In the last issue, we briefly covered the history of Juche-ideology followers and how they became the so-called “fighters for democracy.” Their student movement provided a platform for them to move into the political arena. They have used their organizational skills to their benefit in running for offices in the National Assembly. They went on to become significant members in the cabinet and the rest of the government. Some of the major players are described below.
Im Jong-seok
Perhaps the most recognized Juche-ideology individual in Moon’s circle isIm Jong-seok, a former Chief of Staff to President Moon. As a student activist, he was a leader of ChonDaeHyop, which was a front for Juche-ideology followers. He was arrested and tried for his role in sneaking a student into North Korea in secret. He served three and a half years in prison. He entered politics in 2000 as a youth member in the Millennium Minjoo Party by invitation along with his colleagues from ChonDaeHyop: Lee In-young, Oh Young-shik, and Woo Sang-ho. The same year, he ran for National Assembly and won. He won the seat again in 2004, but lost in 2008. As a parliamentarian, he had opposed an independent counsel’s investigation of the $500 million that was illegally sent to North Korea under President Kim Dae-jung.
According to an article byKorea JoongAng Daily, Assemblyman Im founded the Inter-Korean Economic and Cultural Cooperation Foundation in 2005, and collected royalties from KBS, MBC, SBS and other publishers for using copyrighted North Korean materials and videos. At a recent National Assembly hearing, this was also discussed. Apparently, 2.25 billion won ($2 million) had been collected over 13 years.
He then went on to work for City of Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon. In 2016, Moon approached him to run his presidential campaign, which he agreed. Im Jong-seok was the first one to receive his appointment by Moon after the election. Throughout his career, his Juche-ideology followers past have followed him around, and Moon perhaps saw Im’s chummy relationship with North Korea as a plus in his future dealings with Pyongyang.
Partial List of ex-ChonDaeHyop Members as Former Blue House Staff
Cho Kuk
Cho Kuk is a product of Seoul National University (SNU) law school as well as an alumnus of Boalt Hall Law School at UC Berkeley. Mr. Cho had been teaching at SNU law school, when he was tapped to serve in a senior staff position at the Blue House, the South Korean equivalent of the White House. He describes himself as a “liberal born with a golden spoon [in his mouth]” and feels “sympathetic toward those born with spoons made of dirt.”
The Supreme Court of South Korea found Cho, then thirty-three years old, guilty of violating national security law (Case #94DO 1813, dated 5/12/1995) and handed down a prison term of six months and three years of suspended sentence. He had founded and operated an anti-state organization called SaNoMaeng, the Socialist Workers League of Korea, formulated to lead an armed revolution against the government. The Parliamentarians from the opposition party have pointed to Cho’s conviction and question his ability to defend and execute the laws of South Korea as the Minister of Justice, including the national security law which he had violated.
In addition, the parliamentarians question whether Cho still believes the socialist ideology he had championed twenty some years ago. Here is SaNoMaeng’s Resolution Letter, as translated by Tara O: the members “will not leave behind even a drop of blood to struggle for the success of socialist revolution in South Korea for comrades, workers, farmers, and proletariat brothers… comrades, place weapons in our hands to fight the enemy.”
Cho (using the alias, Ryu Sun-jong) had written in the magazine “Our Ideology” the following:
“If we could grasp political power by way of our revolutionary proletariat, we must move ahead with the socialist revolution even if we haven’t completed all the tasks of the democratization process. We must complete the unfinished items at the same time.” (Our Ideology No. 1, p. 77)
Here is the gist of the manifesto that he and his comrades used to swear allegiance to:
“…the Red Spirit that used to drift about like an apparition in the air over South Korea for forty years finally made its appearance on stage… Revolutionary socialists have finally materialized on this land… Now, we are proclaiming the start of a class war against the face of an entire capitalist class as we light up the flame of the holy spirit to the great body of workers class! South Korean revolutionary socialists are burning away the abhorrent bourgeois ruling structure with the socialist revolutionary fire, finally organizing the South Korean Socialist Alliance [SaNoMaeng] and will take the historic step forward on this day of November 12, 1989.”
Cho was appointed the Minister of Justice. He resigned his post after thirty-five days because of the public outcry due to the special perks his children received in college admission, as well as his untoward financial dealings.
Tak Hyun-min
Mr. Tak is a skillful choreographer. He has been responsible for the theatrical arrangements and staging for Mr. Moon’s public appearance as a candidate, as well as Moon’s occupancy of the presidential mansion, Blue House. Tak had successfully portrayed Moon as a considerate, honest, common man, garnering 80% favorite rating during Moon’s “peace initiative” in 2018.
Notwithstanding Tak’s acumen for producing propaganda, he has another side to him. He has authored a book “The More I talk, the More I Feel Free.” He writes, “In high school, my friends and I [raped] a middle school girl. I didn’t like her, so it didn’t matter what I did to her.” A reporter asked him, “Didn’t you feel bad toward the girl?” He replied, “Well, it was like that in those days.”
Moon Chung-in
Moon Chung-in, Special Advisor to President Moon in matters of Unification/Diplomacy/Security, caused a stir with what he said on the 27th (Washington time) regarding the transfer of wartime command control from the US to ROK, “The President of Korea has the right to determine the presence of the US military. If the President asks the US troops to leave, they have to leave.”His interview with the Wall Street Journal regarding his views on sunshine policy is revealing. The following excerpt shows his view on the human rights element of North Korea.
WSJ: So do you believe if South Korea keeps quiet about North Korea’s human rights problems, North Korea will eventually improve?
Mr. Moon: The whole point is we are aware of human rights conditions in North Korea and we want improvement in human rights conditions in North Korea. But there is a method of improving human rights in North Korea. There is a priority too. For example, for me, peace is more important than human rights. Basic human needs are more important than human rights. I know that human rights is a universal value we should strive towards. But peace is also a universal value. Satisfaction of basic human needs is a universal value. This is a priority problem. If I were in the government, I would give more emphasis on peace and satisfaction of basic human needs, opening and reforming North Korea. And if human rights become an obstacle to those things, I would put it in the so-called lower category and let civil society lead on that.
John Cha, a writer and historian, is critical of Moon’s view. He writes, “What Moon Chung-in alludes to is not true peace. He is merely talking about a system of constraint, in which he proposes to gloss over the human rights problem in North Korea and go directly to peaceful co-existence. I don’t believe that is a wise track to choose because it precludes so many people from the human rights equation. There needs to be a discussion on human rights beginning with the right to eat, right to speak, right to move freely, and use these rights as bricks for building a peaceful house in which both the North and the South can live. Peace in the peninsula can be meaningful only when people can freely go back and forth without fear or consequences. This item is high on my list of human rights, and doesn’t seem to be a priority within the Moon regime as reflected here.”
Lee In-young
Besides the Blue House, ex-Juche-ideology followers have worked their way into the National Assembly. Lee In-young, the majority leader of the ruling Deobureo Minjoo party (Moon’s party), stands out. He was the student leader of Korea University in 1987, when a direct presidential election was the big issue. He also served as the first president of the National University Association (ChonDaeHyop), a Juche-ideology organization. Found guilty of violating the national security law, he spent time in jail.
ChonDaeHyop Activities
Shin Young-bok
He was tried and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1968. He served twenty years and was released on special amnesty on account of the 1988 Olympics. He remained a staunch Juche-ideology communist to the end, even though he purportedly wrote a confession denouncing communist North Korea as part of the condition for his release. His “confession” turned out to be hypocritical because he continued his allegiance to North Korea.
As such, he wrote in a quarterly in 2003, “There are two sides to Korean people in terms of its own ethnicity and global relations. One is its main identity. In the case of North Korea, they strengthened their identity. On the other hand, South Korea advanced in terms of culture and materialism by its open-door policies, but lost its national identity and became a vassal state.”
Regarding North Korea’s stance on nuclear situation, he wrote, “North Korea is said to be playing the brinkmanship diplomacy, but North Korea has been maintaining its approach with consistency. North Korea did not violate the Geneva Agreed Framework, it was the U.S. Despite that, the U.S. manipulated the media and distorted North Korea’s intent and isolated it.”
Shin’s statement about the human rights issue is interesting. He wrote, “Talking about North Korean human rights or refugee problems ends up helping the U.S. and its strategy. For that reason, we [South Koreans] need to criticize the U.S. for its isolation and blockade tactics to help North Korea solve their economic problems on their own accord.”
HwangHae Culture, Fall, 2003
John Cha lives and writes in Oakland, California. He has written several volumes of biographies about Korean and American leaders and is an award-winning translator of Korean literature into English.
https://www.amazon.com/John-H.-Cha/e/B007R8DBF4/ref=dp_byline_cont_pop_book_1 John ChaJuly 22, 2020
