Stochastic Scribbles

One of the worries that I had about the shooting at the Kumgang Resort last Friday was that the governments involved might want to sweep the incident under the rug and handle it like an unfortunate accident. The South Korean government calling the incident an "accident" in a press briefing didn't help assuage my fears. So when I heard from SBS News that the South Korean government wants a thorough investigation, it helped lift a little of my worries.

Unfortunately, it sounds like the incident may have more to it than just a woman straying into a restricted area and being killed by a hair-trigger North Korean soldier. This is very bad all by itself, but there are signs that the whole thing is much worse. One little bad sign is that the North Koreans and the resort management indeed screwed up in that they did not fence off the restricted area completely and neglected to put up any warning signs.

Much worse is that the official explanation of what happened provided by the North Koreans looks fishy. If they are to be believed, then the victim must have traversed 3.3 kilometers, or 2 miles, in 20 minutes. While it's possible a 53-year old housewife could have jogged the distance in the claimed amount of time, it doesn't sound realistic, especially when she was just "going out for a walk". I just hope it's a misunderstanding or at most a misguided attempt to coverup a minor screwup by the North Koreans, instead of something much more major. The incident as it's publicly known is already bad enough.