Latest reports have revealed that the size of the investigation team probing four South Koreans who allegedly carried out orders from North Korea has dropped significantly in the early years of the Moon Jae-in administration. The decision to scale down the investigation under the Moon administration looks like it was made as part of the administration’s push for better inter-Korean relations.
Additionally, it was found out that the suspects were not only involved in the 2017 presidential election as special advisors to Moon but also organized a movement to weaken conservatives in the 2020 general elections. Conservative lawmakers have argued that North Korea meddled in the 2020 elections and asked for explanations from the presidential Blue House and the ruling party.
The four South Korean suspects allegedly received orders from North Korean agents affiliated with the Cultural Exchange Bureau of the North’s Workers’ Party. The North ordered the South Koreans to organize a protest against the purchase of F-35A stealth fighter jets, promote a delivery of 1 million tree saplings to North Korea, and organize a potential visit to the South by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. They received at least $20,000 from the North.
The suspects had formed an underground organization called the “North Chungcheong Comrade Party for Independent Unification” with the goal of subverting the South Korean system, according to the National Intelligence Service and police. Oaths of allegiance to North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un written in the suspects’ own blood were also discovered.
On Thursday, the Kookmin Ilbo newspaper reported a government source saying the “NIS has been closely monitoring them for years and organized a large-scale investigation team, as they thought a thorough investigation was needed, but the plans were hushed up by Suh Hoon, the first director of the NIS under the Moon administration.”
A source told the JoongAng Ilbo newspaper that Suh had influence over the investigation at the time. “Suh was working as a special ambassador, traveling to Pyongyang and Washington multiple times to hold summits with North Korea. It would have been difficult for him to publicly investigate these spies.”
Suh served as the first Director of the NIS under Moon from 2017 to 2020 and was appointed as the presidential national security director in August 2020. Suh was the key person who led the so-called peace initiative with North Korea. He and Chung Eui-yong, then National Security Advisor to Moon, visited the White House in March 2018. Chung said, “I told President Trump that, in our meeting, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said he is committed to denuclearization.” Many conservatives in South Korea argue that U.S.-North Korea denuclearization negotiations restarted with this statement.
The Kookmin Ilbo newspaper cited another source at the NIS saying, “the investigation team acquired all relevant evidence ahead of time and wanted to arrest them, but the atmosphere at that time was that the investigation should be stopped because it can destroy the positive state that was established after the summit between Moon and Kim Jong-un.” The source added that “however, the evidence continued to build up and the investigation team decided to take a tough stance, saying that it can no longer be silent about this issue.”
The JoongAng Ilbo newspaper also reported that the NIS has been looking into the suspects for more than 21 years. One of the suspects began working as a spy for North Korea from at least 2004, and another suspect surnamed Sohn began his spy activities starting around 2010, according to the report.
The NIS had videos of these South Korean suspects meeting North Korean agents in Beijing, China in May 2017, and Phnom Penh, Cambodia, in April 2018. These were among the key factors that changed the attitude of the investigation team.
The suspects were also appointed as special advisors on Moon’s presidential election campaign. They were also ordered to weaken South Korean conservatives during the 2020 general elections through various measures, including manipulating public opinion on YouTube and other social networking platforms.
Conservative politicians and commentators have argued that Moon should personally explain how they were involved in his election campaign and how he came to know them.
On Thursday, Yun Kun-young, a ruling Democratic Party lawmaker known as a key aide of Moon, argued that conservatives are making an unreasonable demand. “There are tens and hundreds of thousands of people appointed as special advisors during the election campaign and I cannot understand how they are asking the presidential Blue House to take responsibility for all of them,” he said. “It is the same case, regardless of party, and it was the same with former presidents Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye and candidate Hong Joon-pyo.” Last week, a senior official from the Blue House told reporters asking for comment on the issue that “this is not worth mentioning.” This comment drew strong criticism from conservatives, who viewed it as irresponsible.
On Wednesday, the main opposition People Power Party (PPP) called for an intelligence committee meeting to discuss the “Cheongju Spy” incident.
“It was clearly revealed that North Korea was directly involved in last year’s April general elections through the Cheongju Spy incident,” the PPP lawmakers at the intelligence committee said in a press briefing on Wednesday. “North Korea organized underground organizations themselves and ordered them to make conservative candidates lose in the elections. They also tried to have the organizations analyze and report the ruling party’s election strategies and establish an anti-conservative coalition.”
The lawmakers argued that “North Korea meddling in South Korean politics is a clear violation of the inter-Korean agreements, and we should hold an intelligence committee meeting right away to prevent them from intervening in next year’s presidential election.”
The lawmakers said that if the ruling Democratic Party (DP) members oppose the meeting, they will interpret it as allowing North Korea to meddle in domestic politics.
Kim Byung-ki, a ranking member of the intelligence committee from the DP, argued that the PPP is using national security to conduct political affairs. “The investigation is still ongoing, and lawmakers can be briefed on limited information,” he said. “We can look into this when the investigation is over, and it is not something that is very urgent.”
Kim additionally expressed his “strong regret that the PPP is mentioning North Korea’s intervention in domestic politics while discussing whether to hold the intelligence committee meeting.”
