Sunshine and Cold Water

Historians, take note. South Korea has actually demanded an apology from North Korea for something:

South Korea demanded an apology and further explanation from North Korea on Tuesday over a sudden discharge of dam water that left six people dead or missing, saying the North’s response was not satisfactory.

Some 40 million tons of water from the North’s Hwanggang Dam pushed through the Imjin River, which flows out to South Korea’s west coast, at pre-dawn hours on Sunday, sweeping away the victims who were camping or fishing along the riverbanks. [Yonhap]

I haven’t posted on this story previously, in part because I’m not personally convinced that this was murder with malice aforethought as opposed to plain old ordinary reckless incompetence. The North’s response doesn’t sound at all bellicose by North Korean standards:

The North in a letter sent through an inter-Korean hotline said it looked into the incident and “found that the water was discharged in an emergency as it reached high levels.” Pyongyang also said it will issue alerts in the future to prevent a recurrence of similar floods.

This detail would also seem to suggest recklessness:

Meanwhile, South Korea returned to the North the body of a North Korean boy, which had drifted downriver along with the floodwater, ministry officials said. The boy, aged four or five and discovered by a South Korean army guard, was handed over to the North through the truce village of Panmunjom on “humanitarian grounds,” said Lee Jong-joo, spokeswoman for the ministry.

South Korea has since returned the child’s body to the North, via Panmunjom. With North Korea, it can be hard to tell where callousness ends and malice aforethought begins. I’ve struggled with that very question with regard to the Great Famine since I first started that blog.