Left Flank

Two issues here: the shooting incident itself; and, the Lee administration's response.

Firstly, Park Wang-ja, from Nowon district in Seoul and a mother of one, suffered two gunshot wounds in the chest and hip and died from respiratory failure.

The tourist was strolling at a beach near the resort when the accident took place, the ministry spokesman said.

«According to Hyundai Asan, a North Korean soldier fired a gun because Park fled despite a warning shot to stop her in a restricted military zone,'' Kim said. ``We regret the incident and we will shelve the tour program from Saturday until a government probe is completed.''

She seemed to have entered the area restricted to civilians by mistake while taking a walk alone from Geumgang beach near her hotel at about 4:30 a.m., the spokesman said.

Secondly, there;s the issue of the Lee administration's «skewed» response to the incident.

Critics say there are serious flaws in the government's readiness to protect its people, given that it was informed of the incident by Hyundai Asan at around 11:30 a.m., some six hours and 30 minutes after it occurred, and made an official announcement about the incident at 4:00 p.m., some 11 hours after the fact. Even after he was notified of the incident at 11:40 a.m., President Lee Myung-bak attended the opening of the newly-elected National Assembly at 2:00 p.m. and there delivered an address about new policies toward North Korea without mentioning the incident , giving rise to criticism that the government's judgment of political affairs is seriously skewed.

According to the Joong-ang Daily, a senior Blue House official confirmed that the Lee administration indeed lacks political sense.

A Blue House senior official said Lee was notified about the incident when he was about to leave for the National Assembly, stressing that the two issues were not connected.

«The accident and today's speech are two completely separate issues,» said the official who asked for customary anonymity. «We didn't view this accident lightly ... today's speech only concerned the overall framework and general directions for future inter-Korea relations.»

«We can't change the big picture of government policy spontaneously,» the official said when asked whether the Blue House considered changing the speech after the accident was reported.

Tragically, it's conceivable that that North Korean soldier who shot Park might have executed his job better than President Lee Myung-bak and his staff did theirs.