The Forked Tongue of Lee Jeong-Seok

Newly installed anti-Unification Minister Lee Jeong-Seok isn’t the fool his predecessor was. Being as manifestly stupid as Chung Dong-Young carries an implicit excuse for the feeble defense of policies for which a more intelligent man, like Lee, would be called out for deceit. This week, Lee deservedly gets called out for his vicarious “expression of regret” for South Korean journalists’ use of the k-word, “kidnapping,” to describe North Korea’s kidnapping of South Korean citizens. The reporters’ stubborn honesty resulted in a North Korean attempt to censor the South Korean press, which commendably refused en masse to go along and eventually left in protest. The lingering question is just what Lee and his minions told the North Koreans, which speaks volumes about Lee’s commitment to keeping South Korean society democratic.

First, here’s how the Chosun Ilbo quoted Lee:

Unification Minister Lee Jong-seok expressed deep regret that North Korea obstructed South Korean press activities and prevented the first group of South Korean families from coming back home on time. He said he protested to Pyongyang “and stressed that the attitude the North has shown does not help improve inter-Korean relations and is undesirable from the humanitarian perspective. He added he urged the North to remedy the situation.

This sounds like a defense of the right of South Korea’s free press to speak the truth, even if it offends the North Korean thought police in the process. Then came this statement by the head of the delegation of South Koreans visiting Mt. Kumgang:

There was outrage on Friday following reports that the leader of a South Korean delegation of divided families has expressed regret to North Korea over a mass walkout by the South Korean press corps after Pyongyang attempted to censor their dispatches.

So who was the head of this delegation, and to what extent did the South Korean government script his message?

The state-run Korean Central News Agency on Thursday night said authorities “took into consideration that the head of the South Koreans admitted their wrongdoings and expressed regret for the South Korean journalists’ provocative actions against us, and decided to let the second round of meeting of the families proceed as scheduled. The “head” here was a senior official with the South Korean Red Cross, under whose wing the reunions take place.

The Unification Ministry on Friday explained it was decided after consultation with the ministry that the “unexpected setback” in the proceedings made it advisable for the official to express regret. But it added no such words as “wrongdoing” or “apologize” were included in the letter. Until the North Korean report, the ministry did not reveal that such a letter had been written.

The North Koreans duly rewarded this act of supplication by going on with this cruel, cynical photo op without the disruptive journalists. But a mystery remained: just what, exactly, did the head of the delegation say?

The North’s official news agency on Friday carried a statement saying that the second part of the family reunions would go ahead because the head of the South Korean delegation expressed “regret” over the conduct of the reporters. The Unification Ministry said no “misconduct” or “apology” was mentioned in writing, but declined to make the written message public.

To which the editorial writer added that “nothing has changed in the government’s approach to North Korea, which drags it around by its nose ring like a dancing bear.” Colorful. Enter the KCNA, via the Dong-a Ilbo, which gives us an idea:

North Korea’s state-run Central News Agency reported on March 23, “North Korea has decided to continue the second round of ongoing reunions, given that the head of the South Korean delegation has acknowledged South Korea’s mistakes in writing and expressed regret over the behavior of the South Korean press corps that strongly provoked North Korea.

Oh?

[A] South Korean Unification Ministry official said yesterday, “It was neither an apology nor an acknowledgment of mistakes. It was just an expression of regret. The official added, “Individual reunions of each separated family were suspended on March 21. So, as one of the heads of the delegation in charge of the reunions of separated families, I expressed regret [in writing] over the unexpected situation where the reunions were being delayed.

Even if it was just an expression of “regret,” however, the position is not in accordance with what Unification Minister Lee Jong-seok said on March 23. “I emphasized that North Korea’s attitude is of no help in developing the inter-Korean relationship, so I called for a correction,” Lee said. As a result, suspicions have been raised over whether the government is taking a stand against North Korea again.

The easy way to clear all of this up, of course, would be for South Korea to make the statement of the delegation head public in its entirety. Lacking that, it’s reasonable to presume that Lee’s statement purporting to stand up for a free press in South Korea was a facade. Yet clearly stating that South Korea will have no part in censoring its own journalists (though the journalists report that it clearly tried to do just that) would signal to everyone, including North Korea, that South Korea is unwilling to abandon the fundamentally democratic character of its society to get along with Kim Jong Il’s censors. It would also answer the question of whether Lee is being truthful with the South Korea people.