Crew Aboard N. Korea Sub Found Dead

South Korean officials opened a captured North Korean submarine today and found nine bodies with wounds that suggested that four of the crew had executed the other five and then killed themselves to avoid capture, South Korean Defense Ministry officials said.

Other evidence found inside the submarine suggested that it was returning from a spy mission in the South when it became entangled in a fishing net Monday and was captured, defense officials said, calling it “a clear violation of the armistice agreement” that ended the Korean War in 1953, as well as other North-South accords.

“We demand that the North immediately admit this illegality, apologize and pledge not to repeat such an incident, in terms acceptable to us,” said Kang Joon Kwon, a spokesman for the Defense Ministry.

Kang said the South will also ask the U.N. Command, which administers the armistice, to lodge a formal protest with North Korean officials at the next meeting between the two sides in the demilitarized zone, a meeting that could take place as early as this weekend.

President Kim Dae Jung was informed of the evidence found inside the captured submarine at 5:20 a.m. today and said, “It looks like the sub’s purpose was infiltration,” according to his spokesman, Park Jie Won. Kim ordered his national security council to conduct a detailed investigation and analysis, Park said.

The South Korean opposition has begun criticizing Kim’s “sunshine policy,” a strategy of engagement and rapprochement with the Communist North that marks a sharp departure from the hard-line approach of his predecessors.

“Kim Dae Jung’s sunshine policy has been proven to be an unrequited love,” Kim Chol, spokesman for the opposition Grand National Party, said Thursday.

But a Washington-based analyst said the latest findings, while they may increase the pressure on Kim, need not force him to abandon the policy.

“It doesn’t change a statesman’s objectives, outlook or strategy,” said Nick Eberstadt, a North Korea expert at the American Enterprise Institute. “If President Kim is a statesman and he’s serious about his sunshine policy, it won’t change anything but his tactical considerations.”

North Korea did eventually apologize for a similar submarine incursion in 1996 that ended after a 53-day manhunt with 24 North Korean infiltrators and 13 South Korean soldiers and civilians dead. However, that apology was extracted months after a major rupture in relations with the South and under heavy pressure from the United States--and South Korean hard-liners note that it did nothing to alter North Korean behavior.

At the moment, the United States appears to have somewhat less leverage over the North Koreans because its main incentive for the North Koreans to behave less belligerently--a multinational project to build nuclear power plants for North Korea in exchange for the North’s promise to halt its dangerous plutonium program--has run into serious trouble in Congress.

Under the 1993 deal, the United States is obligated to send North Korea shipments of heavy fuel oil until the reactors are completed, but Congress has turned down Clinton administration requests to pay for the fuel oil, prompting angry rhetoric from North Korean officials.

Details of exactly what the latest submarine was doing in South Korean waters remained unclear.

When the outer hatch of the vessel was opened Thursday night, South Korean special forces discovered an oxygen tank, diving equipment, some of which was American-made, three frogmen suits and two empty plastic beverage bottles made by Lotte Confectionary Co., a South Korean bottler.

When the inner hatch was opened early today, the bodies of nine crew members were found. Five of them had multiple gunshot wounds, but four others had only one bullet wound to the head.

“It is presumed that there was disagreement about committing suicide, so five were executed first and four killed themselves later,” said Lt. Gen. Chung Woong Jin, a spokesman for the South Korean Defense Ministry.

Also found was a weapons cache, including an AK-47 rifle, two machine guns, a rocket launcher, two Czech-made pistols and a hand grenade, Chung said.

The 82-foot submarine was already partially submerged when South Korean officials, alerted by a fishing boat, arrived on the scene off the eastern coast of South Korea on Monday evening, Chung said. The crew was presumed dead because there was no response to demands to surrender, hammering on the hull or underwater explosions.

The sub sank Tuesday as it was being towed to Donghae naval base, and the South Korean navy used air bags to raise it 110 feet off the sea floor.

The bodies of the dead crew were taken to a hospital and will be returned to North Korea if requested.

The sub, a new type of vessel not seen before by the South Koreans, will be kept for intelligence study, state-run television said.

Chi Jung Nam of The Times’ Seoul Bureau contributed to this report.