[Kim Myong-sik] Farewell to souls sacrificed in two sunken ships

President Moon Jae-in, who just entered the fifth and final year in his tenure, has made one thing certain about his character. That is his candidness, the nature of being unable to hide own thoughts.

When he boasted of Korea’s “success” in battling the COVID-19 pandemic, expressed satisfaction with “stabilizing apartment prices” and pronounced optimism in reviving the economy, he seemed to believe it. When he complained of the opposition lawmakers’ rigorous chastising of his nominees for Cabinet posts, he really had no doubts about their qualifications for the job. He may have a problem in perceiving things, but he is not lying.

One episode that famously showed his candid personality involved his writing on the visitors’ book at the altar for the souls of the dead in the tragic sinking of the Sewol ferry off the South Coast seven years ago. Addressing the 304 victims in the maritime disaster, including 250 high-school students who were on an excursion to Jeju Island, he said, “Boys and girls, you were the stars over the candlelight vigil at the plaza; your souls burned the 10 million candles. I am sorry. I thank you.”

He was referring to the weekend candlelight demonstrations at Seoul’s Gwanghwamun Square in 2016, protesting then President Park Geun-hye’s misdeeds, which led to her removal from office and his eventual takeover. He paid a visit to the altar installed at a port near the scene of the maritime disaster on March 10, 2017, the day when the Constitutional Court confirmed the National Assembly’s impeachment of Park.

It was his natural sentiment to be appreciative of the turn of events from the perishing of the young students that drove the people to vent their anger toward government incompetence. Moon’s aides took trouble to explain his embarrassing words, but the writing plainly revealed his sense of indebtedness to the victims of the disaster, who were the biggest contributors to his gaining power.

So it was not totally incomprehensible that President Moon launched what was the ninth round of investigation into the Sewol ferry incident since 2014 by naming an independent counsel last week. The ruling Democratic Party of Korea had passed a law for yet another “reinvestigation” of the Sewol tragedy with its majority power in the current legislature. The special prosecutor will work for the next three months although common sense finds little room for further investigation.

Previous probes had been conducted first by an ordinary team of prosecutors in charge of major disasters and then by an Assembly panel, the Board of Audit and Inspection, the Maritime Safety Board, a joint civilian-official inquiry group, a maritime transport experts’ team, a special oversight body on social calamities and lastly another prosecution task force.

These ad hoc groups looked into defects in the ferry’s operational equipment and system and checked the cause of delays in the coast guard’s and the Navy’s rescue efforts. The ship’s skipper and responsible maritime safety officials were prosecuted for gross negligence. Faults were primarily attributed to the ferry’s owner who failed to correct its structural problems.

The first coast guard patrol craft arrived at the scene 2 1/2 hours after the ferry lost balance and began submerging. President Park appeared at the government disaster control center seven hours after the first SOS from the ferry. The Blue House explained that its staff was misled by an erroneous early news report of “all rescued safely.”

From the fateful spring of 2014, just a year after her inauguration, Park isolated herself from those who helped her rise to power and depended increasingly on her female confidant in both private and official matters, while outsiders, including the mainstream media, were chasing her fictitious romance with a male friend. The Sewol disaster precipitated her fall from grace -- eventually into prison.

Truly, the loss of human lives on a massive scale matters a lot in politics. Another maritime disaster, the sinking of a Navy corvette in the West Sea near the sea border with North Korea killing 46 sailors in 2010 seriously troubled the conservative Lee Myung-bak administration as the leftist opposition made every effort to discredit the government on its claim of North Korean attack.

Domestic partisan disputes smeared the honorable sacrifice of the young defenders. Various conspiracy theorists raised the possibility of a mistake in a joint exercise with the US Navy and other foul play, even after an international investigation team determined a torpedo attack from a mini-sub of North Korean origin was the cause.

Pyongyang persistently denied its responsibility, and leftist politicians and civil activists challenged the government’s condemnation of the North. Since the change of power, leaders of the Moon Jae-in administration have evaded memorial services for the fallen Cheonan crew. Some pro-government media outlets, including KBS, broadcast programs theorizing fantastic causes other than an enemy attack, such as hitting a reef.

The presidential Truth Committee on Military Fatalities began taking steps to “reinvestigate” the Cheonan incident last March. But the families of the dead sailors and survivors of the explosion, including skipper Choe Won-il, made strong protests to the Defense Ministry with support from right-wing groups. The truth commission formally withdrew its reinvestigation plan.

It is understandable that the families of the dead in the Sewol disaster are unsatisfied with the results of past investigations particularly on what had prevented saving more lives from the submerging vessel and on how did maritime authorities try to cover up faults in the upper ranks. But intolerable are those politically-motivated inquisitors who keep calling up the souls of the victims in the two sea incidents.

No further discovery of hidden truths about the Sewol, if there are any, can help the families return to peace of mind. Meanwhile, the survivors of the sunken Cheonan must still be sorry to their fallen colleagues for being unable to silence the doubters of North Korean attack. The nation has unnecessarily spent too much political energy and public emotion in regard to the two sunken ships as ideological division remained painfully sharp in the past years.

The coronavirus caused unbearable troubles to all and it is time for the whole nation, including the political community and the president who might still be specially attached to the dead students, to bid the last farewell to the souls sacrificed in the sea and send the two ships into oblivion.


Kim Myong-sik
Kim Myong-sik is a former editorial writer for The Korea Herald. He was head of the Korea Overseas Information Service in the 2000s. -- Ed.