hankyoreh

Defense Security Command

Documentary evidence has come to light showing that the Defense Security Command (DSC) planned to use tanks, armored vehicles, and even special forces to suppress demonstrators, control the press, and take over government offices in Mar. 2017 if the Constitutional Court ruled to overturn Park Geun-hye’s impeachment. It is shocking and appalling to think that the DSC – which has perpetrated numerous illegal acts already with its internet posting operations to influence election outcomes and its surveillance of Sewol family members – was planning to attempt an armed suppression of candlelight demonstrators like the military administration back in 1980.

According to documents titled “Wartime Martial Law and Joint Investigation Plan” made public on July 5 and 6 by Democratic Party lawmaker Lee Cheol-hee and the Center for Military Human Rights, Korea, the DSC drew up plans to invoke the garrison act and declare martial law if the Park impeachment was overturned, based on predictions that the spreading demonstrations and violence could return in possible injuries and deaths. The plan also specified that the martial law army would consist of six mechanized divisions, two armored brigades, and six special forces brigades for the sake of maneuverability if security martial law was declared.

It further stated that officers at the lieutenant colonel and colonel level would assume command and monitoring duties for 24 government offices if emergency martial law were declared in response to large casualties, the seizing of weapons, and other chaos during the police’s suppression of disturbances.

The document further discussed having a journalism censorship team and media countermeasures team to control the press and close the social networking service (SNS) accounts of demonstrators, agitators, and others violating the decree. While members of the South Korean public were assembling in Seoul’s Gwanghwamun Square for peaceful candlelight demonstrations, the DSC was drafting what amounted to the blueprint for a coup to protect the President – declaring the public to be “potential rioters” to be ruthlessly suppressed and seizing control of the government and media.

This cannot be seen as anything but a repeat of the events of 1979 and 1980, when the new military administration led by DSC chief Chun Doo-hwan perpetrated the Dec. 12 coup d’état and massacred countless civilians in Gwangju.

The DSC has shrugged this off as being “in the past.” But the figures responsible for the document’s drafting still hold key positions in the military. The DSC’s organization and staff of around 5,000 remains intact. We have to wonder whether the DSC exists in some kind of blind spot when it comes to reform. Details of the DSC’s surveillance of civilians previously came to light when a private named Yun Seok-yang working for the DSC blew the whistle in 1990, but this resulted only in a change in the organization’s Korean name.

The abuses have continued unabated over the years. We have already learned that the DSC was responsible for planning a number of political operations including election-influencing internet posts and support for conservative groups during the Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye administrations.

There needs to be a thorough investigation, and the individuals responsible need to be punished. We also need to take major steps to ensure this kind of anti-Constitutional coup attempt does not happen again. We should seriously consider dismantling the current DSC and rebuilding it as a smaller anti-espionage and security unit under the Ministry of National Defense’s defense intelligence headquarters. In terms of the DSC three main functions – anti-espionage, general intelligence, and anti-subversion measures – we will need to eliminate all but the anti-espionage ones. It has been suggested that the DSC’s staff could be reduced from its current level of 5,000 to about 600 by making these changes.

In its loyalty to unjust political powers, the DSC has shown it will not hesitate to make plans to point guns at South Korea’s own public. There is no cause for hesitating any longer to dismantle it.

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