RedCeltic
7th January 2002, 19:56
JAPAN SINKS SHIP, LETS SAILORS DIE:
THE MYSTERY OF THE CHANGING STORY
By Deirdre Griswold
How quickly the story changed.
The early reports gave an entirely different picture than
the version now being repeated in the world capitalist
press.
Check out any recent stories on television or in the print
media about the sinking of a "mystery" ship by the Japanese
Coast Guard on Dec. 22, and you will be told that Japanese
Coast Guard vessels pursuing the ship came under rocket fire
and shot back in self defense. The crew of the ship,
supposed by the Japanese government to be North Korean, then
blew up their own vessel and died when it sank, according to
this version.
Japan now says it had been monitoring the vessel, which
appeared to be a fishing boat and was in Chinese commercial
waters when it sank, because the ship had been sending coded
messages on a frequency used by North Korea, whose proper
name is the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
The whole event is played as a spy story. It dovetails
nicely with the Bush administration's efforts to portray the
DPRK as a "rogue nation" and with recent attacks by the
Japanese government on Koreans in Japan who are sympathetic
to the socialist DPRK.
This is the version that the New York Times published on
Dec. 25. But it's not what the Times printed just one day
earlier, in an article from Tokyo by the same Times
reporter, James Brooke, after he was first briefed by the
Japanese Coast Guard.
In that earlier article, Brooke said that the first shots in
the encounter with the mystery ship came from two Japanese
Coast Guard vessels, the Inasa and the Mizuki.
Wrote Brooke: "The Japanese boats fired a total of 13
warning shots across its bow, officials said. The boat,
which had been zigzagging, bumped the Inasa. When the
Japanese tried to board it, about 10 men on board brandished
metal pipes. Just after sunset, the Mizuki fired several
hundred rounds from its 20-millimeter machine gun into the
fleeing boat. In videotape supplied today by the Coast
Guard, the ship could be seen bursting into flames.
"But the crew managed to douse the fire, and the ship
continued to flee due west, toward the Chinese mainland. By
9 p.m., the Japanese pursuit group had grown to four ships,
and commanders decided to surround the vessel. As one of the
Japanese ships, the Amami, came within 25 yards, two men
emerged from blankets on the deck of the mystery boat and
fired automatic weapons at the Japanese, wounding two
sailors. Crew members in the wheelhouse also fired on the
Japanese.
"In response, the Inasa fired '186 rounds in self-defense,'
Shigehiro Sakamoto, a Coast Guard official, said. During the
gun battle, a large explosion, apparently unrelated to the
firing, was heard aboard the mystery ship, Japanese sailors
reported. Shortly after the explosion, the ship sank and 15
crew members were seen jumping into the water."
This account says nothing about the supposed Koreans firing
rockets. It shows that the Japanese attacked the vessel
first, and that when they then tried to board it, its crew
was armed only with metal pipes. And it leaves open the
possibility that the fire started by the Japanese attack
could have been responsible for the explosion that sank the
ship.
CREW ALLOWED TO DROWN
The Dec. 24 article also contains shocking information about
what happened to the sailors--information that has been
completely dropped in more recent accounts.
Brooke wrote, "After the ship sank on Saturday night at
10:13 local time, the three Japanese Coast Guard vessels
involved in the pursuit trained their search lights on the
site, spotting about half a dozen crew members clinging to
flotsam in the water. But the Japanese did not rescue the
men, reportedly on orders from commanders in Tokyo, who
feared that they were armed. Two hours after the sinking, no
more crew members were seen alive."
Looking on for two hours while people drown is a violation
of the Law of the Sea, Article 98, section (1), which says
that: "Every State shall require the master of a ship flying
its flag, in so far as he can do so without serious danger
to the ship, the crew or the passengers: (a) to render
assistance to any person found at sea in danger of being
lost."
Even if the men were armed, they could have been provided
with a lifeboat or other flotation device. Instead, they
were allowed to die. Altogether, the ship's entire crew of
15 was believed to have drowned.
China, in whose commercial waters the sinking took place,
expressed "concern toward Japanese use of military force in
the East China Sea."
The DPRK denied the ship was its own, but added, "Japan's
overt act of war in waters outside its territory speaks of
its extreme ambition of rearmament and foreign expansion."
Japan, like the United States, is an imperialist country
that is undergoing a severe capitalist economic crisis and
thirsts after markets. From 1910 to 1945, Japan ruled all
Korea. Since its defeat in World War II, it has had to play
second fiddle to U.S. imperialism, which militarily occupies
and economically dominates South Korea.
North Korea, on the other hand, maintains a socialist
economy and resists foreign domination--making it a
continual target of slanders and attacks from the predatory
imperialists.
- END -
(Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to
copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
[email protected] For subscription info send message to:
[email protected] Web: http://www.workers.org)
THE MYSTERY OF THE CHANGING STORY
By Deirdre Griswold
How quickly the story changed.
The early reports gave an entirely different picture than
the version now being repeated in the world capitalist
press.
Check out any recent stories on television or in the print
media about the sinking of a "mystery" ship by the Japanese
Coast Guard on Dec. 22, and you will be told that Japanese
Coast Guard vessels pursuing the ship came under rocket fire
and shot back in self defense. The crew of the ship,
supposed by the Japanese government to be North Korean, then
blew up their own vessel and died when it sank, according to
this version.
Japan now says it had been monitoring the vessel, which
appeared to be a fishing boat and was in Chinese commercial
waters when it sank, because the ship had been sending coded
messages on a frequency used by North Korea, whose proper
name is the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
The whole event is played as a spy story. It dovetails
nicely with the Bush administration's efforts to portray the
DPRK as a "rogue nation" and with recent attacks by the
Japanese government on Koreans in Japan who are sympathetic
to the socialist DPRK.
This is the version that the New York Times published on
Dec. 25. But it's not what the Times printed just one day
earlier, in an article from Tokyo by the same Times
reporter, James Brooke, after he was first briefed by the
Japanese Coast Guard.
In that earlier article, Brooke said that the first shots in
the encounter with the mystery ship came from two Japanese
Coast Guard vessels, the Inasa and the Mizuki.
Wrote Brooke: "The Japanese boats fired a total of 13
warning shots across its bow, officials said. The boat,
which had been zigzagging, bumped the Inasa. When the
Japanese tried to board it, about 10 men on board brandished
metal pipes. Just after sunset, the Mizuki fired several
hundred rounds from its 20-millimeter machine gun into the
fleeing boat. In videotape supplied today by the Coast
Guard, the ship could be seen bursting into flames.
"But the crew managed to douse the fire, and the ship
continued to flee due west, toward the Chinese mainland. By
9 p.m., the Japanese pursuit group had grown to four ships,
and commanders decided to surround the vessel. As one of the
Japanese ships, the Amami, came within 25 yards, two men
emerged from blankets on the deck of the mystery boat and
fired automatic weapons at the Japanese, wounding two
sailors. Crew members in the wheelhouse also fired on the
Japanese.
"In response, the Inasa fired '186 rounds in self-defense,'
Shigehiro Sakamoto, a Coast Guard official, said. During the
gun battle, a large explosion, apparently unrelated to the
firing, was heard aboard the mystery ship, Japanese sailors
reported. Shortly after the explosion, the ship sank and 15
crew members were seen jumping into the water."
This account says nothing about the supposed Koreans firing
rockets. It shows that the Japanese attacked the vessel
first, and that when they then tried to board it, its crew
was armed only with metal pipes. And it leaves open the
possibility that the fire started by the Japanese attack
could have been responsible for the explosion that sank the
ship.
CREW ALLOWED TO DROWN
The Dec. 24 article also contains shocking information about
what happened to the sailors--information that has been
completely dropped in more recent accounts.
Brooke wrote, "After the ship sank on Saturday night at
10:13 local time, the three Japanese Coast Guard vessels
involved in the pursuit trained their search lights on the
site, spotting about half a dozen crew members clinging to
flotsam in the water. But the Japanese did not rescue the
men, reportedly on orders from commanders in Tokyo, who
feared that they were armed. Two hours after the sinking, no
more crew members were seen alive."
Looking on for two hours while people drown is a violation
of the Law of the Sea, Article 98, section (1), which says
that: "Every State shall require the master of a ship flying
its flag, in so far as he can do so without serious danger
to the ship, the crew or the passengers: (a) to render
assistance to any person found at sea in danger of being
lost."
Even if the men were armed, they could have been provided
with a lifeboat or other flotation device. Instead, they
were allowed to die. Altogether, the ship's entire crew of
15 was believed to have drowned.
China, in whose commercial waters the sinking took place,
expressed "concern toward Japanese use of military force in
the East China Sea."
The DPRK denied the ship was its own, but added, "Japan's
overt act of war in waters outside its territory speaks of
its extreme ambition of rearmament and foreign expansion."
Japan, like the United States, is an imperialist country
that is undergoing a severe capitalist economic crisis and
thirsts after markets. From 1910 to 1945, Japan ruled all
Korea. Since its defeat in World War II, it has had to play
second fiddle to U.S. imperialism, which militarily occupies
and economically dominates South Korea.
North Korea, on the other hand, maintains a socialist
economy and resists foreign domination--making it a
continual target of slanders and attacks from the predatory
imperialists.
- END -
(Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to
copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
[email protected] For subscription info send message to:
[email protected] Web: http://www.workers.org)