The Marmot’s Hole

Being a graduate of Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service (quite a breed apart from those lowly SLLers ), one might think I’d be keen on taking the foreign service exam. I’ve toyed around with the idea, but apparently, I should change my citizenship and take the Korean one instead. Somehow, the Munhwa Ilbo got a hold on an internal memo sent around the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and from there the Chosun Ilbo ran with it. Get a load of some of this chicanery:

The writer of the post said that he had worked for department chiefs, bureau chiefs, ambassadors, and consul generals, but he felt sad because he respected very few of them. He said that he has had superiors who went out to eat and drink with their friends and passed the bill on to the ministry, while even subordinates, pointing to their superiors’ example, banded together to eat and drink on the public coin.

He gave other examples: one superior received enough money for a three-day, two-night trip even though his trip was scheduled only for two days and one night. He pocketed the remainder. Another ambassador, in order to bring his daughter along on a trip to present his credentials, wrote the name of another official along with his on the trip itinerary and planned expenditure sheet. But when it came time to go, he brought his daughter rather than the official. The writer also said that even though he felt pain and frustration with the situation, he simply said yes to everything he saw because he needed to make a living. A Judas kiss it may be, he said, but readers would know what he was saying inside.

Ministry officials have come out apologizing for the funny business going on and assure us that those diplomats and foreign service personnel will be punished by being dispatched to Mongolia. However, if there was any doubt to the credibility of the internal memo, we have this story:

The Foreign Affairs Investigation department of the Seoul District Public Prosecutors Office arrested on Thursday the former consul general to Hong Kong, Lee Jung-jae, 52, for illegally issuing Korean visas to 265 ethnic Korean-Chinese citizens. The Chinese nationals were ineligible for visas, and Lee received about W200 million in bribes from brokers in exchange for issuing the visas.

Prosecutors say that Lee forged the necessary documents to issue visas to ineligible ethnic Korean-Chinese nationals from March 2000 to February 2001. Lee received 1.76 million Hong Kong dollars (about W260 million) on 36 occasions from two brokers, including a broker identified as Hwang, who was issued visas on behalf of unqualified Chinese citizens.

From what I gather, Hong Kong isn’t the only place this type of crap is going on; having lived in a factory district north of Seoul for two years, I know a lot of South, Southeast, and Central Asians who have paid enormous fees (often amounting to families’ life savings) to “brokers” who magically come up with the proper documentation for entry visas. Now, I have no evidence that the Korean embassies themselves are involved, as apparently the one in Hong Kong was, but one has to be suspicious, nevertheless. And to make matters worse for some of these people, a number of foreign legations in Seoul are apparently in on the act, as well - the Bangladeshi ambassador to Korea was recalled in October due to allegations that embassy staff were shaking down migrant workers, and I’ve heard a ton of rumors concerning Uzbekistan’s embassy.

For what it’s worth, I’ve heard nothing but good things from my wife about the Mongolian Embassy in Seoul…