'Did Lee Jae Myung government wait for rain to wash away proof of North Korean attack?'

Calls Joint Chiefs' lengthy rebuttal 'pathetic' within 10 minutes of its release

Independent lawmaker Han Dong-hoon holds a one-person protest in front of the Ministry of National Defense in Yongsan, Seoul, on Thursday. [Yonhap]
Independent lawmaker Han Dong-hoon holds a one-person protest in front of the Ministry of National Defense in Yongsan, Seoul, on Thursday. [Yonhap]

Independent lawmaker Han Dong-hoon said Friday that rain forecast for Paju later in the day raised a troubling question. "According to the Korea Meteorological Administration's forecast for Friday, rain is expected in Paju from late afternoon," he wrote. "Was the Lee Jae Myung government waiting for this rain to wash away the evidence of North Korea's mine attack?"

Han posted a series of messages on Facebook that day, saying the Democratic Party was insisting on delaying a field investigation of the mine blast site until after the chuseok holiday. He said Democratic Party lawmaker Kim Byung-joo — whom he mocked as a "dung-star general" protesting outside the Supreme Court rather than the Defense Ministry — had argued the blast area was "too dangerous to rush the investigation."

Han went on to say that if Kim's logic held, "then the people who sent our soldiers into such a dangerous, life-threatening place and got their ankles blown off should all be investigated by a special prosecutor and thrown in prison, just like in the Corporal Chae case. Did the UN Command not know it was dangerous when it called for an immediate on-site investigation?"

He added: "If the rain comes and the evidence disappears, will you take responsibility? If North Korea tampers with the evidence while you stall for time, can you stop them? Let Kim Byung-joo or anyone else in the Democratic Party answer that."

In a separate post, Han criticized President Lee, saying the leader who had once boasted he would "ruin anyone who touches a Korean" was now staying silent on North Korea's mine attack while expressing anger only over the publicized entry of North Korean prisoners of war into South Korea.

He also took a swipe at Defense Minister Kang Shin-chul, saying sarcastically that the minister claimed he could not conduct the mine investigation because the chuseok holiday was a public holiday, yet was busy holding "fashion shows" everywhere.

The remarks came after the Joint Chiefs of Staff pushed back against criticism that the military was dragging its feet on a field investigation into the suspected mine explosion that occurred in the Demilitarized Zone on Thursday. The JCS called the criticism "a distortion of the facts," but Han dismissed its statement as "absurd."

In a media notice issued Thursday night, the JCS said the military had been "thoroughly verifying the circumstances since immediately after the incident, based on statements from soldiers who participated in the operation just before it occurred," and that on Tuesday it had asked the National Forensic Service to conduct a component analysis of the injured soldiers' gear, gauze used to collect gunpowder residue, and shrapnel removed during surgery.

The JCS also said the military was "organizing and training operational personnel for a joint on-site investigation, conducting a phased safety assessment of the access route, and re-checking surveillance and communications conditions," adding that it was "closely coordinating with the UN Command on the division of duties." It said the investigation team would include soldiers who had carried out the operation at the time, with consideration given to helping them overcome post-traumatic stress, in order to pinpoint the exact location of the incident.

Han shared the JCS statement on his Facebook page and said it confirmed that "three days have passed and no on-site investigation has been conducted at all — and even now, they are merely preparing." He noted the statement gave no date for when the investigation would take place and did not walk back the earlier position that it would be held after the chuseok holiday.

He said the statement said "not a word about evidence being destroyed or lost because the on-site investigation is not being carried out in a timely manner," and called it "an absurd statement that talks about keeping all possibilities open while saying not a single word about countermeasures or heightened alert regarding North Korea — just watching Kim Jong-un's reaction."

Han demanded that the Lee government and the Defense Ministry "stop that pathetic talk and answer who will be held responsible, and how, for the destruction and loss of evidence."


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