident is a shock in that it has penetrated not only the sea, but also the borders of the coastline and inland military. It is not convincing that no action was taken even after being captured by surveillance equipment several times, and that it took 3 hours to secure recruits after CCTV capture. Moreover, on the 16th, the so-called’Gwangmyeong Seongjeol’ was a time when North Korea was concerned about the possibility of military provocation. It’s dazzling to think about what would have happened if the North Korean army had come down with thoughts and arms.
The failure of the military’s borders is hard to count. In November of last year, a North Korean man was caught walking for 14 hours after crossing a barbed wire in the same area. In July of last year, North Korean defectors in their twenties traveled to North Korea through a drainage channel under the coastal railroad fence in Ganghwa Island, and even when a North Korean wooden boat entered Samcheok Port in Gangwon in June 2019, the South Korean military did not notice. The area where the incident took place this time was the place where the North Korean soldier knocked on the door of our Socho in October 2012 and suffered from measles due to the’knock defection’.
The military reprimanded the person in charge each time and pledged to prevent recurrence. The people also readily responded to the request for the need for a state-of-the-art scientific alert system and surveillance equipment costing hundreds of billions of dollars. However, the same thing happened, and the promise was overshadowed. I wonder where the budget went and why the equipment became obsolete. The military should come up with a fundamental solution rather than suturing with personal error. It is also necessary to check whether there is a widespread discipline problem across the military. President Moon Jae-in’s final efforts for the peace process on the Korean Peninsula can only shine when a tight army is premised. There is no one to seriously negotiate with an opponent who has an army who cannot even be alert.
News directly edited by the Hankook Ilbo can also be viewed on Naver.
