SEOUL, 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.
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.
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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