South Korea (AP) — U.S.
Ambassador Mark Lippert was in stable condition after a man screaming demands
for a unified North and South Korea slashed him on the face and wrist with a
knife, South Korean police and U.S. officials said Thursday.
Media images showed a
stunned-looking Lippert examining his blood-covered left hand and holding his
right hand over a cut on the right side of his face, his pink tie splattered
with blood.
The U.S. State Department condemned
the attack, which happened at a performing arts center in downtown Seoul as the
ambassador was preparing for a lecture about prospects for peace on the divided
Korean Peninsula, and said Lippert's injuries weren't life threatening.
The U.S. Embassy later said Lippert
was in stable condition after surgery at a Seoul hospital. Photos showed a gash
on Lippert's face, starting under his right cheekbone and extending diagonally
across his cheek toward his jawbone.
The attack will shock many outsiders
because the United States is South Korea's closest ally, its military protector
and a big trading partner and cultural influence.
But the reported comments of the
suspect, 55-year-old Kim Ki-jong, during the attack — "South and North
Korea should be reunified" — touch on a deep political divide in South
Korea over the still-fresh legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War, which is still
technically ongoing because it ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty. Some
South Koreans blame the presence of 28,500 U.S. troops stationed in the South
as a deterrent to the North for the continuing split of the Korean Peninsula
along the world's most heavily armed border — a view North Korea's propaganda
machine regularly pushes in state media.
U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Mark
Lippert leaves after he was slashed in the face by an unidentifi …
The attack came suddenly, witnesses
said. A knife-wielding man ran screaming up to Lippert as soup was being served
for the breakfast meeting and began slashing, said Kim Young-man, spokesman for
the group hosting the breakfast, the Korean Council for Reconciliation and
Cooperation. A separate, unidentified witness told local media that as Lippert
stood up for a handshake, the suspect wrestled the ambassador to the ground and
slashed him with a knife.
Yonhap TV showed men in suits and
ties piled on top of the attacker, who was dressed in a modern version of the
traditional Korean hanbok, and Lippert later being rushed to a police car with
a blood-soaked handkerchief pressed to his cheek. The suspect also shouted
anti-war slogans after he was detained, police said. They said the knife was
about 25 centimeters long (10 inches).
A direct attack on a senior U.S.
official is unusual, but it represents a thread in South Korean society of
sometimes extreme protests on both sides of the political divide. Regular small
to medium-sized demonstrations, often by activists seen as professional
protesters, occur across Seoul, often either by anti-U.S. liberals who support
closer reconciliation with the North, or pro-government conservative groups who
support the U.S. and loathe Pyongyang.
Violence sometimes breaks out at the
protests. Scuffles with police and the burning of effigies of North Korean and
Japanese leaders are common. Demonstrators sometimes severe their own fingers,
throw bodily fluids at embassies and try to self-immolate. In 2008, hundreds of
thousands took to the streets to protest U.S. beef imports after a mad cow
scare in America. Both sides of the divide also protest regularly against
archrival Japan, which colonized Korea in the early 20th century, over
territorial and history disputes.
True to form, conservative civic
groups planned to hold rallies later Thursday to condemn the attack on the
ambassador.
Mark Lippert, a former US assistant
secretary of defense for Asian affairs, took up his post in Sout …
The suspect in the attack appeared
to be well-known in Seoul for his willingness to use violence to highlight his
grievances.
A police official, speaking on
condition of anonymity because the investigation was still happening, said the
suspect in 2010 threw a piece of concrete at the Japanese ambassador in Seoul.
South Korean media reported that Kim Ki-jong was later sentenced to a
three-year suspended prison term over the attack. Kim, who was protesting
Japan's claim to small disputed islands that are occupied by South Korea,
missed the ambassador with the concrete and hit his secretary instead, the
reports said.
Kim also reportedly tried to set
himself on fire with gasoline while protesting in front of the presidential
Blue House in October 2007. He was demanding a government investigation into an
alleged 1988 rape in Kim's office, according to news reports.
South Korea's Foreign Ministry
released a statement condemning the attack and vowing a thorough investigation
and strengthened protection of embassies. South Korean President Park Geun-hye,
who is on a Middle East tour, said in a statement that what happened was
"not only a physical attack on the U.S. ambassador in South Korea but also
an attack on the Korea-U.S. alliance and we will not tolerate it."
The suspect on Thursday also
reportedly made mention of something that anti-U.S. protesters in Seoul have
recently demonstrated against: annual U.S.-South Korean military exercises that
North Korea says are preparation for an invasion. Seoul and Washington say the
drills, which will run until the end of April, are defensive and routine.
North Korea each year reacts with
fury to the drills, which the impoverished country is forced to respond to with
drills and weapons tests of its own. In 2013 it threatened nuclear strikes on
Washington and Seoul, and on the first day of this year's drills, Monday, it
test-fired short range missiles in a demonstration of anger.
Lippert, 42, became ambassador in
October of last year and has been a regular presence on social media and in
speeches and presentations during his time in Seoul. His wife gave birth here
and the couple gave their son a Korean middle name. Lippert was formerly the
U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian Affairs and a foreign policy aide
to President Barack Obama when Obama was a U.S. senator.
Obama called Lippert after the
attack to express his prayers for a speedy recovery, the White House said.
"We strongly condemn this act
of violence," State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said. She had no
other details.
___
AP writers Hyung-jin Kim in Seoul
and Josh Lederman in Washington contributed to this report.
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