[Editorial] Explosion in Yanggang Province: What was the Government Doing?

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) released a report announcing that the large-scale explosion which occurred in Yanggang Province of North Korea was part of a blasting project for the construction of a hydroelectric power plant. The news was apparently passed on by North Korean Foreign Minister Baek Nam-sun to the British Undersecretary of State for Foreign Affairs Bill Rammell, who is currently on a tour of Pyongyang, so it would be fair to view it as the official explanation of the North Korean government. This latest report seems likely to wrap up the incident—which sparked diverse speculations from nuclear testing to a forest fire—as a mere harmless “episode,” but the aftertaste is far from clean.

The overriding question is, what has our government been doing in the meantime? They claimed to have known of the incident at an early stage and to be in the process of finding out what had really happened, but on the fifth day since the explosion, they still had nothing much to say. This means that our government, which should have a better grasp on the inside workings of the North Korean government than anybody else, was at a total loss to figure out even the basic facts of the case. One cannot help but wonder if this is the extent of our independent counter-North Korean intelligence, as well as whether or not the R.O.K.-U.S. channel of information is operating properly.

This latest incident is a further disappointment when viewed in the context of our government’s adherence to a conciliatory-cooperative policy toward the North. Cheong Wa Dae has repeatedly emphasized the existence of consistent channels of conversation between the two Koreas, including various minister-level meetings and the West Sea military hotline. If North-South relations have improved as substantially as the government claims, why did they not think of inquiring directly to the North Korean government regarding an issue of this magnitude?

The attitude of the North Korean government is a problem as well. The explosion was notable enough to become a subject of international controversy, and yet they decided to divulge the truth of the incident to a third-country diplomat rather than to the South Korean government. This act reveals their utter lack of regard for the South, which is the most immediately concerned party in any unforeseen incidents involving the North. Is this the so-called “national cooperation” that North Korea advocated? Pyongyang surely ought to act with more consideration at this juncture, especially in light of the fact that the entire international community is focusing their attention on North Korea’s “October Nuclear Test.”

Our government should take this opportunity to pursue such necessary measures as reinforcing our counter-North Korean intelligence system. To start with, we should look closely into verifying Foreign Minister Baek’s disclosure regarding the cause of the explosion.