Yoon Man-joon, CEO of Hyundai Asan, points at the route presumably taken by Park Wang-ja, the South Korean shot dead at Mt. Geumgang, during a media briefing at the company headquarters in Seoul, Wednesday.
/ Korea Times Photo by Choi Heung-soo |
By Bae Ji-sook
Staff Reporter
Comments made by Hyundai Asan CEO Yoon Man-joon Wednesday have deepened the mystery surrounding the death of South Korean tourist Park Wang-ja who was shot by a North Korean soldier at Mount Geumgang last week. Hyundai Asan operates the tours to the scenic North Korean resort.
Since the North is refusing to allow officials from the South access to the site of the shooting, chances of verifying the truth behind the incident remain very low, analysts said.
Yoon said the North was still refusing to hold a joint investigation, but what he learned at the location was different from what was reported to Seoul.
According to Yoon, North Korean officials said Park left the hotel around 4:18 a.m. and was spotted by the soldier around 4:50 a.m. She was allegedly 800 meters inside a fence delineating a restricted military zone and was walking quickly toward Gisaengbawi. When the solider spotted her, he shouted: ``Stop! If you move, I will shoot'' three times.
Park then turned and ran back toward the fence. She was running on hard ground while the soldier was on soft sand, widening the gap between the two. He then fired one blank, followed by three live rounds.
The time was estimated at around 4:55 a.m. to 5 a.m. and the location was 300 meters from the fence.
It was four hours later that the North reported Park's death to Hyundai ― around 9:20 a.m.― allegedly because she carried no identification.
Yoon's story is quite different to what the North originally alleged right after the news hit the media in the South. Initially, it claimed the woman left the hotel around 4:31 a.m., walked about 1.2 kilometers into a fenced-off military zone and was shot around 4:50 a.m. while heading to the beach.
Yoon explained the initial report was based on the testimony of North Korean troops involved and some Asan officials. They were not professionals and were unable to draw up an exact timeline, he said.
``We have looked into the global positioning system clock and surveillance camera tapes and sorted out the real time,'' he added.
However, he also left many questions unanswered. Yoon could not answer as to whether the shooting involved another person from the army; whether anyone was guarding the fences to warn off tourists; how the soldier could not catch up with a 53-year-old woman; and whether a further joint investigation could be held. He said he did not ask the North about these.
Instead, he asked the North to show more respect to the South. ``The North also expressed regrets once but public antipathy is at a serious level here.''
Yoon visited the North last Saturday, a day after Park's death was reported, and had several meetings with his North Korean counterparts.
bjs@koreatimes.co.kr
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