Audacity of the thief

By Park Moo-jong

To describe a certain situation, emotion or psychological condition in our daily lives, we used to quote traditional Chinese idiomatic expressions, most of which consist of four Chinese characters.

The idioms numbering around 5,000 are mostly derived from ancient literature, called "saja-seongeo" (四字成語) in Korean and in Chinese.

One of them may come to mind for many people in the wake of the brutal assassination of Kim Jong-nam, the older half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, at Kuala Lumpur International Airport last week.

The idiom in point is "jeok ban ha jang" (賊反荷丈). "Jeok" means a thief, "ban" anti- or opposite, "ha" hold, and "jang" stick or club. Thus, it means, "A thief holds a stick (to hit the house owner as he or she is caught on the crime scene)."

In other words, it can be translated as "carrying the war into the enemy's camp" or "the thief had the audacity to say that (the burglary) was the house owner's fault."

Evidence the Malaysian police secured "definitely" points to North Korea, more precisely Kim Jong-un as being behind the heinous crime.

Police in the Southeast Asian country, which has maintained a rather "closer" diplomatic relationship with North Korea over the past four decades, announced that they had confirmed it was the work of North Korea, based on facts and evidence collected so far.

The media war, mainly led by Japanese news outlets (not by Koreans), proves one after another that North Korea orchestrated the felony, strongly supported by the airport's video footage.

Never betraying the expectations of the rest of the world, North Korea, as expected, came up with an absurd and nonsensical claim that Malaysia and South Korea colluded out of political motives to fabricate the case to help South Korea distract attention from its ongoing political chaos following the parliamentary impeachment of the embattled President Park Geun-hye.

The dumbfounded and illogical claim of North Korea, made by its Ambassador to Malaysia Kang Chol, only testifies to North Korea's audacity and Kim Jong-un's reckless dictatorship.

How could North Korea have the gall to blame Malaysia and the Republic of Korea for the killing of the fugitive half-brother of its young leader Kim Jong-un in the face of clear evidence?

Airport CCTV footage shows the scene of the two women's attack on Kim so clearly, and he died soon after. How could the diplomat claim that "Kim Jong-nam died of natural causes."

Undisputedly, Ambassador Kang must be fully acting according to the order of Kim Jong-un. What a pity! However, that's not the supposed role for an ambassador in a country where he is stationed to "promote friendship and cooperation" with his nation.

It is interesting that Kim Jong-un, Ambassador Kang and those in Pyongyang do not know that Kang's blaming of Malaysia and South Korea will only intensify the suspicion of them being behind the brutal murder.

What's unbecoming further is their "idea" of linking Kim's death to the controversy over the deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system against North Korea's missiles.

It is no wonder at all that the angry Malaysian government recalled its envoy to North Korea and summoned Ambassador Kang for a dressing down.

Why is China, the undisputed and probably sole ally of North Korea, taking immediate economic sanction of banning the import of North Korean coal following the incident?

It is still vivid in our memory that North Korea killed 17 of our officials, including a deputy premier, in a terrorist attack at the Martyrs' Mausoleum in Rangoon (now Yangon) to commemorate Aung San, one of the founders of independent Burma (now Myanmar), on Oct. 9 1983 during President Chun Doo-hwan's state visit to the Southwestern Asian country.

North Korea has never recognized the brutal provocation, even though two North Korean agents were captured and sentenced to death. The Myanmar government immediately cut its diplomatic relationship with North Korea. Japan, the United States and other Western countries took various political and economic sanctions against North Korea.

At that time, it was proved that the North Korean Embassy orchestrated the terrorist attack to assassinate President Chun in vain.

The Kuala Lumpur incident is a golden opportunity for the whole international community to understand the "true nature" of the North Korean regime.

However, what is deplorable is the stark reality that there are still many people who follow North Korea's line, making false accusations similar to those claimed by Ambassador Kang.

Many people may be frightened by an earlier remark by Moon Jae-in, now leading the public poll comfortably in the presidential race that "if (Kim Jong-chol) was assassinated by a North Korea's order....." He used the term, "if."

On Tuesday, the opposition leader said, "From now on, I will not use (the expression) of 'if the North did.'"

North Korea is intensifying its threats to the world with its nuclear weapons, making international advice and warning mere preaching to the wind.

A Western proverb comes to my mind, "Spare the rod, and spoil the child."

Park Moo-jong is the advisor of The Korea Times. He served as the president-publisher of the nation's oldest English newspaper founded in 1950 after he worked as a reporter for the daily since 1974. He can be reached at moojong@ktimes.com or emjei29@gmail.com.