Korea’s chief spook, National Intelligence Service director Kim Seung-kyu, has offered to resign.
Yoon Kwang-ung, who recently resigned as defense minister, is looking like a strong candidate to replace him.
Whoever takes over the NIS couldn’t have picked a worst time with what some are saying could be the biggest spy busts since DJ took office (see even better Chosun Ilbo piece here, of Dong-A Ilbo piece here).
A Korean-American businessman, Michael Chang, has been busted on charges of having served as a North Korean mole for the last 20 years. What makes this interesting is that four other people, including a former executive member of the Democratic Labor Party (DLP) and the party’s secretary general have also been arrested as well in connection with Chang. The press is focusing on how all are members of the so-called “386 generation,” and one, former DLP central committee member Lee Jung-hun, was one of the leaders of the 1985 seizure of the USIS building in Seoul.
Security authorities accuse Lee and the others of meeting with a presumed North Korean agent in Beijing in March of this year. During the meeting, the politicians supposedly received instructions concerning party activities and street protests.
Of course, I don’t work for NIS, so I have no idea whether any of these accusations are true. I do know, however, that the story is a virtual wet-dream for Korea’s conservative newspapers (”We got the little commies now!”), so keep that in mind when reading. There is some concern that other politicians might become involved as well. Personally, if it turns out that DLP has been infiltrated, I’d be keen to know if that had anything to do with DLP lawmaker Roh Hoe-chan being a human leak machine with documents pertaining to the United States and USFK.
5 Comments
Call me crazy but I think the recent spy-bust is one of the most exciting political crisis in South Korea since the left-wing politicians took over the government. It’s about time we “got little Commies”, and I have no doubt there are a lot more to get busted soon.
I think the Minister in charge of Contruction/Development is next.
http://korearight.blogspot.com.....flies.html
for the enormous embarassment recent (opening contradict USGS seismic info, multiple mistakes in TPD-2 landing location, etc), i am surprised that they were not fired earlier.
Christ, they can’t really expect a guy that just resigned from defence post to go into security post. Is this musical chair or something? It’s funny that the screwed government is DPRK, but it’s the Roh government that is fallinng apart. If Bush was serious about regime change, then he should convince Roh to defect to DPRK. They won’t last one year with him in their government. It would make much sense that the realists in Defense and NIS would lose confidence in Roh, and maybe NIS acted without Roh’s consent.
I can’t see how this could be a boon for the conservatives, even though they are probably having a field day. EVERYONE already know that the unions and the 386 are full of communist sympathizers–and many are full blown reds. But for the bulk of the anti-american korean youths, they might look at this as another case of “soogoo-ggoltong” attacking democracy, just like KCIA kidnapping KDJ. (i see another possible banmi-undong brewing) At this point, one has to be a fool to think that the kids will look at the details to see if they were really spies or not. Don’t politicize the kids who already lost faith in Uridang. My god. I can see it. It can seriously happen again. Hannara has a way of “putting ashes on made rice.”
The conspiracy side of me thinks that KCIA, I mean NIS chief must wanted to do something that would save the Korean-US alliance. Since Roh can’t even pull the plug on Geumgang, NIS can at least take out all the DPRK agents.
If Hannara never tried to impeach, they could probably pull one off now. But you can’t trust these guys to do the smart thing either.
Aidan Foster Carter wrote a colum not too long ago pointing out that the Roh government stopped sending rice to DPRK, but continues to give them hard cash. The priorities they set is insane. I guess it’ll ironic that DPRK might REALLY crash real soon, when they run out of rice over the spring. The news are now pretty wide spread that the information blockade is over. A 2nd famine will probably what triggers it. Roh Moo Hyun. He is as dumb as one can get.
It is strange that many decry these spies as being “communist” or “anti-American” when they really have worked against South Korean democracy and its people. They are ultimately anti-South Korea. These people have not really thought enough about the serious consequences that their actions would have upon the people, the society and peace that is in South Korea and for that, they should suffer.