Unoccupied Korea have stated that the Occupied Korean forces fired first
" North Korea has said that its bombardment was in response to shells fired into its territorial waters by the South Korean military during war games held only a few miles from the North’s coastline. South Korea launched a retaliatory barrage that it claimed inflicted significant damage, but no casualty reports have been issued in the North. Now new war games—this time with a massive US component—create the conditions for another clash.
Incendiary rhetoric has accompanied the crisis on both sides of Korea’s demilitarized zone. On Friday, North Korea denounced the planned joint US-South Korean exercises as a provocation and warned, “The situation on the Korean peninsula is inching closer to the brink of war.”
In the South, the government replaced its defense minister with a former chairman of the military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff and announced the adoption of new rules of engagement that would allow the military to respond with disproportionate force to attacks from the North. The garrison on Yeonpyeong (just seven miles from the North Korean coast), meanwhile, has been reinforced with more troops and heavy weapons.
Right-wing legislators, meanwhile have denounced the government of President Lee Myung-bak for failing to take more aggressive action, including the use of air strikes, against the North.
Lee and his Grand National Party (GNP), the party of the former military dictatorships that ruled South Korea with US support, came into office promising a hard-line stance toward North Korea. Its cutting off of aid and rejection of the “Sunshine Policy,” through which previous South Korean governments sought reconciliation via investments and aid, have played a significant role in provoking the escalating conflict. Now Lee is under pressure from his own supporters and elements within the military to make good on his hard-line rhetoric.
The potential for a catastrophic confrontation on the Korean peninsula is high. It is difficult to imagine another armed confrontation not provoking a major retaliation by the South Korean military.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/nov2010/pers-n27.shtml
Comrade Stalin