Remove pro-N. Korea forces

More than 40 people in South Korea have been caught producing and distributing pro-North Korea materials via pro-Pyongyang websites and personal homepages. They include a pilot with Korean Air, a civil servant with the Military Manpower Administration, and military officers. The 40-something pilot, a graduate of Korea Aviation University, put up dozens of posts praising the North, including one titled “Laborious Work of Dear Leader Kim Jong Il” and another titled “Materials on the Greatness of the General (Kim Jong Il)” on his private website. Many South Koreans believe that it is truly dangerous for a pilot of a civilian air carrier to have a pro-North Korea ideology.

An official with the Military Manpower Administration also showed that he is a pro-North Korea individual. He spread via YouTube pro-North Korea materials including video clips of the North’s revolutionary songs such as “General (Kim Jong Il) Leads the New Century.” For pro-North Korea forces to penetrate South Korea`s military body that manages resources for national defense is truly scary.

Kim Il Sung and his son Kim Jong Il are war criminals, traitors of the Korean people, and inhumane dictators who caused their fellow Koreans to go to war against each other. They also caused millions to starve to death and turned North Korean territory into a flurry of prison camps. The two are also international criminals who committed crimes such as drug trafficking, circulation of counterfeit banknotes, and terrorism, thus humiliating the Korean people as a whole. The very fact that hundreds of thousands of North Koreans have defected from their highly reclusive country due to starvation and political oppression effectively illustrates the devastating situation in the North. Then who are pro-North Korea people (in the South) that seek to beautify the worst regime on earth and side with them?

Ri Jong Hyuk, vice chairman of the Korea Asia-Pacific Peace Committee, the North’s inter-Korean negotiation channel, recently made irrational comments in the U.S. “Inter-Korean relations have stalled since a conservative government took power in the South,” he said. Bilateral ties deteriorated because Pyongyang has neither apologized nor promised to prevent a recurrence after committing grave crimes, including the killing of a South Korean tourist in Mount Kumgang, the bombing of the South Korean naval corvette Cheonan, and the artillery attacks on the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong in the Yellow Sea. Nevertheless, not a few people in the South echo what Ri said. Pro-North Korea forces, who claim that South Korea is to blame for the North’s aggression and stalled inter-Korean ties, stay afoot deep in many part of South Korean society. There is every reason to believe that they are staging an ideological war within the South, looking for a chance to bring down the South Korean government on behalf of the North Korean communist regime. The North has used expanding conflict within the South and separation of Seoul-Washington relations as the mainframe of its strategy to communize the South.

Lee Dong-bok, head of the North Korea Democratization Forum, said, “Pro-North Korea forces continue to emerge because the South Korean regime has not fulfilled its responsibility of educating the borderline separating black from white,” adding, “As long as the state fails to carry out its function of filtering out propaganda and instigation for and by the North, pro-North Korean forces will inevitably continue to emerge.” One national security expert said, “Pro-North Korea forces are no different from blind followers of a religious cult,” adding, “Leftists who penetrated culture, media and education in the 1980s took deep root in many parts of South Korean society during the 10-year leftist administrations of Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun.” It cannot be denied that the critical reasons for the expansion of pro-North Korea forces in the South have been the leftist governments covering up and acquiescing to past wrongdoings by Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il and seeking to engage them instead, practically rendering the National Security Law invalid.

Prosecutors and police must conduct thorough investigations into pro-North Korea forces, who threaten freedom and democracy in the Republic of Korea, before it is too late. They should identify their roots, real identities and risks and publicize them. Even the Lee Myung-bak administration has been negligent about the emergence and activation of pro-North Korea forces. It is fortunate, however, that authorities have stepped up their crackdown on pro-North forces, following the inauguration of Prosecutor General Han Sang-dae. The future of the Republic of Korea will be on shaky ground should it fail to root out pro-North Korea forces.