hankyoreh

Gyeonggi Province. (Yonhap News)

After South Korean President Moon Jae-in called for an independent military team to carry out a special investigation of the military’s Defense Security Command (DSC), attention is focusing on the composition of the team of investigators, the scope of the investigation and its future ramifications. This is the first time an independent team of investigators in the military has been put together since the South Korean military’s establishment.

“In regard to the Defense Security Command’s drafting of a document considering a martial law decree during the candlelit rallies, President Moon has instructed Defense Minister Song Young-moo to set up an independent team of investigators to conduct a swift and fair investigation. The independent team is supposed to consist of military prosecutors without a background in the army or the Defense Security Command,” Blue House spokesperson Kim Eui-kyum said during the daily briefing on July 10.

There are allegations that former and current army officers in the DSC may have been heavily involved in drafting the martial law decree document and in surveilling the family members of those who were lost in the sinking of the Sewol ferry in 2014.

“Limiting the independent team of investigators to people who are not from the army means that the investigators will come from the navy and air force. This should forestall any rumors about impartiality, not to mention accusations about ‘protecting their own,’ during the course of the investigation,” said a source connected with a military investigative body.

The military’s independent team of investigators is likely to be modeled after the typical independent investigative teams used by the public prosecutors. “During a recent investigation of allegations about ‘outside pressure’ in an investigation into corrupt hiring practices at Gangwon Land, an independent or special team of investigators was put together instead of appointing a special prosecutor.

This independent team was assembled on the authority of the prosecutor general without any additional legal grounds and without any connection to instructions from the Supreme Office of the Prosecutors. The military’s independent team of investigators will also be set up on the model of the independent team of investigators used by the civil prosecutors,” said a senior official at the Blue House.

The initial focus of the independent team’s investigation into the DSC’s martial law document is expected to be questions of who the document was composed by and how it came to be composed. The DSC’s martial law document, which was made public by the Centre for Military Human Rights Korea (CMHRK) on July 6, details a plan to suppress by force candlelit rallies if former president Park Geun-hye’s impeachment had been overturned by deploying 200 tanks, 550 armored vehicles, 4,800 armed troops and 1,400 commandos to downtown Seoul. The plan also authorized troops to fire on protesters if necessary.

“The investigation will cover who gave orders about the disposition of troops and tanks [in the document] and about who was briefed by whom,” said a senior official at the Blue House.

Along with releasing the martial law document, the CMHRK revealed that then DSC Commander Cho Hyun-chon had briefed former Defense Minister Han Min-goo and Blue House National Security Advisor Kim Kwan-jin about the document. It also alleged that the document had been composed by DSC Chief of Staff So Gang-won (a major general in the army).

South Korean President Moon Jae-in ordered a special independent investigation of the DSC’s martial law plans on July 10. The above photo shows the entrance to the DSC in Gwacheon

Until recently, So had been on a task force charged with reforming the DSC, but after the document was leaked, he was forced to leave the task force. As a consequence, it appears that everyone who was briefed on the document – including Kim Kwan-jin, Han Min-goo and Cho Hyun-chon – will be targets of the investigation.

“If it turns out during the course of the investigation that civilians who are no longer in the army were involved in this, the prosecutors or other eligible individuals could also join the investigation,” said a senior official at the Blue House. The implication is that the investigation could be expanded to include not only officials who worked in the Blue House under Park Geun-hye but also former and current high-ranking officials in the military.

“If this investigation goes ahead, I’ll tell them everything. I have nothing to say for now,” Han Min-goo said during a telephone call with The Hankyoreh on July 10.

At the moment, Cho Hyun-chon is reportedly residing in the US, where he traveled at the end of last year to pursue “academic studies.”

On Tuesday morning, the CMHRK announced that it had asked the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office to investigate Cho Hyun-chon and So Gangwon on the charges of planning and plotting a rebellion according to the civilian and military criminal codes.

By Park Byong-su, senior staff writer, and Kim Bo-hyeop, staff reporter

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