ADRN

▲ North Korean defectors, who are covering their faces to hide their identities, hold candles at a rally to denounce North Korea’s artillery shelling of Yeonpyeong Island, in Seoul November 29, 2010.

 

North Korea’s attacks on Yeonpyeong Island on Tuesday have added further fuel to the national debate in South Korea about how to deal with Pyongyang.

 

According to a poll taken by the East Asia Institute of 800 adults on Saturday, 68.6 percent said military measures should be taken to some extent in response to the latest attacks, a sharp increase from a survey in April in which only 28.2 percent agreed with a military response to the sinking of the Cheonan warship in March.

 

In parliament, the latest incident has provoked further argument about the Sunshine Policy of previous administrations of engagement with the North.

 

On Sunday, Kim Mu-sung, floor leader of the ruling GNP, said that the North Korean military’s repeated provocation proved the Sunshine Policy was “a complete failure.”

 

“North Korea’s indiscriminate attacks awoke the people from a deep sleep of fake peace,” and “pro-North people should come to their sense and acknowledge the failure,” he said.

 

Yesterday, GNP Chairman Ahn Sang-soo echoed that sentiment in a TV debate. “For the past 10 years of progressive governments, six billion dollars have crossed the border (to the North). That has only brought us bombs and nuclear weapons,” he said.

 

The opposition Democratic Party has been quick to counterattack. Its leader, Sohn Hak-kyu, said the ruling party was “blaming others while taking no reasonability for its own faults.”

 

Floor leader Park Ji-won, a trusted confidant of the late president and Novel Peace Prize winner Kim Dae-jung, posted a twitter message warning the ruling party against “passing the buck of its failure of the hard-line policy towards the North.”

 

He stressed the need to resume the stalled six party talks to “bring the North to the dialogue table.”

 

Mr. Park also noted that that East Asia Institute poll found that 72 percent of respondents criticized the president for an inadequate response to the brutal attack.

 

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