Category: Cheonan Incident

Of course, it is premature for any government to assign blame for the sinking of the South Korean warship Cheonan before reviewing the detailed findings of a completed investigation. But for many South Koreans, the conclusion is already inescapable that North Korea did it. That’s my hunch, too. If I had to pick a favorite theory, it would involve North Korea’s semi-submersibles — they operate well in shallow waters, are hard to see on radar, can move quickly on the...

South Korea has raised the stern section of the Cheonan at last: As tearful families looked on, the South Korean military recovered the bodies of 23 crewmen from the stern of a sunken warship that salvagers raised Thursday from the floor of the Yellow Sea. Officially, five bodies have been identified and 39 are still considered missing until they’re identified, but it appears that only 21 bodies are still missing. At a time like this, all I really have to...

For the first time, the reporters have been allowed to interview survivors of the Cheonan incident. The spontaneity of the surviving sailors’ reactions was diminished by the appearance that they were instructed not to speculate on North Korean involvement, but all seem to agree that the blast came from outside the ship: “I heard a loud boom, and felt my body being instantly lifted up in the air,” Senior Chief Petty Officer Oh Seong-tak told a news conference. “The noise...

The Cheonan incident has claimed another victim, a diver who died in the recovery effort. That effort — Yonhap has a detailed report on it — can hardly be considered a rescue effort now, but one hopes that something can be learned from this disaster so that someone might be saved if something like this happens again. With so much uneducated speculation about the cause of the explosion aboard the Cheonan — here, I include myself — I’ve been waiting...