SEOUL: South Korea deployed rocket launchers and extra artillery on a frontline border island bombarded last week by North Korea, as Seoul's leader vowed Monday to make Pyongyang pay for any fresh provocations. Many soldiers were seen on the island and multiple rocket launchers being installed, six days after the barrage which triggered fury in the South and alarm worldwide. Military officials quoted by Yonhap news agency said the number of K-9 self-propelled Howitzers there had been doubled to 12. Officials in a loudspeaker broadcast also announced plans for a live-fire drill Tuesday and told residents to shelter in bunkers. But hours later, another broadcast announced there would be no such drill and blamed “wrong information”. The drill had been planned but was delayed, a military official told Yonhap news agency on condition of anonymity. The reason was unclear. President Lee Myung-bak, under fire for the military's perceived feeble response to last Tuesday's attack which killed two civilians and two marines, indicated Seoul would not make the same mistake twice. “If the North commits any additional provocations against the South, we will make sure that it pays a dear price without fail,” the grim-faced leader said in a nationally televised address, calling the shelling “a crime against humanity”. Lee made no mention of China's call for talks to end the crisis, in what one analyst saw as a tacit dismissal of it. Instead, he highlighted Pyongyang's past deadly attacks. The South now realizes the North will not on its own abandon its nuclear program or brinkmanship policy, he said, adding that tolerance would “spawn nothing but more serious provocations”. The US and South Korea staged the second day of their biggest-ever naval exercise, a show of strength against the regime that has tested nuclear bombs and is blamed for sinking a South Korean warship in March. The sinking killed 46 sailors and sharply raised tensions, but the deadly artillery attack was the first on civilian areas in the South since the 1950-53 war. Such a provocation was unprecedented, Lee said. “A military attack against civilians is strictly prohibited even in time of war; it is a crime against humanity,” he said. Lee said a school was holding classes only a few meters (yards) from where shells landed, adding: “I am outraged by the ruthlessness of the North Korean regime, which is even indifferent to the lives of little children.” The government has vowed to strengthen defenses on all five border islands. Far to the south of the disputed border, the US and South Korean fleets staged an intensive live-fire exercise involving multiple aircraft from the US carrier George Washington. – Agence France
