"Kang Shin-chul is shameless, Ahn Gyu-back is incompetent on national security"... People Power Party blasts current and former defense ministers

[Financial News] After the explosion in the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) on the Western Front was revealed to have been caused by North Korea, the opposition camp moved to condemn new Defense Minister Kang Shin-chul and former Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-back alike.
The People Power Party said on the 29th that Defense Minister Kang Shin-chul's remark that it was "difficult to determine" whether North Korea was responsible for the DMZ explosion had been exposed as a blatant lie just hours later. The party also criticized the military for callously ignoring service members' statements that they had witnessed the same North Korean wooden-box mines on the front line. It added that, only after the incident occurred, the Republic of Korea Joint Chiefs of Staff (ROK JCS) reluctantly issued a statement tantamount to an admission, saying, "There is a very high possibility that the mine was planted by the North Korean military."
The party pointed out that, despite the horrific serious accident in which a service member's ankle was severed, the military was focused on covering up the incident and did not begin its field investigation until six days later.
It further criticized the Defense Ministry, saying that when public criticism intensified, it merely pretended to hastily move up the investigation from the originally scheduled date of the 29th to the 27th. The party also slammed the ministry for failing even to approach the point of the explosion, while rain that fell in the meantime washed away all the decisive evidence.
The party attacked Kang, saying that he had repeatedly offered a brazen excuse in front of the cameras, claiming, "There was no deliberate delay or cover-up."
The People Power Party asked, "Minister Kang was directly involved in the 2015 wooden-box mine provocation under the Park Geun-hye administration, when he was working in the minister's aide office. Despite knowing more than anyone about the nature of North Korean wooden-box mines and the response manual, did he knowingly turn a blind eye out of concern for his own personal advancement and the administration's reaction?"
It also directly blamed former Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-back, saying that the roots of the military's severe incompetence on national security began with him. The party argued that Ahn's submissive measures around the Military Demarcation Line (MDL), which had effectively handed over our territory in its entirety, had completely hollowed out the foundation of national security.
In particular, the party criticized Ahn for being busy downplaying indications identified as early as September last year that the North Korean military had planted mines south of the MDL, using the cowardly excuse of "changes in the terrain" while worrying about North Korea's reaction.
The People Power Party argued, "The misguided view toward North Korea that tied the military's hands and feet by telling it merely to watch rather than fire even when North Korean troops crossed the MDL was clearly a man-made disaster that ultimately led to the bloodshed of our service members." 
[email protected] Kim Kyung-soo Reporter