Report: S. Korean hostage beheaded
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-06-23 01:04

(Continued)

Seoul sticks to deployment plan

A protester in Seoul holds a placard with a picture of a South Korean hostage during a rally against government's decision to send South Korean troops to Iraq. [AFP]

In Seoul, hundreds of protesters attended a candlelight vigil Monday night to demand the release of the Kim and a reversal of the decision to send troops. Some held placards reading “Sending the troops kills, kills, kills.”

Kim’s distraught family members in the southeastern city of Busan also appealed for the government to save him and review its plan to send more 3,000 troops to assist in reconstruction efforts in northern Iraq, which it announced last week. Once the deployment is complete, South Korea will be the largest partner in the U.S.-led coalition after the United States and Britain.

“An individual is the nation. There can’t be a country without people,” Shin Young-ja, Kim’s mother, was quoted as saying by Yonhap. “The government should save him using any means.”

South Korea’s National Security Council and Foreign Affairs and Defense ministries hastily met after news broke of the abduction and decided not to change their plans.

“There is no change in the government’s spirit and position that it will send troops to Iraq to help establish peace and rebuild Iraq,” Choi said.

South Korea warned its people Saturday not to travel to Iraq, saying the decision to send troops might prompt terrorist attacks on South Koreans.

South Korean military medics in southern Iraq suspended free medical treatment to Iraqi patients because of security concerns, said Maj. Chun Heung-soo, a spokesman for the Defense Ministry in Seoul.

“This should never be interpreted as a protest against the kidnapping,” Chun said. “We are doing it because we thought there was a lack of safety for our medical staff.”

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