The Fifth Column

April 16, 2007

Il Shim Hue Members Convicted, Sentenced, and Probably Confused

Somewhere, Kafka’s spirit is smiling. A South Korean court and has handed down guilty verdicts to five members of the Il Shim Hue spy ring individuals who had coincidentally all possessed similar loyalty oaths to the Lodestar of the Great Korean Race and received their pay and instructions at a safe house at 3089 Dongxuhuayuan, 18 Shuangqiaodong-lu, Zahoyang-qu, on the outskirts of Beijing. Bailiff! Read the verdict! A Seoul court convicted five people, including a Korean-American businessman, of spying for...

Korean Law/The Fifth Column

April 1, 2007

FTA Agreement Reached FTA Talks Near Failure: The Death of an Alliance, Part 66

[Update 2: Well, as it turns out, the two sides did reach an agreement, although it’s not clear how comprehensive. Both sides — mainly us — made major last-minute concessions. Talks were ongoing until minutes before the legal deadline. Beef tariffs will be phased out over 15 years, which is a long time. (We’ll see if the Koreans actually accept the next shipment.) Korea also gets to protect its rice market. There’s really only one bright spot I can see:...

Anti-Americanism/Korean Politics/NK Economics/The Fifth Column/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Politics

April 1, 2007

A Souvenir from Kim Jong Il

My comparison yesterday between North Korean ideology, Nazism, and Stalinism led me to conclude that in terms of intrusive state control and deification of its political leaders, North Korea was the outlier. Speaking of deification, I nearly forgot this: (Click for full size) The protector of our race’s destiny, unification [gu-song, possibly N. Korean vernacular] North and South shall bask together in the glow of General Kim Jong Il’s embrace We should follow our great general Kim Jong Il eternally!...

North Korea/The Fifth Column/U.S. Military

March 21, 2007

Anju Links for 3/21

* It’s a pity both sides can’t lose: It’s Taliban v. Al-Qaeda in Pakistan, with high casualties on both sides (I’ll be praying for more). it’s nice to see that the bad guys are just as capable of self-destructive division as we are. * Larry “Bud” Melman has passed away. He was 85. * Fifth Column Update: South Korea’s far-left “civic groups” have seen a significant decline in membership. This fits with other recent evidence that...

Abductions/Appeasement/Korean Politics/Six-Party Talks/Terrorism/Iraq/The Fifth Column

February 12, 2007

Buried Under the Margin of Error

Park Seok-jin is a devoted human rights activist in Seoul, one who is not afraid to complain bitingly about infringements of basic civil rights in Korea or elsewhere. Mr. Park’s Sarangbang Group for Human Rights runs a Web site that deals with a wide range of concerns from Palestine to trans-gender issues. But there is one area where he is notably silent: infringements on human rights by the government of North Korea. He is one of many liberal or left-wing...

Anti-Americanism/Human Rights/The Fifth Column

January 29, 2007

KCTU Update: Moderation at Last!

The Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), one of Korea’s two umbrella labor unions, elected Lee Seok-haeng, its former general secretary, as the new president in a vote of representatives. Lee garnered 482 votes from 919 representatives, or 52 percent. [link] With that overwhelming mandate, expect courageous and decisive reforms. “With all my strength, I will do what should be done and won’t do what shouldn’t. I will restore our organization by studying situations on the spot, and from that...

Korean Politics/Korean Society/The Fifth Column

January 22, 2007

KTU Update

Are you ready for your second story in just four days about Korean Teachers’ Union members being caught in possession of pro-North Korean propaganda, with intent to distribute? On closer examination, these appear to be the same suspects I blogged here. Hat tip to The Nomad, who points out that there’s no evidence that the stuff was actually used in class, although we’ve advanced a step in that direction. Unlike the case of the previous report, which was about mere...

Korean Education/The Fifth Column

January 18, 2007

Teachers Arrested for Posting N. Korean Propaganda On-Line

Two middle school teachers who allegedly posted pro-North Korean propaganda on Web sites have been arrested, the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency said yesterday, for violating the National Security Law. The teachers, whom police did not identify, allegedly posted North Korean photos and captions reading, for example, “Long Live the Great Victory of the Military-First Politics. They are both members of the left-leaning Korean Teachers and Educational Workers’ Union [link to other OFK posts]. Both teachers have also served as...

Korean Education/The Fifth Column

January 10, 2007

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...

Anti-Americanism/Korean Law/Korean Politics/The Fifth Column

January 6, 2007

KCTU Thugs May Have to Switch to PVC Pipe

When I testified before the House International Relations Committee last September, one of the issues I raised was a report that the South Korean government was funding “civic groups” that habitually engaged in violence (see page 18), including the protests at Camp Humphreys last year. More recently, some of the leaders of those protests, and other violent anti-American protests, have been exposed and indicted as North Korean agents. This should not have surprised anyone.

An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Democracy/Korean Law/Korean Politics/Korean Society/The Fifth Column/U.S. & Korea

December 19, 2006

War Is Peace, Juche Is Freedom

… and throwing Molotov cocktails is pro-democracy activism. Brought to you by (who else?) the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions.

The Fifth Column

December 13, 2006

N. Korean Agent Received Orders Through Korean-Canadian ‘Comrade’

We have more details about Kang Soon-Jeong, co-chairman of the pro-North Korean group that led the violent 9/11/05 protests that attempted to tear down the MacArthur statue in Incheon, and who also played a role in the much more violent Pyeongtaek protests last spring. Kang allegedly took orders via a Korean-Canadian and over five years sent some 500 reports to North Korea. They included photos of the massive anti-American protests following the death of two schoolgirls who were killed by...

Anti-Americanism/The Fifth Column

December 12, 2006

Fifth Column Update

Prosecutors have identified additional suspects in the Il Shim Hue cell, who they think provided the following types of information to the North Koreans: The suspects reportedly provided information on the six-nation talks and the internal split of the Grand National Party over the National Security Law to Mr. Jang starting early last year. Internal conflicts in the army and developments in the judicial and media communities were also provided to Mr. Jang. That information was delivered to Pyongyang, sources...

Six-Party Talks/The Fifth Column

December 8, 2006

Which ‘Major Government Offices’ Contained N. Korean Moles?

Update: The Chosun Ilbo thinks the investigation’s recent lack of progress is suspicious. A court has issued five indictments, including one against U.S. citizen, former soldier, and current traitor, Jang Min Ho. In the Korean judicial system, those who are indicted are virtually always convicted, so these fellows are looking at some time. Prosecutors also said the group delivered secret information to Pyongyang under direct or e-mail directives from a North Korean spy operative. The information provided was mostly...

An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Korean Law/Korean Politics/The Fifth Column/U.S. & Korea

December 6, 2006

Just Wondering…

Does the National Human Rights Commission make a distinction between peaceful protest and violent protest? On the one hand, it’s pretty obvious that the South Korean government is trying to censor both peaceful and violent opposition to the proposed Free Trade Agreement (and it’s such a dead issue, all you can do is wonder why anyone bothers). On the other hand, when protestors get through the police blockades, things like this happen. Another 20 injured today. Gee, I wonder if...

Anti-Americanism/Korean Law/Korean Society/The Fifth Column

December 6, 2006

Just the Latest Juche Idiocy from the Korean Teachers’ Union

The students went up on stage and told participants they had distributed anti-war badges around the nation in protest against the Iraq war and said they felt unifying the two Koreas was a way to create “a world without wars. They also joined the former communist guerrillas in the shouting of their old slogans against “imperialist Yankee soldiers” and the “puppet regime of Syngman Rhee. Kim, who also instructed his students to operate an online group that opposes the U.S.-led...

Anti-Americanism/Korean Education/The Fifth Column

December 5, 2006

The Cons Are Running the Prison: Why Is S. Korea Subsidizing Violence?

[Updated and bumped up] To the astonishment of absolutely no one, union goons affiliated with the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions are (yet again) unleashing a wave of violence: We saw 47 arson and vandalism cases around the nation suspected to have been committed by Korea Cargo Transport Workers’ Union members,” Lee Taek-soon, head of the National Police Agency, said yesterday. “Thirteen cases were reported in North Gyeongsang province, seven in Ulsan and six in Busan.” It would surprise...

Korean Law/Korean Politics/Korean Society/The Fifth Column

November 30, 2006

Cindy Sheehan, Kim Jong Il, and Me

Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity. — Martin Luther King, Jr. I will restrain the expression of views on Cindy Sheehan herself. I’m one who makes allowances for the fact that she’s traumatized by her son’s death, an event that quite obviously and understandably blew a few of her circuits. And while I’m sure that Casey Sheehan wouldn’t appreciate his mother’s hard work to render his sacrifice meaningless, I’m just as sure...

An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/The Fifth Column

Category: The Fifth Column