The Gaeseong Industrial Complex, the last remaining inter-Korean reconciliatory business, is nearing an indefinite shutdown in the wake of North Korea’s torpedo attack on a South Korean warship in March.
The South Korean military on Monday resumed anti-Pyongyang radio broadcasts, which had been suspended six years ago under an inter-Korean agreement.
The North had threatened to restrict South Koreans overland border crossing into Gaeseong if the South resumes the psychological warfare, or propaganda broadcasts.
The South plans to start placing dozens of loud speakers near the Military Demarcation Line for the broadcasts, which can reach as far as 24 kilometers into the North during nighttime and 10 kilometers during the day.
Seoul also said it will halve the number of South Koreans stationed at the factory park and prohibit new investments in the enclave as part of punitive measures against Pyongyang’s “military provocation.”
Unification Minister Hyun In-taek said the number of South Koreans in Gaeseong will be reduced for security reasons, although production activities in the North Korean border town will be continued.
The number of South Koreans staying in Gaeseong ranges between 900 and 1,000 on weekdays and goes down to about 300 to 400 during weekends.
The fate of the joint industrial park, which employs 42,000 low-wage but skilled North Korean workers to produce labor-intensive goods, has increasingly hung in the balance since March 26 when a South Korean corvette sank near the sea border with the North, killing 46 sailors.
South Korea last week concluded after an extensive multinational probe that a small North Korean submarine torpedoed the 1,200-ton Cheonan, a provocation Pyongyang denies it had any role in.
“If North Korea ignores our careful consideration to preserve the complex even under current circumstances, and subsequently threatens the safety of our citizens there, we will never tolerate any harm to our citizens,” Hyun said without elaborating further at a joint press briefing with the foreign and defense ministers following President Lee Myung-bak‘s nationally televised speech condemning the North for the ship sinking.
A South Korean engineer named Yu Seong-jin had been detained in the North for months in 2009 amid deteriorating political relations between the countries.
Yu had been arrested on charges of denouncing the North Korean regime but was released in August that year after the chairwoman of Hyundai Group, the South Korean company leading inter-Korean business projects, met with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.
Last week, North Korea expelled a South Korean worker from the industrial complex over a training booklet that appeared to have slipped into his possession by accident.
More than 110 South Korean companies operate in the complex, which began operating in 2004 as a result of the first-ever summit between the divided countries four years earlier.
In a related measure, the unification minister announced that his government will not allow citizens to visit North Korea “with the exception of necessary visits” to Gaeseong and a troubled joint mountain resort on the east coast.
The Mount Geumgang resort has been dormant since a South Korean tourist was shot to death by a North Korean guard in July 2008. Pyongyang last month seized or “froze” South Korean assets at the resort in anger over Seoul’s refusal to resume cross-border tours.
“New investment in North Korea will be prohibited,” Hyun said, adding that the number of South Koreans in Gaeseong will be halved.
“The ministry will not allow any additional investment in ongoing projects.”
Hyun said an inter-Korean deal allowing the maritime passage of North Korean merchant ships remains intact but its penalty clause has been invoked to ban them from entering South Korean waters.
”The government will prohibit general trade between the two Koreas, as well as all inbound and outbound shipments of goods and materials for processing on commission,” he said.
http://www.koreaherald.com/pop/NewsPrint.jsp?newsMLId=20100524000751
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