A little more from Voice of America....sounds like they were afraid this could become an international incident (remember, it doesn’t take much to set the North Koreans off...)
“Defense Ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok says the use of deadly force was justified because of the military sensitivity of the heavily armed border. Min-seok said the border is so sensitive because South Korea and North Korea are still under a cease-fire agreement from 1953, and therefore when a person violates the regulation the military is allowed to shoot.”
A little more about the swimmer...
“The man was later found to be unarmed and identified as 47-year-old Nam Yong-ho by the South Korean passport he was carrying. It also showed he had been expelled from Japan earlier this year after being denied an application for political asylum.”
http://www.voanews.com/content/south-korean-military-defends-shooting-of-defector/1751164.html
how can there be an international incident when both of them claim to represent the whole peninsula?
There is a lot of Koreans in Japan who support the north. I dunno why.