Island shelling jolts South Korea out of complacency

When the first North Korean artillery shell exploded on Yeonpyeong Island, some residents burst into laughter.

They had been warned in the morning that the South Korean marines would be conducting live-fire drills at sea, so they figured that someone must have mistakenly fired in the wrong direction.

“Uh-oh, some commander is going to lose his job,” schoolteacher Dan Chun-ha said with a chuckle, barely pausing before she went back to the lesson she was giving her kindergarteners.

Even as the air raid sirens wailed and civil defense loudspeakers shrieked, “This is not a drill! This is not a drill!” people dragged their feet. But the shells started coming faster, like raindrops, and then a deluge. Houses burst into flames.

The laughter stopped. The Nov. 23 shelling, in which two marines and two civilian construction workers were killed, shook South Korea’s confidence that North Korea would never inflict any harm.

In recent years, such as those including former President Kim Dae-jung’s “sunshine policy” of more contact with North Korea and his historic visit in 2000 to Pyongyang, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, headlines about North Korea were largely about culture and economy: the first family reunions, the first railroad connections, the first road across the demilitarized zone since the 1950-1953 Korean War.

Now, South Koreans are being thrust back to the Cold War mentality that prevailed in the 1980s, a time when posters on Seoul’s subway cars offered rewards for reporting North Korean spies and when every child knew how to find the nearest bomb shelter.

“I remember when I was in school, we used to have air raid drills and we would take them very seriously. But that changed and we got lackadaisical.... Now our kids are learning again what war is about,” said Dan, 43, who like 1,300 other civilian evacuees from Yeonpyeong was living in a bathhouse in the nearby port city of Incheon.

The South Korean military was conducting drills near the island last month and Pyongyang indicated in messages to Seoul that the exercises were considered “preparation for an invasion.”

After the shelling, the United States and other governments condemned North Korea, while criticizing China, the North’s main ally, for refusing to do so.

China has largely supported North Korea’s position, while holding both Koreas culpable for the tension. China’s top foreign affairs official, State Councilor Dai Bingguo, met Thursday with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, and the two posed and smiled for photographs.

“The two sides reached consensus on bilateral relations and the situation on the Korean peninsula after candid and in-depth talks,” the official New China News Agency said.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu also responded to criticism of Beijing’s position a day earlier by U.S. Adm. Michael G. Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who chastised China for not reining in North Korea.

“I want to ask those people who bring accusations against China what they have done to contribute to the regional peace,” Jiang said.

In a related development, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, announced Wednesday that he would travel to North Korea next week on an unofficial trip.

“If I can contribute to the easing of tension on the peninsula, the trip will be well worth it,” the governor said in a statement.

Although the death toll in the Yeonpyeong shelling was far smaller than the 46 killed in the sinking of the Cheonan warship in March, in large part because the lag time between shells allowed people to go to a shelter, the fact remains that civilians were targeted.

“Absolutely there is a change in perception. Many people are frightened. There was a lot of complacency in the past. Now we are thinking more of our national security,” said Kang Shin-wu, a 27-year-old student from Daejeon who was volunteering at the evacuee shelter in Incheon.

After the shelling, South Korea radio and television announced the locations of bomb shelters, informing Seoul residents to head for the subway in the event of a bombing. A nationwide civil defense drill has been scheduled for Dec. 15 in which traffic around the country will be stopped for 20 minutes.

The attack has also shaken the torpor out of the military establishment. Defense Minister Kim Tae-young resigned amid accusations that the military was caught unprepared. His successor promised in confirmation hearings last week that South Korea would scramble fighter jets to retaliate in the event of another attack.

Because of rules of engagement that required approval from headquarters, South Korean marines on the island didn’t return fire for 14 minutes, enough time for North Korean artillery guns to slip back into their fortified bunkers. Antiquated radar installations on the island also failed to function.

“We’re upset that South Korea couldn’t properly retaliate because they didn’t have the right equipment and training,” said Choi Eun-sook, a 65-year-old Yeonpyeong resident, who cowered in a small room between her kitchen and boiler room during the artillery attack.

Yeonpyeong is about seven miles from North Korea’s Yellow Sea coastline and two miles from what is called the Northern Limit Line, a sea border drawn at the end of the Korean War that has never been accepted by Pyongyang.

It’s so close that on clear days residents with binoculars can see North Koreans moving about onshore. And yet over the decades, Yeonpyeong’s civilian population of about 1,300 lived without fear. Islanders hate it when they read the frequent references to their home as the “front line of World War III,” as some headline writers have put it.

“We felt so safe on the island. It was when we came to Seoul, with the traffic and the crime, that we were afraid,” Choi said.

Now all but a few Yeonpyeong residents have evacuated to Incheon. Many have declared that they will not go home and are demanding that the South Korean government provide them with permanent new housing. While negotiations are underway, they are camped out on the floors of the jimjibang, a peculiarly Korean phenomenon, a bathhouse, sauna and recreational center.

Spa World, as the bathhouse in Incheon is called, has been turned into not only a shelter but also a rallying point for opponents of the North Korean regime. Politicians visit and give speeches. Volunteers distribute clean socks and underwear, bottled water and instant noodles.

On Tuesday, folk musicians were giving a concert on a makeshift stage on which a banner was hung reading, “Yeonpyeong residents are not human shields,” a reference to a claim by North Korea that the island’s civilian population was living there only to protect the military.

A musician led the room in a round of militaristic football chants.

“Dae-han-min-guk,” he screamed, using the Korean term for “Republic of Korea.”

“Fighting! Fighting!” the crowd roared back.

Kim Sung-nam, 64, a lifelong resident of Yeonpyeong, said he was bitter about the support that South Korea had provided to North Korea during the years of the sunshine policy. According to the South Korean government, more than $3.5 billion in aid was given directly by the government, plus billions more provided by private companies.

“We thought the North Koreans were our brothers and wouldn’t attack us. We felt sorry for them because they were poor,” he said. “Now as far as I’m concerned, I’d like to see the skin of their stomachs touch their backs. Let them starve.”

barbara.demick@latimes.com

Ethan S. Kim of The Times’ Seoul Bureau contributed to this report.