The system killed them and the wrong leader killed the system

By Joseph H. Chung (정희수) Professor of economics, Quebec University in Montreal (UQAM)

(지난 호에 이어)

A recent poll (das-boe-ie-da 238) shows who are responsible for the 10.29 disaster.

• President, Yoon Suk-yeol: 65.0%

• Minister of Interior and Public Safety, Lee Sang-min: 74.3%

• Mayor of Seoul City, O Se-hoon: 71.5%

 Mayor of Yongsan District , Park Hee-yong: 82.4%

However, they have behaved and are behaving in irresponsible manner.

First, the Minister of Interior and Public Safety, Lee Sang-min said this on October 30, the day following the disaster.

"Even if we deployed more police forces, we would not be able to save the young victims."

This sounds as if the minster knew in advance what would happen.

Second, as pointed out above, the four key decision makers were absent from posts during the fatal moment.: Park Hee-young, mayor of Yongsan District; Ryu Min-jin, the person in charge of the 112 call center; Yoon Hee-gun, the National Polive chief and Kim Gwang-ho, Seoul Meropolitan Police chief.

Third, the authorities are blaming only those who are not in the position of giving orders; they are not decision makers.

Several of them are indicted for their "negligence" in their duties. But, in reality, they did their best to save the lives.

These individuals are crucified to hide the wrong doings of their superiors In Korea, these immoral and illegal actions of the superiors are called the process of "tail cutting" designed to sacrifice the persons of lower rank in order to save the person of higher rank who has the responsibility of wrong doings.

This shows how hard the responsible people are trying to hide the truth, which enforces the possibility of pre-planned wrong doings.

Fourth, two persons died. One was a key employee of Seoul city involved in the management of public safety. The other was employee (known as Jeong) of the Yongsan Police station who was involved in the management of reports.

They were reported to have killed themselves. But, few believe that they killed themselves.

Unfortunately, in Korea, under the government of pro-Japan conservative government, it is a common knowledge that people at the low level of the decision making process are often forced to kill themselves to protect their superiors. The surviving families cannot protest due to fearful threat by the authorities of power.

Thus, those who should be responsible for the tragedy do everything to hide something important which might have something to do with the tragedy.

Now, what bothers Koreans and the world is some of the troubling statements of the Shaman in connection with the Itaewon tragedy, Cheon-gong. The following are some of these statements.

"The Itaewon disaster is good for Korea."

"The greater the number of the victims, the better will be for the global reputation of Korea."

"In order that the sacrifice be worthwhile, the number of the victims should be great."

"The Itaewon disaster is nobody's fault."

So, the shaman's statements have two messages. One is the idea that the disaster is good for Korea. The other is that nobody's fault.

The shaman advised also the president family and other high ranking officials of Yoon government to use the Itaewon tragedy for international diplomacy.

All these sound utter nonsense, but there are some people who seem to take this nonsense seriously.

Now, if we relate the shaman's statement and Yoon's habit of doing what the shaman says, we have to come to a troubling conclusion that the death 158 young souls could have something to do with the Yoon-shaman collusive relations.

To be sure, there is no evidence that Cheon-gong is involved in the disaster.

But, many South Koreans suspect that there is relation between the tragedy and the shaman-Yoon relationship.

Witnesses of the tragedy said the ambulance vehicles took away first the dead bodies leaving behind the wounded to die. Why? 

One thing obvious is that it is just impossible to find out the real cause of the tragedy. What happened on the alley of Itaewon was how the children died; it was not why they had to die so horribly. We already know how, but we do not know why.

It is hoped that the ongoing parliamentary probe of the tragedy should invite Cheon-gong at all costs to clarify the intention behind his statements related to the Itaewon disaster.

It is hoped also that the coming parliamentary probe will be bold, strong and persistent enough to resist aggressive obstruction by the president and his party, the People Power Party (PPP).

The very belligerent and irrational behaviours of the president and the PPP show strongly that they cannot reveal the true cause of the tragedy which seems to have something to do with the collusion between the president's family and their spiritual leader, Cheon-gong.

3. Impact of the 10.29 disaster (Itaewon Disaster)

There will be external impact and the internal impact. The external impact will be the worsening reputation of South Korea as the safest place in the world.

Under the 5-year government of Moon Jae-in government of the Democratic Party of Korea, the reputation of South Korea was very high due to successful anti-COVID 19 policy, the adoption of new economic growth policy based on more equal income distribution, productive foreign relations and, above all, three-year peace on the Korean peninsula owing to the North-South peace-process.

But, Yoon Suk-yeol has pulled the reputation of South Korea down to the ground after 6-month government due to restoration of destructive neo-liberal economic policy, disastrous foreign policy and above all the sustained attempt to create the dictatorship of corrupted prosecutors. (다음 호에 계속)

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