[KS] The late Shin Sang-ok, and other mysteries

[caprio]

I have also wondered quietly about some of the questions
raised by Aidan. Seems there
is always one person who survives to confess his/her connections
with the North. No, I am not the sleuth capable of closing any of the
cases mentioned, but I can volunteer the following. 

I believe that I read somewhere that one ofthe airline
disasters (maybe 858) blamed on North Korea is being reinvestigated
as part of President Roh's history clarification project.

A second case, involving a Japan-based Korean who (I believe)
atempted to assassinate Park Chung-hee during a political speech 
(and killed his wife instead?), was always assumed to
have been North orchestrated as the assassin was a member of the
Chosen soren. The Japanese have long argued that its investigation found
no connection with the North. A while back it was reported that this case
too was being reinvestigated as part of Roh's project.

Mark Caprio

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送信者      : koreanstudies-bounces at koreaweb.ws
宛先          : koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws
Cc          : 
日付      : Wed, 3 May 2006 09:09:09 EDT
件名 : [KS] The late Shin Sang-ok, and other mysteries

> Dear colleagues,
> 
> The death of the film director Shin Sang-ok has attracted 
> quite wide notice; e.g. an obituary in The Economist: 
> http://economist.com/people/displaystory.cfm?story_id=6849979
> 
> It also reignites some nagging questions:
> 
> 1. Was his and Choi Eun-hee's memoir of their North Korean sojourn
> ever published in English? If not, why not?
> 
> An agent sent me a copy of the manuscript in 2003. It was dated 1987,
> which already makes one wonder why it had not come out much sooner.
> I believe it was long ago published in Korean and Japanese?
> 
> 2. (How to put this delicately; de mortuis...) Is there any consensus 
> on whether either or both of them were indeed kidnapped to Pyongyang,
> wholly involuntarily, as they afterwards insisted? I have heard rumours
> that there may have been more to it - or is that just cynicism?
> 
> 
> 3. Similarly, in dissident circles in the ROK one used to hear claims
> that the 1983 Rangoon bomb, and/or the 1987 downing of KAL 858, were
> pepetrated not by North Korea but by either the KCIA or persons unknown.
> 
> Given that in each case one of the DPRK agent perpetrators was caught and
> confessed, can such doubts safely be dismissed as 'progressive' paranoia?
> Case closed? - or do any genuine questions remain about either incident?
> 
> (I recall, but cannot now trace, a website in English about KAL858 which 
> did ask what seemed some quite cogent questions about the matter;
> notwithstanding  the full and lucrative confessions of the "virgin bomber",
> Ms Kim Hyon-hui.)
> 
> 
> 4. Finally, what of the mysterious bomb which killed five people at Kimpo
> in September 1986?  A US government website blames NK for this one too:
> http://usinfo.state.gov/is/international_security/terrorism/terror_chronology.
> html
> However, if I recall aright, the ROK never pointed the finger at Pyongyang
> over that incident. Whodunit, then?
> 
> Can any sleuths on the list close the file on these cases?
> 
> cheers
> Aidan
> 
> AIDAN FOSTER-CARTER
> Honorary Senior Research Fellow in Sociology & Modern Korea, Leeds University 
> 
> Home address: 17 Birklands Road, Shipley, West Yorkshire, BD18 3BY, UK 
> tel: +44(0)  1274  588586         (alt) +44(0) 1264 737634          mobile:  
> +44(0)  7970  741307 
> fax: +44(0)  1274  773663         ISDN:   +44(0)   1274 589280
> Email: afostercarter at aol.com     (alt) afostercarter at yahoo.com      website: 
> www.aidanfc.net
> [Please use @aol; but if any problems, please try @yahoo too - and let me 
> know, so I can chide AOL]
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>