hankyoreh

Looking at the behavior of President-elect Lee Myung-bak and his presidential transition team since they announced on January 16 that they will do away with the Unification Ministry, you see exactly what a low level of understanding they have about reunification issues and how extemporaneously they approach them. They treat the national goal of peaceful reunification like a pariah, because they judge everything in the context of negating the policies of the government of Roh Moo-hyun. It is unrepresented in the history of the Republic of Korea.

The transition team says a specially appointed Cabinet minister mainly responsible for developing natural resources overseas and attracting foreign investment will also be responsible for inter-Korean relations. In other words, it is going to pull apart the head, body, arms and legs of a ministry that is responsible for reunification-related legislation and relations with North Korea, and then take one of those arms and attach it to the shoulder of that special minister. This is all too crude, even for an emergency response to criticism of the move to do away with the Unification Ministry. It went so far as to feed the public incorrect information when it said that “West Germany was a divided nation that never had an office dedicated to reunification.” You have to wonder what their motive is when they have to go so far as to deliberately confuse the Korean people.

Grand National Party floor leader Ahn Sang-soo went on the radio and said that the ministry has handled issues “recklessly,” as if they were “ideological and domestic political” concerns. He was essentially saying that the GNP does not like the Unification Ministry for ideological and political reasons. His comments were a frank admission that, instead of figuring things out in a strict manner and with an objective perspective, the ministry is being done away with because the transition team views it negatively. They look like they care nothing for the rest of the country.

Lee Myung-bak goes further and says that “inter-Korean issues are not something the Unification Ministry and North Korea’s United Front Department should be whispering about among themselves.” He even said that negotiations with the North “have vacillated behind closed doors.” He reduces negotiations between the government departments in North and South Korea responsible for inter-Korean relations to “contact in secret rooms” and then puts that logic to work to justify abolishing the Unification Ministry. That is no different than saying he is not going to properly pursue North Korea policy, since meetings between the responsible officials from each side are the most official of meetings, and he wants to deny even that much. It is one thing to say such things when you are an opposition politician, but when you are about to be inaugurated as president you are abandoning your constitutional duty to work for peaceful reunification.

The work of reunification is not something that can be replaced by diplomacy. The public has an increasing number of questions about the vague tone of the incoming administration’s North Korea policy. If you put the first button in the wrong hole, everything else goes wrong from there. Lee and his transition team need to quit with the sophistry and stand responsibly before History and the Korean Nation.

Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]