[News analysis] Pres. Park avoiding responsibility on election tampering scandal

Posted on : 2013-06-24 11:09 KST Modified on : 2019-10-19 20:29 KST
Park administration has yet to admit their own misconduct, apologize and order an investigation
 June 23. (by Lee Jeong-ah
June 23. (by Lee Jeong-ah

By Kim Jong-cheol, political correspondent

 

The recent controversy over election interference by the National Intelligence Service could easily have been avoided had President Park Geun-hye approached it with her usual emphasis on “principle”. Instead, it is escalating rapidly. Instead of a mere parliamentary investigation issue, it is now spreading to seemingly unrelated areas such as the disclosure of 2007 inter-Korean summit conversation records. University students are signing on for emergency statements criticizing the NIS’s improprieties; progressive and conservatives are clashing in the streets. Far from dying away, the conflict is spreading throughout society. Many are accusing the administration of either taking no action at all or actually stirring things up.

To begin with, Park and the Blue House have acted irresponsibly as political leaders. Since last December’s presidential election, Park has not had a word to say about the NIS meddling in the election. She hasn’t changed her characterization of the situation as a “ridiculous scheme to influence the election by finding faults with me” (as she said in a Dec. 14 press conference) or the Democratic Party (DP) “using a sex offender’s tactics, keeping a female employee imprisoned and violating her human rights” (from a Dec. 16 television debate). This stands in sharp contrast with President Roh Moo-hyun, who in July 2005 responded to a scandal over Agency for National Security Planning wiretapping by ordering the NIS to investigate the matter. “What the administration should be concerned about is the illegal actions of a state organization,” Roh said at the time. “Stern action must be taken so that nothing like his ever happens again.”

But Park and the Blue House have taken the approach of steadfastly maintaining their own non-involvement, even when inter-Korean summit conversation records containing sensitive state information were essentially leaked to the press by lawmakers in their own ruling Saenuri Party (NFP). During a June 21 National Assembly steering committee meeting, presidential chief of staff Huh Tae-yeol and security office chief Kim Jang-soo said of this presumptuous action by Saenuri lawmakers that they had “no foreknowledge” and “only found out by reading the morning newspaper.”

A key Saenuri official, speaking on condition of anonymity, responded at length on June 23, saying, “Principle, trust, and following the law are supposed to be President Park’s trademark. Now that the prosecutors have finished their investigation, the President has a responsibility to follow the Constitution and national law by apologizing to the public for the NIS’s misdeeds and taking steps to make sure such things don’t happen again. It is irresponsible for her and the Blue to play dumb on such a major incident.”

Another big reason things are escalating like this is the Saenuri Party’s own brazenness, which has echoed Park’s own skewed understanding and coded language. And so we have floor leader Choi Kyung-hwan saying the Saenuri “didn’t profit in any way during the election - if anything, we’re the victims.” Or there’s floor spokesperson Kim Tae-heum calling it a “national scandal in which the Democratic Party put moles in the NIS to infringe on human rights.” During a National Assembly Q&A session, Saenuri lawmakers including Lee Cha-ik and Lee Han-sung said the whole thing was “staged” by “subversive elements” who wanted to reverse the outcome of an election that ended badly for them. These people are not just denying the prosecutors’ own investigation findings that the NIS used 70 employees in its psychological intelligence bureau to wage an illegal “psy ops” campaign against the public - they are actively covering for the organization.

The viewing of summit records by National Assembly Intelligence Committee chief Suh Sang-kee and other Saenuri lawmakers - and their leaking to the conservative media - also appear to be part of the strategy to take the heat off of the NIS. It is the polar opposite of the way the then-ruling Uri Party (predecessor to today’s DP) responded to the wiretapping scandal when Roh was in office. That party led the way in pushing drastic NIS reforms, including the creation of a presidential committee on national intelligence.

A third factor is the NIS’s frequent illegal interference in politics. After the prosecutors’ investigation turned up systematic meddling in last year’s presidential election on orders from then-director Won Sei-hoon, current director Nam Jae-joon “authorized” the viewing of the summit records by Saenuri lawmakers on the Intelligence Committee. In so doing, he reversed his own ruling last year, when he responded to Saenuri demands for disclosure of the records by saying they were designated presidential archival materials and could not be divulged. His explanation was that the prosecutors had judged them to be part of the public record, but most academics and legal professionals maintain that they are designated records. Not only that, but sources said the NIS even brought original copies to the National Assembly for comparison. This is not only in patent violation of the law, but also contrary to Nam’s own words during his nomination hearing, when he insisted on the NIS’s political neutrality.

To make matters worse, an online report by the Monthly Chosun alleged that the NIS took it upon itself to “edit” the records back in 2009. As the organization’s statements about the edited version make apparent - saying it should be “distributed at home and abroad to counter North Korea and leftists in their calls for full implementation of the summits communique” - its ends were purely political, and most likely illegal. Contrast this with the Roh-era NIS, which carried out a thorough investigation into the wiretapping allegations, reported the findings to prosecutors, and issued a public apology immediately.

Every branch of the administration is either condoning or outright encouraging the illegalities. At this point, the administration as a whole may go down as one of the worst ever - as opposed to just its President. Park would do well to recall her own words back in early January 2007, when she blasted Roh back in early January 2007 for his calls to amend the Constitution and allow presidents to run for four-year terms with the possibility of reelection. “Apparently, all presidents think about is elections,” she said at the time. “What an awful president,” Park said, but is now apparently doing the same thing.

 

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

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