South Korea's president and his countrymen expressed shock and
anguish Wednesday that one of their own sons carried out the
deadliest shooting rampage in US history. Many feared
reprisals.
The family of Cho Seung-hui, who once lived in a cheap basement
apartment in the outskirts of Seoul, left the country about 15
years ago to seek a better life in the United States, a women who
said she was their former landlady, told local media.
"They weren't well off," Lim Bong-ae told broadcaster MBC.
"When they emigrated, the father said, 'I'm moving to the US
because life is so difficult here. It will be better living
somewhere other than Korea'," she told the Chosun Ilbo
newspaper.
Police identified the 23-year-old shooter's father as Cho
Seong-tae, 61.
Top South Korean officials, fearing a backlash against the large
Korean community in the United States, held a series of emergency
meetings after Cho was named as the killer.
"I and my fellow citizens can only feel shock and a wrenching of
our hearts," President Roh Moo-hyun told a news conference
Wednesday, expressing his condolences to the victims, their
families and the US people.
"I hope US society can get over such immense sadness and find a
sense of composure as soon as possible," said Roh, who had earlier
held an emergency cabinet meeting.
It was the third time that Roh has offered condolences since
Tuesday.
His office gave no details of the discussions on the massacre,
which has dominated local television and newspaper reports and
sparked soul-searching in South Korea.
The country has a low crime rate by most standard.
Soul-searching
One local media report said South Korean groups in the United
States planned to set up a "Virginia Tech fund" to provide support
for bereaved families.
Seoul's US ambassador called on parishioners at a Korean church
in the Washington area to fast for repentance, another said.
About 100,000 South Koreans study in the United States, making
them the largest foreign student group in the country. The United
States also has a big ethnic-Korean community.
"After 9/11, Americans had ill feeling against Middle Eastern
people. I'm just afraid that this ... incident would come to affect
South Korean students in the United States," said 35-year-old Chang
Jung-in, a passer-by on the streets of Seoul.
"We hope that this incident won't create discrimination and
prejudice against people of South Korean or Asian origin," said the
Hankyoreh newspaper in an editorial.
A sense of despair prevailed among South Korean public.
"I'm too shameful that I'm a South Korean," wrote an Internet
user identified only by the ID iknijmik on the country's top Web
portal site, Naver, among hundreds of messages on the issue. "As a
South Korean, I feel apologetic to the Virginia Tech victims."
Kim Min-kyung, a South Korean student at Virginia Tech reached
by telephone from Seoul, said there were about 500 Koreans at the
school, including Korean-Americans. She said she had never met Cho.
She said South Korean students feared retaliation and were
gathering in groups.
(China Daily via agencies April 19, 2007)
