North Korea has been releasing water from the Hwanggang Dam on the upper Imijin River without notifying South Korea first.
To protect the lives and property of residents along the inter-Korean border, Seoul and Pyongyang previously agreed to inform one another ahead of time before releasing dam water. However, it now appears North Korea views the very act of notifying the South as a political matter.
An official from South Korea’s Unification Ministry told reporters on Tuesday that North Korea has been repeatedly releasing water from the Hwanggang Dam depending on the local situation since late June.
“Since a few days ago, there’s been an ongoing partial release of water from the Hwanggang Dam, but we believe the scale of the release is not enough to harm our side [South Korea],” he said.
Prior to this, the unification ministry openly requested on June 28 that North Korea notify the South ahead of time when it releases water from its dams, citing concerns about flooding in the border region during the rainy season.
However, North Korea has been releasing water from the Hwanggang Dam during every torrential downpour without telling Seoul first.
A high-ranking cadre in North Korea told Daily NK that “it’s natural for water to flow downhill, and preparing for floods, too, is something South Korea should do on its own.
“It’s natural to open the dam gates when it rains a lot, so I don’t understand why we must inform the South Korean government,” he continued. “The South is more modern than us, so they know whether or not we’ve opened the gates even if we don’t notify them. So isn’t there a political intention behind asking for prior notification?”
Basically, the North interprets even the request for advance notification of a release of water — a measure to prevent human injuries and deaths downstream — as politically motivated.
However, the country’s Central Committee reportedly makes direct decisions on whether to inform the South prior to releasing dam water. According to the source, North Korea’s State Hydro-Meteorological Administration and Cabinet decide whether to release water, but the party decides whether to inform South Korea about it, taking into consideration several factors, including political ones.
In September of 2009, six South Koreans who were camping along the lower Imjin River in Yeoncheon County, Gyeonggi-do were killed after North Korea released 40 million cubic meters of water from the Hwanggang Dam.
After this, the two Koreas held working-level talks to prevent flooding on the Imjin River in October of that year, with both sides agreeing to give one another advance notification when releasing dam water.
Afterwards, North Korea notified Seoul on several occasions when releasing water from the Hwanggang Dam, including twice in 2010 and once in 2013.
Most of the time, however, North Korea releases water without telling the South, failing to live up to the agreement.
This is why North Korea is receiving criticism in South Korea for refusing to carry out an agreement focused on humanitarian cooperation as a ploy to achieve its own political objectives.
Oh Gyeong Seop, a researcher at the Korea Institute for National Unification, told Daily NK in a telephone conversation that North Korea has adopted the attitude that “there will be no cooperation between the two Koreas in any sphere if Seoul does not cooperate in lifting international sanctions on Pyongyang.
“Even though with the release of water from the Hwanggang Dam, North Korea could fully cooperate at the humanitarian level to stop disasters, it’s not doing so to achieve political goals,” he argued.
Asked if — to prevent flooding — North Korea could be forced to alert South Korea ahead of time when it releases water, Oh said using international law or sanctions to force the North to take such measures would prove difficult.
“The only way is for the North Korean regime itself to evolve towards separating humanitarian cooperation from the nuclear issue and other military matters,” he added.
