403개의 게시물을 찾았습니다.
First of all, when I read the articles (about the case of the People's Revolutionary Party/PRP), published in the last days especially in the bourgeois newspapers (some of them I uploaded y'day here)I feel they might have a - possibly - deeper meaning:
It wasn't right to execute the defendats of the in the PRP trial, because at first the police/KCIA.. used torture and above all the accused were no communist activists and wanted not overthrow the "government". So what would be happen when the police/KCIA/public prosecutor's office had not used torture but the defendants were nevertheless "guilty" of trying to overthrow the gov't???
In my opinion (at least) during the time of the different S.K. dictatorships everyone who was standing (at least) humanism had the RIGHT to fight against the dictatorship - for another, a democratic regime/gov't (for communists/anarchists/socialists or whatever it should be a DUTY to fight for to overthrow - at least - a dictatorship!!)!
So at least nowadays, about 16 years or so after the introduction of (some kind of) democracy the current gov't should rehabilitate and compensate ALL of the prosecuted by the different dictatorships!!
And finally the gov't - to show that they really learned from the history - should abolish immediately the notoriously National "Security" Law!
*****
Another interesting article about the era of the Park Chung-hee dictatorship was published in today's ("left"-liberal) daily Hankyoreh:
Findings shed light on dark period of Korean history
Gov’t commission reevaluates those punished under Park Chung-hee’s ‘Emergency Measures’
South Korea’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission recently published the results of its investigation into a particularly oppressive period of Korean history. The period of time in question, a total of 2,159 days between January 8, 1974, when Park Chung-hee’s 1st Emergency Measures were announced, to December 8, 1979, when the 9th Emergency Measures were lifted just after the dictator’s assissination on October 26, represented a strong crackdown by the dictatorial government on dissent.
The commission’s findings were obtained by the Hankyoreh on January 24. They describe myriad human rights abuses during that time, including 1,412 judgments on 589 cases from the appeals and supreme courts on persons indicted for the violation of the Emergency Measures during the period.
The Emergency Measures were made possible through Park Chung-hee’s 1972 Yusin Constitution, which also essentially guaranteed him unlimited presidential office. The measures, in the name of national security and civil order, placed restrictions on the fundamental rights of citizens, including assembly, association, and freedoms of speech and the press. The 1st Emergency Measures prohibited anyone to mention anything regarding the Yusin Constitution, and the 4th set of measures, announced in April of the same year, meted out punishment to those with ties to the National Young Students’ Alliance for Democracy (Min Cheong Hak Nyeon). The 9th set of measures, announced in May 1975, also allowed no freedom whatsoever to disparage or even discuss the circumstances surrounding the establisment of the Yusin Constitution.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s analysis found that about half of those who were punished for violating the Emergency Measures were ordinary citizens from all walks of life, including shop owners, salary workers, and farmers, rather than entrenched dissidents aimed at unseating the government.
Mr. Jeong, unemployed at the time, had a conversation with his neighbors in January 1974. During their talk, Jeong stated his opinion that the adoption of the Yusin Constitution and the Emergency Measures were both signs of the government’s falling apart. He said that "the current government is so rotten that the ruling party and the Park administration will soon be ruined. If you enlist in the military [right now], you will probably end up dying in a war somewhere in the Middle East." Jeong’s neighbors informed the police about his comments, and he was arrested for violation of the 1st Emergency Measures and sentenced to a 12-year prison term. His sentence was reduced to seven years by the Supreme Court. The official charges were "the creation of a groundless rumor."
Three college students were arrested for violation of the 4th Emergency Measures when they "conspired" to walk out in the middle of a midterm examination in protest of the announcement of that set of emergency measures in April 1974. The students were sentenced to a ten-year prison term.
Mr. Park, a farmer, was sentenced to a 12-year term for saying to his neighbor in May 1974 that "Park Chung-hee used to be an underboss during the Yeosu-Suncheon Revolt. He was lucky enough to become president."
The Yeosu-Suncheon Revolt was committed by troops stationed in the South Jeolla Province cities of Yeosu and Suncheon in October 1948. The soldiers had been ordered to clamp down on an uprising transpiring on Jeju Island, the so-called April 3 Incident. At that time, people on Jeju organized rallies in opposition to setting up a government that only included what is now South Korea at the exclusion of Korea’s northern half. But the troops refused to carry out their orders, and were crushed by another set of troops sent by the government under Syngman Rhee. After the incident, Park Chung-hee, then a military officer, was arrested under suspision of being behind the uprising. The military intelligence agency questioned him for being a communist, but he was released. Because it was rare at that time for anyone suspected of being a communist sympathizer to be released without charge, there is speculation that he agreed to inform on other communists hiding in the military in exchange for his freedom.
Mr. Sin, an actor, was starring in a propaganda film funded by the Ministry of National Defense when he had a chat with other actors off-camera and said, "The president’s son is having an affair with an actress." He was arrested for the creation and circulation of "groundless gossip."
Mr. Lee, a Choongnam University student, wrote in a letter to his girlfriend that "college students in Seoul and Daejeon are protesting in the streets. They have started monitoring the students, and no can talk because of the Emergency Measures." The letter was intercepted by the police at the post office and censored by the government before reaching its destination. Mr. Lee was arrested and sentenced to prison.
In fact, it was the strict censorship placed on the media and all other channels of communication at that time that resulted in widespread rumors. One incident took place in which an entire truck full of people was arrested for "spreading rumors person-to-person" after the group had a conversation about political matters. Citizens who made an errant comment about Park Chung-hee or any of his government officials having affairs with actresses, for example, were locked up or given suspended sentences, forced to bear the stigma of being an "ex-convict."
One high school ethics teacher was lucky, however. He told his class that "there are many scandals involving President Park and members of the cabinet having affairs with actresses and female singers." He was indicted in March 1979, but as the Emergency Measures were cancelled in December that year, he was acquitted before having to serve any time.
A junior high school teacher, Mr. Choi, was not so fortunate. He served eight months for saying that "the Yusin Constitution was created to ensure a prolonged one-man rule. An indirect presidential election by delegates from the Unified Citizen’s Conference the National Conference for Unification is an undesirable system."
Another school teacher told students that "Park is a dictator. The capitalists are abusing workers, and workers cannot claim their rights. After [labor activist] Cheon Tae-il burned himself to death, the treatment got better. But the government raised the price of fertilizer by a whopping 60 percent, worsening the lives of farmers." The teacher was sent to prison for three years.
http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/186453.html
LATE JUSTICE FOR SOME VICTIMS OF
S.K.'S (FORMER) TERROR REGIME
8 men, executed as spies, are found innocent (Hankyoreh, 1.24)
Widows weep as their husband’s names are cleared 30 years after death
On April 9, 1975, Lee Yeong-gyo, a mother of five, was headed for Seodaemun Prison in western Seoul where her husband, Ha Jae-wan, then 42, was on death row. He had been sentenced for his involvement in the so-called "Inhyeokdang Jaegeonwi" incident, charged for allegedly trying to reorganize that once-disbanded People’s Revolutionary Party to overthrow the authoritarian Park Chung-hee government.
About a year ago, her husband had gone out to take a dip at a public bath, but never returned home. Lee had tried to find her husband, but her efforts were in vain. The next time he appeared before her, three months had passed and he was wearing prisoner’s garb, sitting in the defendent’s chair in a martial court.
Lee could not imagine her husband would die, even though he had received a death sentence. But upon her arrival at Seodaemun prison on April 9, she was told that he had been hanged at dawn. It happend not even a day after his sentencing. When she was told, she went out of her mind.
The Inhyeokdang Jaegeonwi incident has been cited as one of the major conspiracies premeditated by the Park Chung-hee government, which took office through a military coup. In 1974, a pro-democracy organization distributed fliers on campus opposing Park’s autocracy. It prompted the government to take "emergency measures" in April next year, arresting those who were reportedly involved in the organization on charges of attempting to overthrow the government with the help of North Korea.
Eight were sentenced to death for violating the National Security Law and conspiring to overthrow the government. Their executions were carried out in an unprecedentedly swift fashion, just 18 hours after the sentencing.
The eight defendants stand before the court on April 8, 1975,
a day before their execution.
On January 23 of this year, Lee showed up in a Seoul court, where a retrial of her husband was to take place. It was 32 years after his execution; she is now well over 70 years old. Presiding judge Mun Yong-seon posthumously acquitted all of the eight men of all charges brought against them, ruling that their confessions had been coerced or tortured out of them and that the conspiracy plot never existed. Lee burst into tears.
After the ruling, she didn’t avoid talking to reporters about her long, difficult life. After her husband’s death, she said, "I have kept myself alive, taking meals just as one would chew on sand."
Lee has had to suffer the weight of being stigmatized as a wife of a pro-communist sympathizer. She moved many times, but the rumor of her husband being a famous communist agent always caught up with her quickly. Lee could endure the suffering, but she could not bear to see her children being taunted as "sons and daughters of a pro-communist agent."
"At first, we managed to make a living by selling our house and depending on savings. But that money didn’t last long. I had to go out to make money by peddling and making clothes day and night," Lee recalled. "But what hurt me the most was the cold shoulder given all the time by my neighbors, rather than the dire poverty."
Even relatives cut off their visits to her one day. it was as if she were on an island without any human beings to communicate with. Her neighbors’ attidude toward her family was so toxic that the children around the neighborhood staged a mock trial, trying to string up her seven-year-old son by his neck. Add to all of this the constant watching by agents from the national security agency, "overseeing" the family of a convicted communist agent. Strange men lingered around her home. Her family was barred from leaving their home any time the U.S. president visited South Korea.
But Lee and her family survived. She could not be complacent while trying to raise her children properly. She decided to clear the air surrounding her family’s name. She began to meet the families of the other executed men, and they sought the help of lawyer Kim Hyeong-tae and Reverend Moon Jeon-hyeon. In 2005, the widows were finally given the chance to see their husbands retried.
Several of the deceased men’s families also appeared at the court sentencing; several collapsed after the acquittal was read.
Sin Dong-uk was fired as a elementary school teacher after her husband, Lee Su-byeong, was among those executed in the Inhyeokdang Jaegeonwi incident. "I had not have many chances to talk to other people after my husband was ruled as being a pro-North Korea agent, so now I have problems even communicating with others," she added.
Sin said that the acquittal would be a chance to shed light on all dubious deaths during the 1970s-80s authoritarian rule, and hoped that "first and foremost, the reunification of Korea, which my husband so wanted, will be realized as soon as possible."
http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/186213.html
About the same issue, but in S.K.'s bourgeois (reactionary) newspapers:
☞ Court Clears Defendants in 1975 Summary Execution (Chosun Ilbo)
☞ Acquitted 32 years after execution (K. Herald)
☞ Executed Prisoners Vindicated At Last (Dong-A Ilbo)
☞ Executed for treason, activists are posthumously acquitted (JoongAng Daily)
Later, possibly tomorrow, I'll write more about the issue..
Teachers’ union protests arrests for alleged pro-North stance (Hankyoreh/HKR, 1.23)
Judge issuing warrant says material too one-sided for middle school students
The Korea Teachers and Education Workers’ Union (KTU), at a press conference on January 22, strongly protested the arrest of Kim Maeng-gu and Choi Hwa-seop for violating the National Security Law. Kim and Choi, members of the union, posted North Korean materials on the union’s Web site, and were arrested on January 18.
The KTU says that a report by the Chosun Ilbo about the two teachers’ actions was largely fabricated. According to the KTU, the newspaper reported only some parts of the story, doing so sensationalistically to garner a reaction. The two teachers merely quoted remarks made by North Korean officials and media, said the KTU. The union cited as an example material that answers the question, "Why does North Korea want to produce nuclear weapons?" from a North Korean perspective: "North Korea claims that to possess self-defensive nuclear deterrence is its justifiable right."
In response, Judge Kim Jin-dong of Seoul Central District Court, who issued the arrest warrant for the two teachers, at the same time admitted, "On the KTU site, the introduction to the material reads, ’In connection with certain matters, North Korea explains the situation in this manner...’ " But Judge Kim defended his issuing of the arrest warrants by saying that the Web site only provided the North Korean perspective, which seemed to suggest that the teachers "unilaterally sympathized with the North’s positions. I thought that to teach such one-sided contents to middle school students, rather than college students, is not appropriate."
But the KTU argued that the related writing and photos were already published in some books and the official journal of the Democratic Labor Party (DLP), and people can easily access them through the Internet and books.
The KTU also said the police acted unlawfully in the process of searching and confiscating material, as well as in the arrest process itself. According to the union, earlier this month, the two teachers had agreed to appear in front of an investigatory committee starting on January 22. However, the police arrested them anyway on January 18.
Even before the police received a warrant for search and confiscation, they already had downloaded contents of a private Internet cafe to which the two teachers belong, as well as e-mails of the two teachers and their wives, the KTU said. It is also alleged that the police illegally tapped the teachers’ telephones.
Park Mi-ja, an official of the KTU, said, "Regarding the police and prosecution’s violation of the telecommunications secrecy law and the criminal procedure law, we will ask about their responsibility through legal examination."
The police have also been continuing a four-month-long investigation into a seminar held in September last year by the KTU’s Busan branch, saying that it "served to benefit the enemy." No one has so far been indicted. The materials for the seminar came under suspicion of being pro-North Korean because they used copied sections of the North Korean text, "Modern Joseon History," without providing "critical commentary" on the nature of the material.
But the investigation has caused controversy, as the police have carried out searches and confiscations in offices after workers have left the building, and have also performed searches without presenting warrants. They have also secretly investigated students without informing their parents.
In a similar case, the Chosun Ilbo reported in December that South Korean national security authorities are probing another teacher, a leader of the KTU Jeonbuk branch identified as Kim, but unrelated to the arrested Kim Maeng-gu. The Jeonbuk branch leader allegedly had middle school students participate in a memorial ceremony for North Korean guerrillas in May 2005. Since then, other conservative media outlets and the main opposition Grand National Party (GNP) have taken issue with the KTU, but there have been no official investigations into the alleged incident or other alleged incidents by the police or the prosecution.
An official with KTU called the reports by the conservative media and the investigations "a series of smear campaigns that smack of McCarthyism."
http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/185956.html
For more about the case:
☞ Teacher Held Over Pro-N.Korean Class Materials (Chosun Ilbo, 1.22)
☞ The revival of freedom of speech violations from years past (HKR, 1.22)
☞ Pro-N.K. material seized from teacher's home (K. Herald, 1.23)
Already last week (12.24) WSJ published following interesting but also a kind of provocative article (written by B. Myers):
AXIS OF EVIL
'Concerted Front'
Why Seoul is soft on North Korea.
No country today is as misunderstood as North Korea. Journalists still refer to it as a Stalinist or communist state, when in fact it espouses a race-based nationalism (!!) such as the West last confronted during the Pacific War. Pyongyang's propaganda touts the moral superiority of the Korean race, condemns South Korea for allowing miscegenation, and stresses the need to defend the Dear Leader with kyeolsa, or dare-to-die spirit--the Korean version of the Japanese kamikaze slogan kesshi. The six-party talks are therefore less likely to replicate the successes of Cold War détente than the negotiating failures of the 1930s. According to early reports from Beijing, the North Korean delegation appears more confident than ever. It has clearly been emboldened not only by its accession to the nuclear club, but by the awareness that Seoul will continue providing food and financial support no matter what happens.
This support is not meant to expedite unification, which South Koreans are happy to put off indefinitely. Nor has it much to do with concern for starving children; by now everyone knows where the "humanitarian" aid really goes. No, the desire to help North Korea derives in large part from ideological common ground. South Koreans may chuckle at the personality cult, but they generally agree with Pyongyang that Koreans are a pure-blooded race whose innate goodness has made them the perennial victims of rapacious foreign powers. They share the same tendency to regard Koreans as innocent children on the world stage--and to ascribe evil to foreigners alone. Though the North expresses itself more stridently on such matters, there is no clear ideological divide such as the one that separated West and East Germany. Bonn held its nose when conducting Ostpolitik. Seoul pursues its sunshine policy with respect for Pyongyang.
The relationship between the Koreas can therefore be likened to the relationship between a moderate Muslim state such as Turkey and a fundamentalist one like Iran. The South Koreans have compromised their nationalist principles in a quest for wealth and modernity, and while they're glad they did, they feel a nagging sense of moral inferiority to their more orthodox brethren. They often disapprove of the North's actions, but never with indignation, and always with an effort to blame the outside world for having provoked them. (The same is true of moderate Islam's response to fundamentalist terrorism.) To be sure, there was public anger at Kim Jong Il when his nuclear test made stock prices drop in Seoul, but it dissipated the moment the U.S. began talking sanctions. Seoul has since made clear that the nuclear issue will have no significant effect on its sunshine policy. This earns it no goodwill from the North, mind; between soft-liners and hard-liners, sympathy can only go in one direction.
The ideological landscape of the peninsula defeats the reasoning that led to the six-party talks in the first place. North Korea is not a communist country with ideological and sentimental reasons to listen to China and Russia; it is a virulently nationalist state that distrusts all the other parties at the table. And though the rhetoric of a "concerted front" against North Korea has proved to be just that, it has sufficed to heighten South Korea's sense of solidarity with the North. This will continue to mean plenty of aid money for Kim Jong Il with which to build weapons. The U.S. has urged Beijing to bring more pressure to bear on the North. But if America can do nothing with its own ally, it can hardly expect the Chinese to do more with theirs.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110009427
K. Times published on Tuesday (12.26) following article:
Expats Risk Expulsion for Satire
Foreigners may face deportation or fines if they volunteer at orphanages or organize performances without reporting them to the authorities.
The interpretation came from Joo Jae-bong, an official at the Ministry of Justice. He said there should be no problem with joining a poetry club but that volunteer activites should be registered with the ministry.
``If it 's just a gathering of friends, there should be no problem,’’ he said. ``But if they are organizing performances, they need to register to do those things because they are changing the purpose of their stay here.’’
He said the same rule applies to those who wish to volunteer in an orphanage. Foreigners need to register those activities with the ministry...
Read the entire stuff here:
http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/200612/kt2006122617295710230.htm
So I ask myself what will be happen to "foreigners" who are joining for example labour unions, such as (the still "illegal") Migrant Workers' Trade Union or radical left political organizations??
Or joining protest demonstrations... harrharr.. "even worse" taking parts in street battles??
Ha, of course IMPRISONMENT & DEPORTATION!!
Well, it seems that Chosun Ilbo wants to prove that it is the most idiotic - even its one of the most widely read (bourgeois) - newspapers in S.K.! Already on 11.16 it published this f****** b.. sh..:
DLP Spy Suspect 'Drew Up Terror Hit List'
DLP-fighter, ready to strike Cheongwadae,..
..guided by KPA undercover special unit.
And only one day later it continued to publish such a rubbish:
DLP Member Planned 100 Terror Attacks..
A Democratic Labor Party member and failed North Korean spy planned terror attacks against 100 leading conservative and other figures in 1998, prosecutors say. They said Park Jong-ki told investigators he planned to attack former president Chun Doo-hwan, Samsung Group chairman Lee Kun-hee, Chosun Ilbo president Bang Sang-hoon and former North Korean Workers’ Party official Hwang Jang-yup, who defected to the South the previous year. Park allegedly already staked out the homes of three of them, including Bang. An investigator quoted Park as saying he had on several occasions tried to purchase a gun but decided it would be too difficult to carry out a series of single attacks and scrapped his plans. He is still being grilled about any other action he may have taken to realize his plans.
Investigators want to know if Park was involved in an attack on Chosun Ilbo honorary chairman Bang Woo-young in Uijeongbu in September this year. Uijeongbu police have been given Park’s cell phone number and personal information by prosecutors and are investigating what he was doing on the day of the attack, when unknown assailants lobbed a slogan-wrapped brick through the rear window of Bang’s car.
According to investigators, Park never settled in a permanent job and as a result grew dissatisfied with the capitalist system. Park dropped out of high school in South Gyeongsang Province and briefly took to farming before leaving for the capital. After failing the college entrance exam and civil service exam, he worked as a driver and started reading books on the labor movement and Communist theory, prosecutors said.
In March 2003, Park went to North Korea by crossing the Tumen River from China’s Jilin Province, but the North handed Park over to Chinese police, who released him after he paid US$3,000 in fines. Park allegedly gave the North information about the location of U.S. military bases in the South, the deployment of tanks and the number of forces stationed along the Military Demarcation Line.
Park was arrested on Oct. 24 on charges of passing information on South Korean military facilities, roads and the mood in civic and social organizations to Pyongyang. He is also charged with posting pro-North Korean propaganda on the Internet. Investigators believe the North expelled Park since it concluded that he was no use as a source of intelligence, but they kept an eye on him in case he had returned to South Korea at Pyongyang’s orders. Prosecutors plan to indict Park for violating the National Security Law.
http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200611/200611170014.html
Haha, it's, perhaps, just a matter of time that they (Chosun Ilbo, GNP, etc.) will demand the prohibition/ban of DLP because of planned "terror activities"..
But actually its not the first time that Chosun Ilbo (and other SK bourgeois media) are/were trying to connect progressive organisations with so-called "terrorism". Just remember the campaign against ETU-MB/MSSC about two years ago: "Mad, or what?!".
BTW.. I'm not a fan of the social-democratic DLP, but I think that all parts of the civil society (and DLP is a part of it) should be defended against the attacks of such stupid (reactionary) idiots, like Chosun Ilbo and its collaborators..
Aeh, but on the other side... don't take this (Chosun Ilbo, etc..) to serious^^
"The Korean people dislike following foreign style, dancing to others' tune and lagging behind them. They prefer Korean dances when they dance and love Korean songs when they sing."
(All Koreans Called upon to Deepen National Self-Respect in Rodong Shinmun)
Yeah, that's really true! Just watch and enjoy this perfect performance:
And here's another very impressive example - "Shinhwa performing in the DPRK" - to proof Rodong Shinmun's statement (please watch carefully the reaction of the audience!!^^):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QM1avYwLC6I
Yaya, "The Korean people.."
First of all: yesterday I wrote about "division of labor in the process of SK's support for (the rulers in) the DPRK".
So, in my opinion, the cops should arrest them all - including the entire government, SK capitalists/the main supporters of the opposition GNP... - for supporting the enemy(harrharr)... And if it's not possible(^^) everyone who was/is accused/denounced or sentenced under the N"S"L should be released immediately!!!
국가보안법 박살내자!
Anyway, here you can read the latest developments in the so-called NK spy case:
Spy Suspects in Hunger Strike (K.Times)
Group may have revealed state secrets to N. Korea (K.Herald)
DLP challenges spy investigation
JoongAng Ilbo published following idiotic "editorial":
Spy case may destroy party
Amid the tensions caused by the recent North Korean nuclear test and the increasing concerns about national security, an incident in which people who participated in past student movements have now been involved in a possible case of espionage involving the North is truly shocking. According to authorities, former officials of the Democratic Labor Party are currently under investigation on possible charges of spying. In addition, a current senior official of the party is linked to the incident.
Since the former Kim Dae-jung administration, when our ideological armor started to crumble, the news that security authorities had caught a spy was really "news." There was always the belief that people linked to the North were trying to shake the South's foundations. Nevertheless, the security authorities just stood by, doing nothing. In the end, our concerns have become reality.
The current incident bears special meaning. Most of the people that are suspected of spying activities were involved in student movements during the mid-'80s. During the '80s and '90s college campuses were flooded with the North's Juche ideology, a virus that heavily infected college students. A student faction, a splinter organization of the so-called National Liberation group, that adhered to this particular ideology studied and worshipped the ideology, and argued for the withdrawal of U.S. forces.
That National Liberation group infiltrated various student organizations' leadership. Many of those who were educated by these student organizations and took part in student movements initiated by these organizations became players in key parts of the Roh administration. Security authorities have to find out what connections the suspects have with officials in political and power circles, and also who took part in the student movement in the '80s.
The recent incident has revealed that former and current officials of the Democratic Labor Party are involved in this case. This is an issue that could become a death sentence for the Democratic Labor Party. The party itself has staged protests in front of the National Intelligence Service arguing that the case is fabricated. Protesters also argued for the abolishment of the National Security Law. How can one argue that the incident was fabricated under an administration such as the current one?
No political party can exist outside national security. The Democratic Labor Party has to reflect upon itself, find the internal "red" part and apologize to the people.
http://joongangdaily.joins.com/200610/26/200610262153022379900090109011.html
Some independent voices about the "spy case" you can check out here:
(Kotaji)
N. Korean spy case starting to get real interesting
(The Marmot's Hole, incl. about 40 comments)
And finally please read following:
Use of National Security Law increases (Hankyoreh)
This we can call a real division of labor in the process of SK's support for (the rulers in) the DPRK:
While allegedly some individuals in SK are/were supporting the "intelligence" apparatus of the DPRK (read about the latest developments here: Two More Arrested on Espionage Charges / Court agrees to detain 5 as spy inquiry continues / DLP official held in spy probe), the ruling (capitalist) class in SK is supporting the ruling economically and militarily elite in NK - KWP/KPA - by "donating" huge amounts of cash (millions of US$ since 2000!!). Here you can read about one - of many other - example (if we can/want to believe this report):
N.K. Party ‘Takes 60 Percent of Kaesong Wages’ (Chosun Ilbo, 10.23)
More than half the salaries paid to North Koreans working at the inter-Korean Kaesong Industrial Park go to the North Korean Workers’ Party, a document written by a team in charge of inter-Korean economic cooperation at the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy shows. The team reported to the unification minister.
Grand National Party lawmaker Kim Gi-hyeon made the document public on Sunday. According to the memo, US$30 out of the monthly pay of $57.50 goes to the Workers’ Party. With $17.50 spent on insurance and other costs, North Korean workers at the complex are left with only $10 a month.
The Unification Ministry has publicly claimed that workers get $66 on average, with 30 percent spent on benefit packages of workers, like housing and medial expenses, and 70 percent going to the workers. A Unification Ministry official on Sunday denied the report. “It is the first I’ve heard about $30 going to the party,” he said. “How could the Industry Ministry know about something that the Unification Ministry didn’t know? We have no idea.”
http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200610/200610230015.html
Well, it seems that KOREA IS already ONE! ..aeh I mean from the view of the S. Koreans (ahe, I mean some S. Koreans, hopefully not all!!??), while the North frequently/regularly is threatening the South with a "Sea of Blood", alternatively "Sea of Fire", and finally just a "Bowl of Ash" will remain...^^
^^
S. KOREA MUST ABOLISH
NATIONAL"SECUTITY"LAW!! (*)
Following was reported in the latest editions of SK newspapers:
Politicians held for contacting North's agent (JoongAng Ilbo)
Democratic Labor Party deputy among 5 persons now in custody
Seoul prosecutors and the National Intelligence Service said yesterday they had arrested a senior official of the Democratic Labor Party on charges of contacting a North Korean agent during a visit to China.
His arrest and that of one other suspect were a significant enlargement of an investigation into 1980s-era student activists. So far, at least five people, including incumbent and former officials of the left-wing political party, are in the prosecution's sights.
Sources at the prosecution said the five could eventually be charged with espionage, but it appears that the authorities do not yet have sufficient evidence to accuse them formally of that crime. For the present, those in custody have been charged with unauthorized contacts with a North Korean.
Investigators from the Seoul Central District Public Prosecutors Office and the intelligence agency raided the home of Lee Jeong-hun, a former central committee member of the Democratic Labor Party, on Tuesday and detained him for alleged violations of the National Security Law. Yesterday, the prosecution said it had applied for warrants to extend his detention and to keep two other activists arrested at the same time, Jang Min-ho and Sohn Jong-mok, in custody. Prosecutors said all three visited China in March for meetings with a North Korean agent. Mr. Sohn and Mr. Jang also allegedly traveled to North Korea via China without South Korean government authorization.
Yesterday, the investigation widened with the arrest of Choi Gi-yeong, deputy secretary general of the Democratic Labor Party, and another activist. They were also charged with contacting a North Korean agent in China.
"We obtained the arrest warrants early in the morning and took Mr. Choi into custody at his home," Ahn Chang-ho, a prosecutor in charge of the case, said yesterday. "The National Intelligence Service is currently questioning Mr. Choi."
The pair allegedly accompanied Mr. Lee when he contacted the North Korean spy, the prosecution said, adding that the investigation would focus on the possibility that they had received instructions from the agent and engaged in "anti-government activities" after returning to this country. Such activities would also support an espionage charge.
Mr. Jang, a 44-year-old game developer and former student activist, was accused of working under the North's orders for more than a decade. After dropping out of Sung Kyun Kwan University in Seoul during his sophomore year, prosecutors said, he went to the United States and was a pro-North Korean activist there. Officials added that he is believed to have visited North Korea three times since the mid-1980s.
During the raid at Mr. Jang's home, investigators reportedly seized documents with instructions on how to contact and report to a North Korean agent. The prosecution said Mr. Jang admitted to some of the charges and waived his right to a court hearing on a detention warrant.
The Seoul Central District Court heard the cases for warrants yesterday against Mr. Lee and Mr. Sohn. Mr. Lee contended he was in China on business and had received no instructions from North Korean agents. "This is a Roh administration conspiracy to suppress civic movements and to create instability," he complained.
Mr. Lee, a history graduate of Korea University, was a well-known student activist. He was arrested in 1985 for leading the occupation of American Cultural Center in central Seoul. He was also convicted in 2000 of trying to enter North Korea by sea.
The Democratic Labor Party complained in a statement yesterday that the arrests were "clear political oppression" of the party. It demanded the release of all those arrested, accused the spy agency of fabricating evidence in a conspiracy to maintain its influence and demanded the repeal of the National Security Law.
http://joongangdaily.joins.com/200610/26/200610262221584239900090209021.html
About the same case the "left"-liberal daily Hankyoreh wrote following article:
3 arrested for allegedly meeting N.K. agent in China
Korea Herald published this:
Probe of pro-N.K. activists widens
In K. Times it's the "top" story:
Spy Scandal Shakes Labor Party
Dong-A Ilbo:
Activists Arrested for North Contacts
And last but not least the extreme conservative Chosun Ilbo:
Prominent 386ers Help for Espionage
* ..but unfortunately, even likely the majority(??) of the S. Koreans is against N"S"L, there is - (just) in my opinion - no real mass movement to struggle against N"S"L.
PS:
Already 4 years ago I finished one of my articles about N"S"L (on Base21, the former English section of Jinbonet) like that: "Last weekend around 450 people protested against the NSL. This in a city with over 10 million inhabitants, in a country with nearly 50 million citizens. If this is the beginning of a movement it could be good. But if this is the whole movement, in 50 years we'll still have the lovely NSL."("The struggle against the National Security Law needs a peoples' movement").
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