Pro-NK instructor at S. Korean Naval Academy

Military prosecutors at the South Korean Naval Academy indicted Wednesday without detention a first lieutenant who gave Korean history lectures at the academy for the production, possession and distribution of anti-government publications that praise and sympathize with North Korea. On the suspect`s lecture notes, a prosecutor said, “The notes justify North Korea’s theory of ‘revolutionary leader,’ the self-reliance ‘juche’ ideology, and the military-first policy as intrinsic outcomes of history and back the North’s nuclear weapons development. As such, the notes justify, encourage and sympathize with North Korea’s historical views and propaganda against South Korea.”

The lieutenant wrote the lecture notes for history lectures in the second semester of 2009 and posted them in the academy’s computer network to allow access by cadets. He is also suspected of downloading documents that sympathize with North Korea’s opinions, such as “The Study on Kim Il Sung’s Anti-Japanese Guerilla Movement in Manchuria” and “Imperialism” by Lenin.

The lieutenant is a military instructor whose main duty is to foster soldiers that should strengthen national security by confronting North Korea, the country’s main enemy. Posting lecture notes sympathizing with the North on the Internet is not an act geared toward academic purposes yet the military surprisingly chose him as a history instructor. In college, he served as a representative of the left-leaning Korea Federation of University Student Councils, or Hanchongyreon, and a student council member of the progressive Democratic Labor Party.

In 2008, the South Korean Defense Ministry designated 23 books that oppose the South Korean government, the U.S. and capitalism as seditious and prevented soldiers from reading them. Seven military judicial officers filed a computational appeal against the decision for going against the Constitution`s guarantee of freedom of thought, learning and conscience. The Constitutional Court rejected the appeal, however, saying, “The military code of conduct is to prevent military strength from declining, so the purpose (of the designation of seditious books) is justifiable.” With the ruling, the highest court admitted the distinct nature of the military.

In a meeting of major commanders of the armed forces in 2008, then South Korean Defense Minister Lee Sang-hee deplored the situation of his military by saying, “The majority of 200,000 recruits each year see six decades of South Korean history as one dominated by forces obsequious to powerful countries. They also see the military as a group used by those forces to control the country and going against the people and human rights.” Those recruits have apparently been affected by teachers having pro-North Korea and left-leaning historical views. Certain surveys even say new cadets at South Korean military academies call the U.S their main enemy instead of North Korea. The indictment of the naval lieutenant shows that problems with the military education system have reached an alarming level. The South Korean government and military must correct this situation.