Kim Byung-ju publicly rebuts Han Dong-hoon: "Keep your mouth shut if you don't know"

Democratic Party Rep. Kim Byung-ju publicly rebuked independent Rep. Han Dong-hoon on Facebook on the 25th, telling him to "keep your mouth shut if you don't know." The dispute centers on the timing of an investigation into an explosion, believed to have been caused by a landmine, in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ, the area between the two Koreas where no military forces are stationed). Rep. Han had previously accused the military of standing by while evidence disappeared over the Chuseok holiday, demanding an immediate investigation through a solo protest in front of the Defense Ministry on the 24th and a Facebook post.

Rep. Kim, a retired four-star general with an extensive military career, saw this as a self-contradictory argument. In a Facebook post on the 25th, he asked, "Confusing combat readiness with the forensic examination of an accident site is telling your subordinates to advance down the road to death," adding, "Have you lost your mind, telling our troops to run into a mine-strewn field for the sake of political infighting?" He explained that while troops respond immediately to enemy provocations—whether during a holiday or in the middle of the night—examining an accident site is a different matter: paths must be cleared and safety confirmed on land where additional mines may have been buried.

Responding to Rep. Han's comparison of the explosion site to a murder scene, Kim wrote in the same post that "ignorance invites danger." Citing the case of a battalion commander injured in a second blast while rushing to rescue the sergeant first class felled by the first, he countered that investigators cannot be sent into a site where additional explosive devices may remain without first verifying it is safe.

Concerns about the government's response, however, have emerged even within the ruling party. Rep. Park Ji-won of the Democratic Party noted in a Facebook post on the 25th, "Why are you keeping quiet and refusing to explain? Why are you hiding in the back instead of governing proactively?" Park said, "If our soldier was injured in a landmine accident, the facts must be disclosed so the public can understand," adding, "Stop looking only at the president and get the prime minister and every government official in line with reality."