North Korean Agression

On Tuesday 24th November the North Korean army committed an unprovoked artillery assault on the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong, killing two South Korean soldiers and wounding many civilians. Some two hundred shells wire fired across theborder over a period of one hour, with most of the shells falling upon civilian areas. In response to the attack South Korea responded by firing eighty shells of its own.

Tensions in the area have remained high since the termination of the Korean war. in 1947, a war in which the North was supported by Russia and Japan,whilst America and the United Nations supported the South. A peace treaty was never signed, which effectively means that the two countries are officially still at war, although an ‘uneasy’ peace has endured for most of this post war period.

Earlier this year tensions mounted when a South Korean naval vessel was sunk by a torpedo resulting in the death of fifty four South Korean sailors. A subsequentinvestigation suggested that the torpedo was fired from a North Korean submarine.

North Korea has long been considered a rogue state, with its brutal and inhumane political system, and where those accused of committing a crime are imprisoned together with their children and also with the children of their children

The activities of this state have attracted increasing criticism from the international community not only over its abysmal human rights record, but also because of its efforts to create a nuclear facility to produce highly enriched uranium which it claims is for generating electricity, but which could also be adapted to build up a nuclear arsenal.

There are already eight countries which possess nuclear weapons, these being Great Britain, France, the USA, Israel, Russia, China, and more recently India and Pakistan. For a rogue state such as North Korea or Iran to develop a nuclear capacity would make the world even less safe.Trade sanctions against North Korea have been in place for some time now, but China has consistently ignored world opinion, and has chosen instead to violate these sanctions and to assist North Korea in becoming the threat that it now represents.

On Sunday November 30th the aircraft carrier ‘ George Washington’ sailed into the Yellow Sea, not only to conduct joint military exercises with South Korea, but also as a show of support. North Korea has warned of ‘unpredictable consequences’ if her territory is violated, and has threatened to attack any who do so./TE