Behind the mystery of the Cheonan
On 26 March 2010, the South Korean corvette Cheonan sank off the country’s west coast near Baengnyeong Island in the Yellow Sea, killing 46 seamen.
An investigation of international experts from the US, the UK, Sweden, Canada and Australia summarised that the Cheonan was sunk by a torpedo from a North Korean submarine. US Secretary of Defense Hillary Clinton noted that the case against North Korea was “overwhelming”.
The South Korean government-commissioned Joint Investigation Group (JIG) said it was irrefutable that a North Korean submarine sank the vessel and this incident is also one of the key reasons for North Korea’s continued isolation worldwide.
North Korea strenuously denied the allegations, prompting aggressive rhetoric, and both China and Russia disputed the findings of the report. However, over two years on from the tragedy, suspicions continue to surround the sinking of the Cheonan. Scientists, notably in the past few months, have been openly questioning the findings of the JIG.
In April, Dr Kim Gwang-sop, former rotational programme manager at the National Science Foundation in Washington DC, was preparing to deliver a presentation to the Korean Institute of Chemical Engineers about the JIG report. At the last minute, Dr Kim was told his lecture was being cancelled by the institute because it was “too political”.
According to independent media group Global Research, Dr Kim reacted angrily to the cancellation, saying it was unprecedented to cancel a scientific lecture for political reasons at a non-profit scientific organisation.
Another sceptic is Dr Ahn Soo-myong, whose company Ahntech specialises in anti-submarine warfare. Dr Ahn claimed it is scientifically impossible for the North Korean submarine to have hid undetected underwater before the strike.
The JIG report claimed the undetected submarine moved under the ship’s keel, releasing the torpedo that exploded, by design, prior to contact, creating the burst of water that cut the Cheonan in two.
Dr Ahn says that targeting the Cheonan using sound waves is scientifically impossible for an underwater and undetected submarine, meaning that if this was the case, the North Koreans have invented something unbeknownst to the rest of the world.
In other words, Dr Ahn reasoned there was a “0.000001 per cent” chance that sound waves from the Cheonan could have been used in its demise, given how busy that sea channel is.
Scientists and media commentators also questioned President Lee Myung-bak’s two-month wait before publically accusing the north of the sinking, back in 2010. Lee made the announcement on the day campaigning opened for local elections.
The LA Times reported in July 2010 that a former shipbuilding executive-turned-journalist Shin Sang-chul was removed was an investigation team of other experts. Shin voiced his opinion that the Cheonan hit shallow ground and that the sailors drowned. He insisted that the nature of the deceased bodies and the absence of dead sea creatures pointed to something resembling “a simple traffic accident at sea”.
The Defence Ministry released a statement saying Shin had been withdrawn from the investigation panel because of his “limited expertise [and] a lack of objectivity and scientific logic”.
More recently, a poll conducted by the South Korean government showed that 65 per cent of respondents aged 20-40 believed North Korea was responsible for the sinking, a figure puzzling many journalists who expected it would be much higher. Bizarrely, nearly six per cent of those polled believed the US was responsible, and more than three per cent blamed Japan.
Calls for further investigations or a reopening of the case have fallen on deaf ears. However, as scientists continue to openly question the events of 26 March 2010, it will be interesting to see what position the government holds, especially with the presidential elections later this year.
Andrew Farrell works as an English language teacher in Korea.
