[imText1]Despite the fact that a combined group of civilian and military, domestic and foreign investigators agreed that the Cheonan was sunk by a North Korean torpedo, a new survey shows that three out of ten South Koreans still distrust this claim.
The Daily NK’s survey of 500 Seoul citizens conducted between March 15th and 21st has revealed that 27.8% (139) of respondents answered that they ‘fully trust’ the announcement of the Joint Civilian-Military Investigation, and 45.9% (229) answered that they ‘trust’ the announcement. So, a total of 73.6% (368) of respondents trust the findings to a satisfactory degree.
However, another 22% (110) answered they ‘do not trust fully’ the results, and 4.4% (22) answered that they ‘do not trust the result in any way’, meaning that a total of 26.4% (132) of respondents continue to doubt the investigation.
These results are similar to those of a poll carried out by Korea Research in May last year, right after the Joint Civilian-Military Investigation. At that time, only 72% of respondents answered that the incident was North Korea’s doing. Both of which compare unfavorably with an opinion poll carried out by The Opinion one month after North Korea’s bombardment of Yeonpyeong Island last November, at which time a high of 83.6% of respondents answered that the Cheonan was sunk by North Korea, meaning that the temporary increase in public confidence created as a result of the Yeonpyeong Island attack has been lost.
According to the results of The Daily NK’s survey, the age groups which least trusts the South Korean government’s position are, in order, people in their 30s (34.7%), 40s (29.2%), and 20s (28.5%). Only 7.6% of people in their 50s and 6.0% in their 60s gave the same response.
Among them, when asked why they are inclined not to trust the investigation results, 46.2 % of respondents pointed to an ‘insufficient amount of scientific evidence’; however, 20.5% stated the ‘possibility of the Joint Civilian-Military Investigation manipulating the evidence’, 18.2% answered that the sinking was likely to have been due to ‘running aground or an accident caused by a South Korean mine’, and 10.6% cited the ‘biased composition of the Joint Civilian-Military Investigation Group’.
On a related question, that of why suspicion still exists in South Korean society, 66.8% (334) of respondents pointed to the ‘inadequate initial response of the Ministry of National Defense’ and ‘doubtful circumstances surrounding the incident’. In particular, 71.5% of respondents in their 20s and 30s cited the insufficient response of the Ministry of National Defense.
However, an additional 15.6% of respondents answered ‘due to an antagonistic feeling toward the Lee Myung Bak administration’ inferring the presence of emotional responses based on anti-government feeling rather than rational judgment.
Finally, when asked what South Korea should do to prevent North Korea’s armed provocations, 29.2% of respondents answered ‘establishment of military preparedness system which can immediately respond’ and a further 18.0% answered ‘pressuring North Korea through international cooperation’. However, many people also spoke about improving inter-Korean relations; 21.2% of respondents answered ‘effort to bring peace to Northeast Asia through the Six-Party Talks’ and 19% answered ‘withdrawal of hard line policy against North Korea and resumption of South-North dialogue’.
Via this research it is easy to see that South Korean public opinion remains mostly split on questions of both the Cheonan sinking itself and how to deal with North Korea going forward, and that much of the solidarity engendered by the Yeonpyeong Island attack has begun to dissipate.
[imText2]
