Korean Reunification or Killing Sunshine: Part One – Flashback to Flight 858 and the 1988 Summer Olympic Games in Seoul

by Scott Creighton

(the following is part one of a two part series on the current reunification effort taking place in Korea formerly known as the Sunshine Policy.)

What’s old may be new again.

Representatives from South Korea and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) have met and agreed to allow a delegation from the DPRK to attend the upcoming Winter Olympics in South Korea next month. It is being reported they also may have begun negotiations to reopen their shared free trade zone and start to allow relatives separated by the split between the two Koreas to visit one another again.

Representatives from the DPRK wanted to broadcast live the entire meeting between the two sides but the South Korean delegation apparently didn’t want that much transparency so they only opened part of the discussion up to the press.

This website (American Everyman) has a long history of supporting the renewal of the Sunshine policy in Korea and calling out the powers of the Deep State in their long standing efforts to keep such a unification from ever happening.

Today, with the prospect of peace breaking out on the Korean peninsula so near, it’s appropriate to look back at the Deep State’s history of destabilizing and sabotaging previous efforts in the past.

Because if we have learned one thing over the years it’s that the Deep State isn’t very creative and can always be counted on snatch war out of the jaws of peace whenever possible… where ever possible. But don’t take my word for it. Here’s a neoliberal apologist for the Deep State voicing his opinion about how this will probably work out:

“We know how this ends, even if that ending is so horrifying we dare not even think about it.“

Unfortunately, if history is any indicator, we do know how this ends.

The first thing we will look at is Korean Airlines Flight 858 which disappeared on Nov. 29th, 1987 when a former head of the CIA was our president. Officially he wasn’t president until a year or so later, but we all know the condition Ronny Reagan was in by the end of his term and of course, Poppy Bush made it clear from the start who wore the pants in that relationship when a family friend shot Ronnie 60 days into his first term in office.

So yeah, Poppy the CIA guy was definitely calling the shots back then.

Korean Airlines Flight 858

We start with Flight 858 because, quite frankly, the Spookstate’s central Mockingbird outlet, the New York Times, forebodingly brought it up themselves today when they were reporting on the meeting that just took place in Korea. They brought it up in connection with the 1988 Summer Games that were held in South Korea.

“The North not only shunned the 1988 Seoul Olympics but also tried to disrupt them after talks on co-hosting them fell apart. Its agents planted a bomb on a Korean Air passenger plane in 1987 in a terrorist attack that the South said was aimed at sabotaging the 1988 Olympics. All 115 people on board were killed.” New York Times

Needless too say, that is a rather cryptic reference to bring up at such a time. Talk about casting shade on the sunshine.

So let’s delve into the facts surrounding the matter a bit, shall we? We might just find it’s not such a cut and dry case as the intrepid reporter from the Times might have you believe.

“Korean Air Flight 858 was a scheduled international passenger flight between Baghdad, Iraq and Seoul, South Korea. On 29 November 1987  the aircraft flying that route exploded in mid-air upon the detonation of a bomb planted inside an overhead storage bin in the airplane’s passenger cabin (115 fatalities)…

The two bombers were traced to Bahrain, where they both took ampules of cyanide hidden in cigarettes when they realized they were about to be taken into custody. The male of the pair died, but the female, Kim Hyon-hui, survived and later confessed to the bombing. She was sentenced to death after being put on trial for the attack, but was later pardoned by the President of South Korea, Roh Tae-woo, because it was deemed that she had been brainwashed in North Korea. Kim’s testimony implicated Kim Jong-il, who at that time was the future leader of North Korea, as the person ultimately responsible for the incident…(Given a full pardon after blowing up South Koreans on a plane?!?)

… Kim later released a book, The Tears of My Soul, in which she recalled being trained in an espionage school run by the North Korean army, and being told personally by Kim Jong-il to carry out the attack. She was branded a traitor by North Korea, and became a critic of North Korea after seeing South Korea. Kim now resides in exile…(she got a book deal out of it and is living the good life in South Korea)

… According to testimony at a United Nations Security Council meeting, on 15 December 1987, Kim was transferred to Seoul, South Korea, where she recovered from the poison and, initially, said she was a Chinese orphan who grew up in Japan, and said that she was not connected to the attack.^[6][14](so at first she said she had nothing to do with it and said she wasn’t even from the DPRK)

… At the hearing, the main evidence against Kim was the cigarettes, which, analysis showed, were the type used by a number of other North Korean agents apprehended in South Korea (she smoked the same cigarettes as “agents” and that was the “main evidence”)…

(get a load of this)… Speaking at the United Nations Security Council, Choi Young-jin, representing South Korea, said that after eight days of interrogation in South Korea, she was permitted to see a film of life in the country on a television screen, and realized that “life … on the streets of Seoul was entirely different from what she had been led to believe.” She had been taught that South Korea was an American puppet state that was fraught with poverty and corruption. However, when she saw how South Koreans actually lived, Choi said, “she began to realize that what she had been told while living in the North was totally untrue.”^[14]Kim then “threw herself into the arms of a female investigator” and confessed to the bombing.^[14] In Korean, she said, “Forgive me. I am sorry. I will tell you everything,”^[14] and said that she had been “exploited as a tool for North Korean terrorist activities”, and made a detailed and voluntary confession.^[14] …

Kim expressed remorse at her actions and asked for the forgiveness of the families of those who had died. She also said that the order for the bombing had been “personally penned” by Kim Jong-il, the son of North Korean President Kim Il-sung, who had wanted to destabilize the South Korean government, disrupt its upcoming 1988 parliamentary elections, and frighten international teams from attending the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul later that year.^[15]” Wikipedia

So the takeaway here is… their ENTIRE CASE is based on the testimony of some woman whom the South Korean intelligence agency got their hands on with the help of the CIA I’m sure… and she originally said she had nothing to do with it… until she was held by their torturers for a week or so… and eventually they simply showed her a film of life in South Korea and she broke down throwing herself into the arms of her torturer and sobbed her confession because now she has “seen the light”

Is that it?

And oh yeah… they picked her up originally because of the brand of cigarettes she smoked? That was their leading evidence.

And rather than put her to death for attacking and killing 115 innocent passengers on the plane… many of whom were from South Korea… the South Korean authorities GAVE HER A FULL PARDON and use her periodically for anti-North propaganda?

And she was allowed to write a book AND PROFIT FROM IT?

You with me so far?

Now check this out…

In 1987 two North Korean operatives placed an explosive on KAL858 flying from SDA–AUH–BKK, departing the a/c in AUH after placing the explosive. This was apparently in retaliation for Seoul hosting the Summer Olympics in 1988. The bombing is the reason NK was listed as a state sponsor of terrorism.

According to wikipedia, the flight exploded somewhere in the Andaman sea before landing in BKK. However, according to wikipedia, no wreckage, bodies, black box or CVR was ever recovered. I assume therefore that the cause of crash was inferred from the confessions of the female terrorist who admitted to planting the IED (her accomplice committed suicide upon questioning).

The wreckage of Flight 858 was never found. Some bullshit photos supposedly of pieces of it were like Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370… but in reality, it was never found.

Here’s another interesting thing:

29 November 1987 – Korean Airlines Flight 858 goes missing

Kim Hyon-hui is captured and processed for over a week after which she “confesses” to her captors after seeing “the truth” about life in South Korea and then is put on television giving her confession to all of South Korea.

Presidential elections were held in South Korea on 16 December 1987.^[1] They followed the democratization and establishment of the Sixth Republic under Roh Tae-woo. The elections took place following a series of protests and before the 1988 Summer Olympics, which were held in Seoul.^[2] Roh won the elections with 37% of the vote; voter turnout was 89.2%.

Who did our favorite neoliberal candidate (and the CIA’s favorite candidate) beat?

Hold onto your hats…

… he beat…

Kim Young-sam of the Reunification Democratic party of South Korea

That’s right. Right before a contentious and highly contested presidential election that would define the direction of South Korea for years… our neoliberal puppet candidate just happened to enjoy what we call an October Surprise in which the culprit JUST HAPPENED TO BE… a representative of the DPRK…

So much for the reunification candidate, huh?

And oh yeah… Kim the self-confessed terrorist… not only did she get a full pardon and write a book about the killing of South Korean civilians and make money off it…

In December 1997, Kim married a former South Korean intelligence agent who also served as her bodyguard, with whom she has two children.^[21]

Kim currently lives in an undisclosed location and remains under constant protection

So Kimmy the terrorist lives well on the South Korean people’s dime. She married a South Korean spook and wrote a book about her terrorism and got PAID for doing it. And as it just so happened, she did it right at just the right moment when our puppet leader in South Korea needed to crush the reunification movement that was taking hold on the Korean peninsula.

And of course the plane was never found so no real forensic investigation could be done to determine what (if anything) actually downed Flight 858.

And the intrepid reporter of the New York Times just tosses out there the statement that “North Korea” blew up the plane without offering even the slightest bit of evidence in support.

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Over the years I have covered a number of evens in that region that were clearly designed to undermine efforts to bring together the people of Korea, North and South. Here is but one example:

To Block Out the Sun: Trump’s Neocon War-mongers and the Deep State’s Mockingbirds are Building a New North Korean Aggression Mythology

“The North Wind and the Sun is one of Aesop’s Fables …The moral it teaches is about the superiority of persuasion over force.”

My next article will focus on that history both old and new (during the Trump administration)

As I wrote when covering the sinking of the Cheonan, this history is important to remember because it is the clearest insight into the present and future we have. There are forces in this world who despise peace with a passion and a fury that most people will ever be able to fully understand. Few places in the world (perhaps the Middle East or on the African continent) make that truism about our life on this planet more clear than Korea. The “pivot to Asia” is not over and trust me when I write any steps toward reunification will be met with resistance most dreadful.

Yes. “We know how this ends, even if that ending is so horrifying we dare not even think about it.”

Unfortunately, being part of a recovering republic and responsible democracy means we HAVE to think about whether we want to or not.

(part two tomorrow)

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