He came to give the country back to the people
Joseph H. Chung (정희수), Ph.D. Professor of Economics at Quebec University in Montreal (UQAM)
(지난 호에 이어)
There are the secondary groups around the core group including bureaucrats, business dealers, families of the core group and a host of other groups including academics, NGOs and others.
There are two institutions which are vital for the survival and the expansion of the corruption community, namely the media and the judiciary system.
The role of media is to hide, justify and protect wrong doings of the corruption community in exchange of bribe money. In Korea, at present, perhaps 90% of mainstream media is an integral part of the corruption community.
On the other hand, the role of the judiciary system is to identify the dissidents, fabricate all sorts of crimes to imprison them on the one hand, on the other, overlook the crimes of the members of the corruption community.
Most of the key positions in the police, the court and the office of prosecutors are occupied by the member of the corruption community or supporters of the corruption community.
The source of the power of the corruption community is, of course, the money. The core members of the community cumulated their wealth during the Japanese occupation and continue to do so for last 70 years since WWII through bribes and embezzlement of public money.
There is a well known investigative media, Newstapa, which has investigated the living conditions of known traitors. No less than 43% live in Gangnam area which is the richest district in Seoul. The most scandalous finding is that they own land of 400,000 km2, which is 30.8 time the area of Seoul city of 13,000 km2.. This gives some idea of how rich they are. By law, this land must be returned to the state, but only 3% has been returned.
The investigation has also revealed some interesting sides of 1,117 descendents of these traitors. As many as 33% went to the Korean Ivy league universities, the SKY universities (Seoul National University, Yonsei University and Koryo University).
No less than 27% have studies abroad. The interesting aspect is that they prefer career in business. In fact, 32% are in businesses. This is understandable, for they are eager to hide their identity, which is difficult to do in civil service.
Nobody knows how much wealth the corruption community of the PJCSK has cumulated for 70 years. Some estimates claim hundreds of billions of USD. In fact, it could be trillions of dollars. This immense wealth has allowed the corruption community to keep power and continue to stack up more wealth. In a way, the fight against corruption is the war against money, which is quasi impossible to win.
One of the most challenging tasks faced by President Moon Jae-in was the fight against the deep rooted corruption culture in South Korea. The corruption culture has been developed, refined ad strengthened by the PJCSK who ruled South Korea for 62 years since 1948.
But, the PKLSK did not remain idle. They fought back risking death against the leaders of PJCSK and they were successful in making the end of PJCSK presidency shameful.
President Syngman Rhee (1948-1960) was kicked out of his presidential office by students for corruption and police dictatorship.
President, General Park Chung-hee (1962-1979) took power through coup d'etat. He was the worst kind of human right violator, military dictator, immoral sexual aggressor and abuser of power. He was assassinated in 1979 by his CIA director. But, he played important role for Korea's economic take-off.
President General Chun Doo-han (1980-1987) was sentenced to death, later commuted but imprisoned for coup d'etat, corruption, human right violation and embezzlement of public funds
President Rho Tae-woo (1987-1992) was imprisoned for corruption embezzlement of public money
President Lee Myung-bak (2008-2013) was in prison for corruption, embezzlement of public money and abuse of power. .
President Park Geun-hye (2013-2017) was impeached and sentenced to imprisonment for 25 years for corruption, abuse of power and her incapacity to govern. But, in 2022 she was freed due to her health condition
All these presidents were the pro-Japan conservative presidents. This shows how deep and wide the corruption culture developed by the pro-Japan conservatives.
As soon as President Moon Jae-in took power, he declared the war against the corruption culture and applied the following measures
First, the key positions of the Moon government were filled by those individuals who fought against the corrupted conservative government and spent years in prison.
President Moon has spent much of his life to defend, as human right lawyer, those who were oppressed and abused by the conservative government. He himself was imprisoned for having defended the victims of the conservative government
The amazing thing is that, in the progressive government of Moon, there has been no single case of corruption among the cabinet members and presidential advisors. This is amazing; this shows how clean the government of Moon was.
Second, he modified the law on CIA (now National Intelligence Services-NIS) so that it will limit itself to the management of foreign intelligence and that it should not gather information on citizens
.
Third, as pointed above, the Moon's government imprisoned the two conservative presidents (Lee Myong-bak and Park Geun-hye) for their abuse of power and corruption.
Fourth, he imprisoned a great number of high ranking civil servants for abuse of power and corruption.
Fifth, he modified the laws on government's subsidies so that the subsidy- recipients cannot embezzle the subsidy funds
Sixth, he has fought for the reform of the judiciary system with some success. For instance, he was able to establish a mechanism allowing the investigation of high ranking public servants (Corruption Investigation Office for the High-Ranking Officials-공수처). But, it was just beginning of the long and hard process of cleaning the corrupted lake of bureaucracy.
However, President Moon has provided a strong moral and political support of the people devoted to the reform of the judiciary system. (다음 호에 계속)
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