January 15, 2013 10:27
South Korea and Burma have agreed to build a memorial for the victims of the 1983 Rangoon bombing by North Korean agents that claimed the lives of 17 South Koreans and wounded 14.
The monument will be set up at the Aung San National Cemetery in the former Burmese capital.
The government is dispatching a team led by a Foreign Ministry official to Burma early next month. The team includes architects and landscape architects.
Burma offered a 260 sq.m site near the police guard barracks at the cemetery, from where the actual bombing site can be seen, according to a diplomatic source. The memorial site is about 50 m from the monument to Burmese independence leader Aung San and close to the Shwedagon Pagoda.
Seoul plans to complete construction by Oct. 9 this year, the 30th anniversary of the bombing.
President Lee Myung-bak visited the Aung San cemetery in May last year to pay his respects to the South Korean victims. But there was no marker remembering them.
The Chosun Ilbo and other South Korean media called for a monument to be erected.
On Oct. 9, 1983, North Korean agents detonated a bomb at the cemetery timed with the arrival there of then president Chun Doo-hwan. The 17 dead included deputy prime minister Suh Suk-joon and foreign minister Lee Bum-suk.
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