Warning Shots at Limit Line

A North Korean fishing boat retreated after the South Korean Navy fired warning shots when it trespassed across the Northern Limit Line Sunday.

According to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the boat violated the Northern Limit Line sailing south at around 2:50 a.m. about 4.5 miles west of Baekryeong Island. South Korean high-speed naval patrol boats were immediately dispatched. They gave loudspeaker warnings and tried to search the boat.

But the five crew members on the North Korean boat did not respond to stop orders and instead threw flaming torches at the approaching naval patrol boats and resisted by waving steel pipes and wooden sticks.

The patrol ships fired nine shots at the boat from a K-2 pistol at a range of 45 meters, the Joint Chiefs of Staff said.

The North Koreans eventually sailed north and reached open seas 2 hours and 37 minutes after it had crossed the line. No un-usual military movements were detected from the North after the warning shots were fired.

Col. Park Jeong-hwa, director of maritime strategy at the Joint Chiefs of Staff, explained, "We fired warning shots because the North Korean boat resisted with steel pipes despite loudspeaker warnings and an order to stop." The boat had crossed the Northern Limit Line at a spot where the principle to be applied is "first take action, later report," Colonel. Park said.

According to wartime regulations and rules of engagement, a commander may fire warning shots for the purpose of stopping a North Korean boat that trespasses over the Northern Limit Line. But until now, South Korea had never fired warning shots on a North Korean fishing boat since the armistice suspending the Korean War was signed in 1953.

In 1999, South Korean naval patrol boats shot at North Korean boats but only after the Northern ships fired at their Southern counterparts.

Analysts contended that the South Korean Navy took a more aggressive stance against intruding North Korean ships because of public criticism that it had responded too passively in the three weeks since the North Korean incursions began.

As soon as the North Korean fishing boat did not agree to be searched, the Joint Chiefs of Staff immediately reported to its chairman, Army General Cho Yung-kil, and the Blue House, and fired warning shots under the command of General Cho.

Experts doubted, however, that the same rules of engagement would be applied against the larger vessels that recently intruded over the Northern Limit Line, a course that would require naval bombardment and the mobilization of a special force and could possibly jeopardize inter-Korean rapprochement.

Colonel Park said the Joint Chiefs of Staff assumed that the intrusion was not intentional, but due to thick fog. However, if the North Korean government were involved, critics said, it was to shake up the South Korean political scene.

by Lee Chul-hee