Yesterday, I posted on a statement by the Korean Association for the Elderly (Korean: Daehan No-in-hoe) castigating Uri Party head Chung Dong-young. Fellow blogger Gator proceeded to castigate me for posting the statement. Anyway, while I still think Gator’s exceedingly selective in what he chooses to call “propaganda” and “trash journalism” (and not simply because I happened to work for one of his favorite targets), he may very well be correct as far as Daehan No-in-hoe statement is concerned — OhMyNews has a big piece on how the head of the organization of the organization, Ahn Pil-jun, is a former military officer who served with Chun Doo-hwan’s martial law command, a member of the Hana-hoe (the “One Mind Society,” a small group of young [back then] military officers than eventually formed the core of Chun’s support group), and served in several high-ranking positions during the Fifth and Sixth Republics. Apparently, the previous Daehan No-in-hoe heads had similar backgrounds. Anyway, what this means, of course, is that there is a strong possibility that the statement condemning Chung was politically motivated. Now, in a photo call interview with OhMyNews, Ahn said his organization doesn’t support any particular political party, but that’s probably horse-shit.
Now, the OhMyNews report is a) from OhMyNews; and b) focuses mostly on Netizen responses, so draw your own conclusions as to its reliability. Moreover, just because the organization is run by a former friend of Chun Doo-hwan doesn’t necessarily make the statement issued on Saturday worthless. Chung was apparently heckled a bit by old folk in Pusan, and Uri Party candidates in the Gyeongsang provinces are reportedly taking shit because of Chung’s comments — the Uri Party candidate in Yeongju, North Gyeongsang Province, for example, apparently called for Chung to resign as head of the party. But a shady statement (released by a shady individual) is a shady statement.
The Gator may be a lefty, but in this case, he also appear to be right 
3 Comments
I always claim that I’m a REAL conservative.
Uh, there are good exceptions but as a rule, always look twice at any org that starts with “Daehan,” as in ?흸???흹?????쨍?쨍??징흹?쨌쨍??쨈??????????????흸.
In other words, “daehan” says as much about an organization as the word “participatory” in its name.