Lee Urged to Overhaul Crisis Management System
By Na Jeong-ju
Staff Reporter
President Lee Myung-bak faces rising calls to learn lessons from the shooting death of a South Korean tourist in North Korea and overhaul the risk management system in his administration to better counter possible military threats from the Stalinist state.
Lee allegedly received a belated report about the shooting at the Mount Geumgang tourism complex on his way to the National Assembly Friday afternoon to give a speech on inter-Korean relations.
Presidential secretaries asked Lee to change the content of his speech, but Lee ignored the suggestion, the Hankook Ilbo newspaper reported, citing sources at the ruling camp.
During the speech at the Assembly, Lee called on North Korea to reopen reconciliatory inter-Korean talks, saying ``Full dialogue between the two Koreas must resume.'' North Korea on Sunday dismissed Lee's proposal for the resumption of inter-Korean dialogue.
Critics say initial responses to the tourist's death by the Lee government were disappointing. The fact that Lee had a report about the incident hours after it took place suggests the lack of a crisis management system in the Lee government, they said.
``The incident reflects lack of risk management capabilities for Lee and his aides. The crisis management system is not working properly,'' said Chung Sye-kyun, chairman of the largest opposition Democratic Party.
Chung charged Lee caused disruptions in the risk management system by disbanding the National Security Council, which played a central role in coordinating military contingency plans and directing North Korea policies during previous governments.
The party urged Lee to restore dialogue channels with the communist North to get inter-Korean exchanges back on track.
Following the incident, the South Korean government has repeatedly asked for North Korea's full cooperation in the fact-finding effort, but it has refused to allow the entry of South Korean investigators and rather demanded an apology from the South Korean authorities.
``President Lee still remains determined to stimulate support for North Korea on condition of its denuclearization. For that purpose, inter-Korean dialogue must be immediately restarted,'' Cheong Wa Dae spokesman Lee Dong-kwan told reporters.
The spokesman said the South Korean tour program to the Mount Geumgang tourist complex will remain suspended until the South has the ins and outs of the tourist's death.
``The sightseeing program for Geumgang is temporarily halted and the suspension will remain in effect until the shooting incident is satisfactorily settled,'' Lee said.