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South Korea Clamps Down on Suspected North Korean Spies
// Five South Korean Citizens Arrested on Charges of Espionage
Five South Korean citizens, including two members of the left-wing Democratic Labor Party, were arrested yesterday in South Korea and charged with espionage for North Korea. Ignoring threats from Pyongyang, Seoul also closed the country's borders to North Korean citizens who are suspected of having links with the country's nuclear program.
The nuclear test carried out by North Korea on October 9 has put the South Korean government of Roh Moo-hyun, who has for several years followed a so-called "sunshine policy" of positive engagement with the North, in a difficult position. Under pressure from the United States and from domestic opposition parties, Seoul has been obliged to support the resolution adopted on October 14 by the United Nations that imposes sanctions against North Korea in retaliation for its nuclear program. The committee charged with preparing the sanctions package by the deadline for its implementation, 30 days after the resolution was adopted, met for the first time in Seoul on Tuesday. The North responded with threats that, if South Korea goes forward with sanctions, Pyongyang will interpret it as a declaration of war and "will take corresponding measures" in response.
The two Democratic Labor Party (DLP) members arrested yesterday, deputy party secretary Chungve Gee-yoon, 41, and former party general committee member Lee Chung-hyun, 42, are accused of making contact in China this spring with unidentified North Korean intelligence agents. All of the people arrested yesterday, including the three who have so far not been named, are known to have links with radical student groups. In 1985, Mr. Lee led fellow students in the seizure of an American cultural center in Seoul in a protest against US support for the bloody repression by South Korean government troops of a rebellion in support of democracy in Kwanju.
Lawyers for all of the five deny the charges. The Democratic Labor Party, which has ten seats in the South Korean parliament, issued a statement yesterday that called the arrests a plot by the country's security services to crack down on left-wing political parties under the guise of responding to the nuclear threat from North Korea.
Meanwhile, the South Korean government also announced yesterday that the sanctions will not affect several joint ventures between the two countries that have already netted North Korea $950 million. Seoul's critics have charged that the money will be used to fund North Korea's nuclear program and that even the money given by the South to pay the salaries of North Korean workers participating in the program will be diverted to the nuclear program. In response, South Korea has requested that North Korea allow each worker's monthly salary (around $57) to be put directly into the worker's personal accounts, a concession that North Korea is apparently ready to make.
Andrey Ivanov
All the Article in Russian as of Oct. 27, 2006
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