hankyoreh

First lady Kim Keon-hee and President Yoon Suk-yeol sit side by side in the Yongsan presidential office on May 28, 2022. (screen capture from Kim Keon-hee fan page)

The poet Kim Eung-gyo once boldly called Yongsan “My home, No. 1 Colonial Lane.” In his poem, “Tokyo Tower,” Yongsan is depicted as a place where “during the colonial period the hinomaru fluttered / artillery members in jika-tabi ankle braces marched” that soon became “the stomping grounds of gum-chewing white and black men / where the Stars and Stripes were hoisted to the trumpet’s sound.”

The truth of it is that Yongsan has not been able to escape its fate as a foreign military base since 1905. The area, which had once been home to the occupying Japanese military government, was handed off to the US military immediately after liberation from Japan.

Kim’s inclusion of the presence of the US military in the history of “No. 1 Colonial Lane” is controversial. One could ask if it is appropriate to equate occupying forces who seized one’s country to allied forces that stood next to us to face a common enemy. However, the fact that our sovereignty has been continuously threatened in front of the Yongsan base’s barrier, whether it was by Japanese firearms, wielded by soldiers with ankle braces, or whether it was part of a voluntary price we paid, is uncontested.

Kim uses sharp poetic insight, criticizing the 100 or so years of Yongsan’s history by pointing out Korea’s lack of sovereignty during that period.

There are two layers to the suspension of sovereignty in Korea. If you consider the transfer of operational command and control, which is equivalent to military sovereignty, as the core, the US-South Korea Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), which recognizes the special status of US troops in Korea, forms the surface layer.

SOFA illustrates the asymmetry of Korea-US sovereignty daily. Even though it is not as explicit as the Shanghai French Concession, which was divided by Western powers, SOFA also allows a kind of extraterritorial jurisdiction when it comes to crimes committed by US Forces in Korea.

After the Roh Moo-hyun administration, most of the Yongsan base moved to Pyeongtaek. Under the current administration, both the presidential office and official residence have been moved to Yongsan. Is this a sign that Yongsan is coming close to ridding itself of its “No. 1 Colonial Lane” title?

I tend to be pessimistic on that front. There is a line being drawn in Yongsan — a line of privilege that stops legal sovereignty in its tracks. In the mere eight months after the presidential office’s relocation, Yongsan has declined into a symbol of privilege, uncommunicativeness and exclusivity.

The president’s office has become the residence for people profiting off Yoon’s spoils system: the offspring of the presidential couple’s acquaintances and underlings of Yoon’s closest aides. The official presidential residence in Yongsan’s Hannam neighborhood serves as a banquet hall for Yoon’s new and old aides, in which they can choose a new ruling party leader who will keep to Yoon’s good side.

Those who have gotten on Yoon’s bad side, as well as opposition party leaders, are not on the invitation list.

The most ominous thing is that Yongsan is becoming a sanctuary for extraterritoriality. The president is granted criminal immunity while in office, to ensure the stable administration of the state, but that is not the case for the president’s family.

Article 11 of South Korea’s Constitution states that “no privileged caste shall be recognized or ever established in any form” and “The awarding of decorations or distinctions of honor in any form shall be effective only for recipients, and no privileges shall ensue therefrom.”

These seem to mean nothing to the current president’s wife. Several court cases have shown that Kim Keon-hee contacted key accomplices in the stock price manipulation at Deutsch Motors and participated in the manipulation herself. This is a truth revealed by none other than the prosecutors waging the case. However, there is no indication that prosecutions will start investigations.

Minister of Justice Han Dong-hoon has not ceased spitting vitriol that would amount to illegal commands to investigate the leader of the political opposition, but when it comes to the first lady, he only parrots the phrases “A thorough investigation has been underway for a long time. and  "It will be handled in accordance with laws and principles.”

More than a year has passed since the accomplices in the Deutsch Motors case were indicted, and the first trial ruling will be made on Feb. 10. It seems like the minister is merely engaging in wordplay as he repeats the fact that it is a “thorough investigation” without showing any signs of it being “thorough.”

If one can divide the history of Korea’s occupation by colonizers and allies on the basis of sovereignty, it would also be possible to place both the era before and after Yoon moved the presidential office into one category — that of extraterritorial rights and privileges, to be exact.

With more progress being made on the relocation of the base, Yongsan is coming within the scope of our sovereignty. However, whether it is because of a foreign military or internal authorities, we cannot say that we have fully restored our own sovereignty if there are certain people in certain residences that are considered above the law.

In a democratic republic, national sovereignty is the same as sovereignty by the people. The suspension of national sovereignty in front of foreign military bases and the evasion of penalization for crimes by powerful families are the same in that they are both examples of restrictions on sovereignty.

Recognizing sanctuary beyond national sovereignty would be an act of dividing our society into privileged areas and internal colonies.

In the 21st century, it is unheard of that a privileged area should exist in a democratic republic, whether it applies to foreign forces or domestic. We will only be able to pride ourselves on living in a sovereign nation when we can investigate and bring the allegations against Kim Keon-hee to court, just like all other accomplices.

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