Pres. Park still silent on spy case document falsification

Posted on : 2014-03-10 15:01 KST Modified on : 2014-03-10 15:01 KST
Park appears to be shielding NIS director Nam Jae-joon from criticism due to their close ties
 lawmakers of the Democratic Party
lawmakers of the Democratic Party

By Seok Jin-hwan, Blue House correspondent and Lee Seung-jun, staff reporter

Having said that “normalizing the abnormal” is the core goal of President Park Geun-hye, her keeping silence on the Yoo Woo-sung espionage case is far from normal - or comprehensible.

While even Park’s supporters have decried the alleged falsification of evidence by the National Intelligence Service (NIS) as a criminal breach of the national order, Park herself has stayed completely silent, much as she did when the NIS was first accused last year of illegal interference in the 2012 presidential election.

Now politicians are accusing her of making things worse by shielding the NIS and its director, Nam Jae-joon.

Democratic Party chairman Kim Han-gil and New Political Vision Party central steering committee director Ahn Cheol-soo, who are currently merging their parties into a coalition, turned the pressure on Park and her ruling Saenuri Party

(NFP) at a Mar. 9 joint press conference at the National Assembly, where they called for an investigation into the falsification allegations and the appointment of a special prosecutor.

“President Park has remained silent on this issue, and prosecutors have been very lax, investigating the case only after one of the people involved attempted suicide,” the two party leaders said at the press conference.

On Mar. 9 the NIS released a statement to apologize for this case. “We also did not know about the falsification, so we are also perplexed,” the statement said.

They went on to urge Park to take action and call for the appointment of a special prosecutor.

“The President needs to bring the truth to light and punish those responsible right now,” they stated. “She must take stern action so that this kind of breach of national discipline does not happen again.”

Attention is also turning to Nam, whose response as NIS director has been to offer a litany of excuses while shunning any responsibility himself. He is also the same figure who responded to evidence and testimony of NIS election interference by releasing sealed transcripts last July from a 2007 inter-Korean summit.

His claim at the time was that he was disclosing them “for the sake of the NIS’s reputation after the opposition’s repeated attacks and distortions.”

But many are saying Nam’s failure to produce a coherent explanation as more and more proof of evidence falsification comes to light is only hurting that reputation.

“I don’t know if Nam knew about [the evidence falsification] at first,” said a senior prosecutor on condition of anonymity. “But he most likely heard a report about it after the not-guilty ruling in the first trial and the press reports about the possibility of forgery.”

“If he didn’t know about it after that, or didn't do anything about it, then he inevitably must take some responsibility as head of the intelligence institution,” the prosecutor added.

Many doubt that Nam, who is seen as keeping the NIS on a much tighter leash than past directors, knew nothing about the events that unfolded. His refusal to take responsibility stands in sharp contrast with past chiefs of the police and prosecutors who stepped down in cases involving torture allegations and the deaths of demonstrators.

The background of his holding out so long could be the great trust he enjoys from Park, who has effectively shielded him through the storm of the political interference allegations.

Last year, she only broke her long silence over the election interference case to order the NIS to come up with its own reform plan- a move many saw as tepid.

This time, the case involves another severe breach of discipline, with a state institution perpetrating an attack on the judicial system - one of the cornerstones of democracy - by falsifying documents with the aim of convicting a particular individual. Yet Park, a notorious micromanager, has been oddly tight-lipped. Many are already identifying a pattern: despite her pledge to “correct the abnormal,” she has repeatedly kept quiet when the case has stood to hurt her.

“If the election interference case was a challenge to the electoral system, then this evidence falsification case is a challenge to the judicial system,” said current affairs critic Yu Chang-seon.

“Both of them represent threats to the foundation of democracy, and the reason the intelligence agency has been so confident is because President Park has been sending the wrong signals about her confidence in Nam Jae-joon.” According to Yu, Park’s next step should be to dismiss Nam and restore order. “Otherwise, she’s not going to be able to talk about ‘correcting the abnormal’ anymore,” he said.

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