Gov’t Investigates Misuse of Funds It Gave to ‘Civic’ Groups

I’ve previously written about the South Korean government’s provision of $5.2  billion in state funds to 149 different  hippie communes, drum circles,  and commie spy cells “civic” groups, only to have it revealed that some of those groups had a history of organized political violence.  The worst offender was South Korea’s largest labor organization, the ardently pro-North Korean and anti-American Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, and the worst of the violence was over the government’s  costly failure  to negotiate a Free-Trade Agreement with the United States.  Embarrassed by this setback to Korea’s economic future and its strained relations to the United States, members of both of the largest political parties in South Korea’s National Assembly have quietly moved to cut off funds to the violent groups, and a number of local governments are suing the members of the same groups to recover damages caused by their vandalism.

The latest story, which is  disappointing for its absence of detail,  reports that the Korean Ministry of Governmental Administration and Home Affairs is now conducting “a thorough investigation of whether government subsidies provided to civic groups last year were spent according to their original purposes.” 

That could mean a lot of things, including the possibility that the government was intentionally vague at the time it cut the checks,  leaving itself room to roll over on the thugs and cover itself in the event a journalist might write about the story, or even inspire  some pesky blogger to  rat them out to Congress.