Intelligence

he KAL's Flight-858 Incident: What is Meant by It

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On November 29, 1987, the Korean Airline's passenger plane (Flight No. 858) due for Seoul, with 115 people aboard, just disappeared while flying over the gulf of Martaban, Myanmar. Two days later the Korean Security Planning Agency (KSPA) told the public that the plane had been downed in explosion by the acts of two North Korean terrorists, named Kim Hyonhee (a young lady in her twenties) and Kim Sungil (aged over 70).

The cause of the incident as it was insisted by KSPA was not convincing at all. They had not any single piece of material evidence whatsoever (aircraft wreckage, victims' bodies and their personal belongings, etc) gathered as the result of official investigations that would support their conclusion about the cause of the incident. Notably, KSPA had the investigation crew terminate their searching activity and withdraw from the site only after 10 days of operation, abandoning even their duty of looking for the black-box.

There was a relief boat exhibited by KSPA as had been collected from the sea on the tenth day of the incident. But the boat was hardly seen as something that had come through the aircraft explosion. The boat itself was perfect in its own shape while an air pomp inside the boat fold-up had a slight damage inflicted. How can that happen?

The KSPA displayed a decades-old picture of a schoolgirl taken at an airport event in Pyongyang trying to identify her to be Kim Hyonhee, so insisting that Kim came dispatched from North Korea. Kim also confirmed in public that the girl in the picture was herself. But it soon became apparent that they are different persons having ears of different shapes.

The KSPA story of the incident was thus full of doubts and contradictions. The gathering of the incident victims family members have repeated their petitions to the government of different regimes for the last 15 years calling for an overall reinvestigation of the incident. But their heartbreaking calls have not been favorably responded with due action so far and by this year of 2002, the prosecutorial validity for this case expires in November, perhaps leaving no chance for a court trial to be carried out on the basis of a true story that may be unveiled by a reinvestigation.

It may be true that Kim Hyonhee was ruled guilty on the basis of a KSPA scenario in which she had professed herself to be the main actor for the explosion. And there is no doubt that the court decision was made in a perfect absence of material evidences that could help prove Kim's statement to be true. The victims families appeal to the conscience of Kim Hyonhee and hope that she will now tell the true story about her own share of performance in the tragic drama.

Democracy has progressed in South Korea while the prospect for national reconciliation and eventual reunification between the North and South is brighter today than ever on the peninsula. Now the KAL plane missing incident is one of the most important human-rights problems that requires an urgent and thorough review at the government level. It is to be noted that growing concerns are being paid from every corner of our society to see the justice uphold in dealing with this case.

November 17, 2005 at 11:38 PM in Japan | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home