Home » Archives » KoreanStudies » The late Shin Sang-ok, and other mysteries
| The late Shin Sang-ok, and other mysteries [message #8595] |
Wed, 03 May 2006 09:09  |
Afostercarter
Messages: 185
Registered: November 2000
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Senior Member |
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Dear colleagues,
The death of the film director Shin Sang-ok has attracted
quite wide notice; e.g. an obituary in The Economist:
http://economist.com/people/displaystory.cfm?story_id=684997 9
It also reignites some nagging questions:
1. Was his and Choi Eun-hee's memoir of their North Korean sojourn
ever published in English? If not, why not?
An agent sent me a copy of the manuscript in 2003. It was dated 1987,
which already makes one wonder why it had not come out much sooner.
I believe it was long ago published in Korean and Japanese?
2. (How to put this delicately; de mortuis...) Is there any consensus
on whether either or both of them were indeed kidnapped to Pyongyang,
wholly involuntarily, as they afterwards insisted? I have heard rumours
that there may have been more to it - or is that just cynicism?
3. Similarly, in dissident circles in the ROK one used to hear claims
that the 1983 Rangoon bomb, and/or the 1987 downing of KAL 858, were
pepetrated not by North Korea but by either the KCIA or persons unknown.
Given that in each case one of the DPRK agent perpetrators was caught and
confessed, can such doubts safely be dismissed as 'progressive' paranoia?
Case closed? - or do any genuine questions remain about either incident?
(I recall, but cannot now trace, a website in English about KAL858 which
did ask what seemed some quite cogent questions about the matter;
notwithstanding the full and lucrative confessions of the "virgin bomber",
Ms Kim Hyon-hui.)
4. Finally, what of the mysterious bomb which killed five people at Kimpo
in September 1986? A US government website blames NK for this one too:
http://usinfo.state.gov/is/international_security/terrorism/ terror_chronology.
html
However, if I recall aright, the ROK never pointed the finger at Pyongyang
over that incident. Whodunit, then?
Can any sleuths on the list close the file on these cases?
cheers
Aidan
AIDAN FOSTER-CARTER
Honorary Senior Research Fellow in Sociology & Modern Korea, Leeds University
Home address: 17 Birklands Road, Shipley, West Yorkshire, BD18 3BY, UK
tel: +44(0) 1274 588586 (alt) +44(0) 1264 737634 mobile:
+44(0) 7970 741307
fax: +44(0) 1274 773663 ISDN: +44(0) 1274 589280
Email: afostercarter@aol.com (alt) afostercarter@yahoo.com website:
www.aidanfc.net
[Please use @aol; but if any problems, please try @yahoo too - and let me
know, so I can chide AOL]
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| Re: The late Shin Sang-ok, and other mysteries [message #8597 is a reply to message #8595] |
Wed, 03 May 2006 18:19  |
caprio
Messages: 54
Registered: December 1998
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Member |
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I have also wondered quietly about some of the questions
raised by Aidan. Seems there
is always one person who survives to confess his/her connections
with the North. No, I am not the sleuth capable of closing any of the
cases mentioned, but I can volunteer the following.
I believe that I read somewhere that one ofthe airline
disasters (maybe 858) blamed on North Korea is being reinvestigated
as part of President Roh's history clarification project.
A second case, involving a Japan-based Korean who (I believe)
atempted to assassinate Park Chung-hee during a political speech
(and killed his wife instead?), was always assumed to
have been North orchestrated as the assassin was a member of the
Chosen soren. The Japanese have long argued that its investigation found
no connection with the North. A while back it was reported that this case
too was being reinvestigated as part of Roh's project.
Mark Caprio
---------- ヘッダ -----------
送信者 : koreanstudies-bounces@koreaweb.ws
宛先 : koreanstudies@koreaweb.ws
Cc :
日付 : Wed, 3 May 2006 09:09:09 EDT
件名 : [KS] The late Shin Sang-ok, and other mysteries
> Dear colleagues,
>
> The death of the film director Shin Sang-ok has attracted
> quite wide notice; e.g. an obituary in The Economist:
> http://economist.com/people/displaystory.cfm?story_id=684997 9
>
> It also reignites some nagging questions:
>
> 1. Was his and Choi Eun-hee's memoir of their North Korean sojourn
> ever published in English? If not, why not?
>
> An agent sent me a copy of the manuscript in 2003. It was dated 1987,
> which already makes one wonder why it had not come out much sooner.
> I believe it was long ago published in Korean and Japanese?
>
> 2. (How to put this delicately; de mortuis...) Is there any consensus
> on whether either or both of them were indeed kidnapped to Pyongyang,
> wholly involuntarily, as they afterwards insisted? I have heard rumours
> that there may have been more to it - or is that just cynicism?
>
>
> 3. Similarly, in dissident circles in the ROK one used to hear claims
> that the 1983 Rangoon bomb, and/or the 1987 downing of KAL 858, were
> pepetrated not by North Korea but by either the KCIA or persons unknown.
>
> Given that in each case one of the DPRK agent perpetrators was caught and
> confessed, can such doubts safely be dismissed as 'progressive' paranoia?
> Case closed? - or do any genuine questions remain about either incident?
>
> (I recall, but cannot now trace, a website in English about KAL858 which
> did ask what seemed some quite cogent questions about the matter;
> notwithstanding the full and lucrative confessions of the "virgin bomber",
> Ms Kim Hyon-hui.)
>
>
> 4. Finally, what of the mysterious bomb which killed five people at Kimpo
> in September 1986? A US government website blames NK for this one too:
> http://usinfo.state.gov/is/international_security/terrorism/ terror_chronology.
> html
> However, if I recall aright, the ROK never pointed the finger at Pyongyang
> over that incident. Whodunit, then?
>
> Can any sleuths on the list close the file on these cases?
>
> cheers
> Aidan
>
> AIDAN FOSTER-CARTER
> Honorary Senior Research Fellow in Sociology & Modern Korea, Leeds University
>
> Home address: 17 Birklands Road, Shipley, West Yorkshire, BD18 3BY, UK
> tel: +44(0) 1274 588586 (alt) +44(0) 1264 737634 mobile:
> +44(0) 7970 741307
> fax: +44(0) 1274 773663 ISDN: +44(0) 1274 589280
> Email: afostercarter@aol.com (alt) afostercarter@yahoo.com website:
> www.aidanfc.net
> [Please use @aol; but if any problems, please try @yahoo too - and let me
> know, so I can chide AOL]
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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| Re: The late Shin Sang-ok, and other mysteries [message #8599 is a reply to message #8595] |
Thu, 04 May 2006 08:00 |
Michael Duffy
Messages: 17
Registered: June 2005
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Junior Member |
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Regarding Aidan Foster-Carter's query about whether Shin Sang-ok went to Norh Korea involuntarily or otherwise, the current (inconclusive) state of knowledge/opinion seems best summed up in the obituary in the Independent, written by the doyen of western Korean cinema specialists, Tony Rayns:
In January 1978, Shin's ex-wife Choi Eun-Hee disappeared while working on a film in Hong Kong. Shin went to Hong Kong "to investigate" and himself disappeared in July. Both of them turned up in North Korea and established a new film company in Pyongyang in 1983. The South's National Security Planning Agency issued a statement in 1984 acknowledging that the famous ex-couple had been kidnapped, but Shin issued a counter-statement (under duress, he later claimed) that they had willingly defected to work in the North.
As for the downing of KAL858 in 1987 (about which Shin himself directed a film, "Mayumi", in 1990), I daresay Prof. Foster-Carter has read "Comrades and Strangers" by Michael Harrold, who was living in Pyongyang what the time of the incident, and insisted that such an act would have been counterproductive for the North Korean government. An interesting, though also inconclusive, argument.
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| Re: KAL-858 bombing [message #8600 is a reply to message #8599] |
Thu, 04 May 2006 12:02 |
Balazs Szalontai
Messages: 54
Registered: September 2002
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Member |
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Dear Michael (if I may),
the Hungarian diplomatic documents I found about the KAL-858 case seem to confirm North Korea's involvement in the destruction of the airplane, but at the same time they refute certain elements of the "official" South Korean version of the story. I am of the opinion that Kim Hyong-hui's so-called memoirs should not be considered a credible source, since the author(s) seem(s) to have deliberately distorted the facts in several cases. For this reason, I would like to read some detailed and objective analysis of the KAL-858 bombing, either from a political or a purely technical perspective. Is there any list member who may help me in finding such a publication (preferably in English, German, French or Russian)? I would be also interested in reading more details about Harrold's argument, since his book is unavailable for me for the time being.
All the best,
Balazs
Regarding Aidan Foster-Carter's query about whether Shin Sang-ok went to Norh Korea involuntarily or otherwise, the current (inconclusive) state of knowledge/opinion seems best summed up in the obituary in the Independent, written by the doyen of western Korean cinema specialists, Tony Rayns:
In January 1978, Shin's ex-wife Choi Eun-Hee disappeared while working on a film in Hong Kong. Shin went to Hong Kong "to investigate" and himself disappeared in July. Both of them turned up in North Korea and established a new film company in Pyongyang in 1983. The South's National Security Planning Agency issued a statement in 1984 acknowledging that the famous ex-couple had been kidnapped, but Shin issued a counter-statement (under duress, he later claimed) that they had willingly defected to work in the North.
As for the downing of KAL858 in 1987 (about which Shin himself directed a film, "Mayumi", in 1990), I daresay Prof. Foster-Carter has read "Comrades and Strangers" by Michael Harrold, who was living in Pyongyang what the time of the incident, and insisted that such an act would have been counterproductive for the North Korean government. An interesting, though also inconclusive, argument.
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