| Submit your comments on this article |
| Korea |
| Spy Boat Reminds Japan of N. Korea Threat |
| 2003-06-01 |
| TOKYO - Shigeharu Hoshide peered through the display case at the rusty machine gun and clips of bullets recovered from the bottom of the East China Sea. What he saw made him uneasy. Hoshide was one of more than 7,000 people who braved heavy rains Saturday to see a salvaged North Korean spy boat on display outside a Tokyo museum a year and a half after it sunk in a firefight with the Japanese coast guard. ``This brings home that there are real threats facing this country,'' said the 35-year-old Japanese entrepreneur. Okay, there's one who gets it! The pockmarked hull of the 100-foot boat and an arsenal of sophisticated weaponry and espionage gear were brought to the surface last September in a $49 million operation. The exhibit opened at a time of mounting concern in Japan about North Korea's missile and nuclear programs. ``It reminds you that we're right next door to the kind of country capable of lobbing a missile this way,'' said Masatoshi Nagasaki, 36. And there's another! North Korea test-fired a ballistic missile over Japan's main island in 1998 and Japan was shaken again last year when North Korea admitted its spies had abducted a dozen Japanese nationals in the 1970s and 1980s to serve as language teachers for Pyongyang's intelligence community. North Korean spy boats are suspected of involvement in the kidnappings and in smuggling drugs to raise hard currency for the cash-strapped communist nation. The boat on display was disguised as a Chinese fishing trawler and Japan believes it was being used for drug smuggling. Three Japanese sailors were wounded in the Dec. 22, 2001 shootout in which the North Koreans fired shoulder-launched rockets and automatic weapons. All 10 Lotta firepower for a drug-running trawler. |
| Posted by:Steve White |