S. Korean Reporter’s Open Letter to Chief of Spy Agency and S. Korean President
By oglim | Posted July 8, 2013
Suh Hwa-Sook, a reporter from Hankuk Daily, made a radio broadcast on Kukmin TV addressing the NIS controversy in South Korea. She directly addresses the issues surrounding the NIS’ meddling in domestic politics as well as the responsibility she feels the President should take. The details of the broadcast have been translated and are provided below.
Good morning, this is Suh Hwa-Sook.
The NIS, the full name being the National Intelligence Service, has 10,000 employees and an estimated budget of $1 billion per year. Citizens do not know how much they really spend.
Given that the entire budget for the whole country for this year is $ 342 billion, the budget of one billion dollars is a huge amount for just one state agency. You may ask why they spend so much money to run this agency. It is because they are supposed to defend the security of the nation.
However, let’s look at what the NIS has been doing. They used to blame North Korea whenever computer systems for banks or government agencies in South Korea were being hacked. But for the past many years they would always tell the happenings afterwards and were never able to defend the systems that were in place. Now perhaps the NIS feels a little ashamed because it has stopped blaming the North all together. On May 23 of this year the government website of Cheong Wha Dae was said to have been hacked, resulting in the leak of 100,000 individuals’ information.
The NIS simply said this time that there had been a leak of the information without any further explanation. Now the people have lost their confidence in the NIS. The people of South Korea do not believe these excuses and no one believes North Korea has ever hacked into computer systems in South Korea.
Nowadays there are intelligence agents in almost every local government agency all around the country. What do they do all day? They make perhaps one report a day and then just hang out for the rest of the time. Sometimes if they have nothing to write a report about they even copy an article from newspapers before they send it to their boss. We hear that there are many social workers who are troubled with too much strenuous daily work and some even suffer from depression or end their lives. At the same time there are these countless lazy agents who do almost nothing while getting paid with taxpayers' money.
Since the NIS agents have not much to do all day what do they do in their spare time? They meddle in domestic politics, encourage internal fights and disputes, and undermine the spirit of democracy in our country. Worst of all, they have spearheaded an attack on human dignity. According to the investigation reports from the prosecutors obtained by Ohmynews, the agents posted numerous abusive comments on the internet where they claimed that people from the southwestern provinces should all have been crushed dead, and they called the people from these areas derogatory names such as "skates" or "Cheonladiens". Public officials such as these intelligence agents are making those comments promoting regional antagonism. Such officials would be dismissed from their positions immediately in any other countries.
The agents used this abusive language towards any government critics and especially towards the 5.18 Gwangju Democratic Uprising. What is the Gwangju Democratic Uprising? Isn't it the democratic movement from 1980, in which thousands of citizens in the southwestern city, Gwangju, rose up against the military rule led by Chun Doo-Hwan? Although the citizens of Gwangju knew that it might bring death to them they took action to fight against the military dictatorship.
What has enabled us to now enjoy freedom, to criticize the government without fearing for our lives, and to be able to vote for our own president was due largely in part to the sacrifices and deaths of the citizens of Gwangju.
These undeserved and most precious deaths have been insulted and the fallen have been called derogatory names by the intelligence agents of our country. Can they be that indecent of human beings? This would be a punishable act even if it had been done by civilians. If this kind of act goes unpunished who would ever be willing to sacrifice his/her life for the community and justice in the future? This is a heavy criminal act that shakes our national foundation and should be considered a brutal act that should not be committed by any human being.
In Germany it is a crime to advocate Nazism. What is Nazism? Through Nazism the Germans attempted to get rid of anything that was an obstacle to building their own pure republic with only the Arians, the superior race in their mind. They tried to kill off the Jews, the Catholics, and any critics of their devilish acts. Without any respect to human dignity they destroyed many innocent lives, but they went down in the end as well. Even after 68 years from that happening the Germans heavily punish whoever advocates Nazism just to make sure something like this would never happen again in Germany.
While it is a punishable crime in other countries to insult the people who have died innocently we have no legal measures to punish the act of abusing the people who sacrificed their lives for democracy of our country. The NIS agents who are getting paid with our tax money do not do their job defending us from our enemy, but rather they insult the deaths of the people who had worked to bring democracy to our country. This is not only the problem for South Korea, but also a crime against humanity that needs to be judged before the entire world in the name of democracy. We should not be wasting $ 1 billion from the National Treasury to support such criminals.
Break up the NIS. Even without the NIS we can defend our national security. How is it possible that a national agency, being funded with the National Treasury, commits crimes that shake the national foundation?
Won Sei-Hoon, former Chief of the NIS. It is not crucial whether or not you knew all the details of the comments that your agents have made online. When you were appointed as a chief of the NIS, you were given the responsibility to make sure the NIS runs properly by doing its job. You are responsible for overseeing your agents' intervention in domestic politics and for preventing crimes against humanity.
Lee Myung-Bak, former President. It is not important whether or not you were aware of all the details about the NIS' meddling in domestic politics and its agents' vicious Internet postings. When you were appointed to be the President of our country you were given the responsibility to run the country in a normal and just way. Your intelligence agency has committed a crime against mankind. Now you must take responsibility.
President Park Geun-Hye. Korea is a democratic republic. The people who participated in democratic movements lost their lives to defend democracy. The Gwangju Democratic Uprising: This is the official title given by the government. Now we have disclosed that the NIS agents have insulted the deaths of the people, who had given up their lives to defend the 1st Act of the Constitution, and that they have purposely escalated regional antagonism.
You must take responsibility for all these evil acts. It is a great pity that you are in hiding and keep silent whenever there is a problem. Don't you have any courage? Do you want to hear people say you are acting in such a way because you are a woman? The ghosts of the intelligence agency of the past who had tortured critics of the government have resurfaced through Lee's administration by way of threatening to kill the people who criticize the government. If your administration does not eradicate these evil acts you will have to pay the consequences.
The link to the actual broadcast with English subtitles is
