Growing calls for NIS director to resign

Posted on : 2014-04-17 16:20 KST Modified on : 2014-04-17 16:20 KST
There are doubts over where Director Nam Jae-joon will really lead reform of agency guilty of evidence falsification
 Apr. 16. (pool photo)
Apr. 16. (pool photo)

By Seok Jin-hwan, Blue House correspondent and Noh Hyun-woong, staff reporter

Calls for National Intelligence Service director Nam Jae-joon to step down continue unabated even after President Park Geun-hye’s public apology on Apr. 15 in an attempt to quiet a controversy over the falsification of evidence in the Yoo Woo-sung espionage case.

The calls for Nam to resign over the scandal are likely to continue for some time. To begin with, sentencing in the case where the forged NIS documents were submitted as evidence - the appeals trial of Yoo, a former Seoul Metropolitan Government employee accused of spying for North Korea - is scheduled to take place on Apr. 25. Another possibility is that new evidence could surface about involvement or complicity further up the NIS chain of command during the hearing for the agents indicted by prosecutors for falsification.

The pro forma apologies by Park and Nam appear to only underscore the need for accountability. In Park’s case, the apology amounted to three sentences delivered during a regular Cabinet meeting - and even those were merely a repeat of the same calls for the “organization responsible” to “resolve the situation and develop appropriate measures” that she gave last year when the NIS was accused of systematic interference in the 2012 presidential election.

Nam’s apology, a three-minute speech from a prepared document, was focused more on ducking responsibility than taking it, with references to pressing security matters such as “North Korea’s nuclear tests and missile launches and breaching of the air defense network.”

Even conservative news outlets that have tended to support Park’s policy decisions joined the chorus of disapproval against Nam in opinion pieces on Apr. 16. The Joong-Ang Ilbo newspaper wrote that he should “make the decision himself to step down,” while the Dong-A Ilbo said he is “not at ease enough for us to pin any hopes on him for ‘internal-reform.’” The Chosun Ilbo opined that the “sensible response would be a personnel reshuffling, including a new NIS director.”

Other critics called it “unprecedented” for a country’s intelligence agency director to be kept on even after a scandal that required an apology to the nation.

With the local elections coming up in two months, politicians are likely to continue going on the offensive. Kim Han-gil, co-leader of the New Politics Alliance for Democracy, attempted to put pressure on the Blue House with comments made on Apr. 16.

“If [Park] does not demand accountability for this national disgrace and mockery of the Constitutional order, she will eventually face her own demands for accountability,” he warned.

Meanwhile, Hwang Woo-yea, chairman of the ruling Saenuri Party (NFP), defended Nam in comments made during an Apr. 16 debate at the Korea Broadcasting Journalists Club.

“The party’s determination was that this [the resignation of deputy NIS director Suh Cheon-ho] was the right resolution in view of the nature of the intelligence agency,” Hwang said.

But calls for Nam to quit are continuing even within the Saenuri Party. Lawmaker Lee Jae-oh, considered the “elder statesman” of the party’s Lee Myung-bak wing, posted a message to his Facebook page reading, “The ‘fresh start’ needs to begin with the NIS director stepping down.”

Lee Sang-don, a Chung-Ang University emeritus professor and onetime member of the Saenuri’s “emergency committee,” also appeared on the “Kim Hyeon-jeong News Show” on CBS calling for Nam’s resignation.

“Mr. Nam is talking about making ‘bone-cutting’ reforms, but this isn’t the first apology we’ve heard from the NIS,” Lee said. “Frankly, I have questions about just how much bone there is to cut.”

Seo Bo-hak, a law professor at Kyung Hee University, warned that the “most dangerous thing of all” was Blue House and NIS’s presumption that the possibility of illegal or questionable was part of the nature of anti-communist investigations.

“We need to not abandon the overriding Constitutional principle of due process,” Seo said. “For using those grounds as an excuse to trample on the Constitutional order, Nam Jae-joon should take responsibility and resign.”

 

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