Tag: Park Geun-hye

Another political enemy of the Moon administration is getting additional jail time:

A Seoul court sentenced Kim Ki-choon, a former chief of staff to ousted President Park Geun-hye, to a 1 1/2-year prison term Friday for pressuring a major business lobby to provide funds to conservative organizations friendly to the Park administration.

The Seoul Central District Court also sentenced Cho Yoon-sun, a former culture minister and senior political affairs secretary to Park, to one year in prison, to be suspended for two years, for her role in having money funneled to pro-government organizations on the so-called whitelist.

Kim was put in jail following the verdict.

The sentences are in addition to prison terms of four and two years that Kim and Cho were given, respectively, in a separate “blacklist” scandal that centers on allegations that the Park government kept a secret register of artists critical of the administration and disadvantaged them in various ways.

The blacklist case is pending at the Supreme Court.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but if anything comes back to haunt the Moon administration if conservatives regain power it is going to be this.  The Moon administration has its own blacklist where they have cut funding to organizations that advocate for North Korean human rights and resettle North Korean refugees.  Funding has also been cut to think tanks that won’t fire conservatives.

The biggest benefactor of the Moon administration’s white list has been the Kim regime in North Korea.  The Moon administration is even pressuring Samsung and other conglomerates to invest billions into North Korea.  If conservatives can go to jail for whilelists and blacklists then this sets a precedent for the Korean left to go to jail as well.

This undated file photo shows former President Park Geun-hye entering a Seoul court. In an appeals trial on Aug. 24, 2018, the Seoul High Court sentenced Park, 66, to 25 years in prison for conspiring with her longtime confidante, Choi Soon-sil, to force Samsung and other conglomerates to donate money to two foundations under Choi’s control. In April, a lower court handed out a 24-year jail term for Park. (Yonhap)

The piling on of former President Park Geun-hye continues:

A Seoul court on Friday sentenced former President Park Geun-hye to eight years in prison for illegally taking off-book funds from the state spy agency and interfering in elections during her term in office.

Televised live, the Seoul Central District Court meted out the guilty verdict to the 66-year-old, who’s already serving a 24-year jail term on a string of corruption charges in a nation-rocking scandal that led to her ousting last year.

The court also ordered her to forfeit 3.3 billion won (US$2.91 million).  (…….)

She’s also been indicted for interfering in the then-ruling Saenuri Party’s candidate nominations for the 2016 general elections.

But the court on Friday acquitted her of the bribery charges, ruling that the NIS provisions of its funds to Park’s office were not paid in return for any favors.  [Yonhap]

So if the funds were provided by the NIS were not in return for favors then why were they providing them to former President Park?  Because they have been providing the funds to past ROK Presidents as well:

The court acknowledged that it has been customary for the spy agency to provide funds to the presidential office from its own state coffers, known as the untraceable special activities fund.

The fact that the then spy chiefs had delivered the funds to Park’s Cheong Wa Dae in a fixed amount, and on a regular basis, is far from the conventional way of paying someone a bribe, which usually comes in a lump sum payment at one time.  [Yonhap]

Basically what the NIS has been doing is giving the ROK President money to pay for things like cell phones and medical treatment that would not be subject to any government record keeping.  However, some of her expenses with this secret fund were definitely shady:

Park allegedly squandered the taxpayer money on maintaining her private house, financing a boutique where her secret confidante Choi Soon-sil — the central figure in the corruption scandal — had Park’s clothes made and other private purposes, including massage treatment.  [Japan Times]

I think the most significant thing about this ruling is that if Park was convicted of receiving money from the NIS, then former President Lee Myung-bak who has also been arrested for corruption will also get convicted for the same thing if he received NIS special activities funds.

What I am wondering is if the NIS was also making the payments to former President Roh Moo-hyun as well?  The opposition party in South Korea has already claimed that the Roh administration had their own special activities fund they wanted a special counsel to investigate.

The proposed investigation largely targets key figures from the former liberal Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun administrations of 1998-2008. It also seeks to check whether the NIS and prosecution under the incumbent government have misused their funds.

“The misappropriation of special activity funds has long been a practice, so to speak, and it is one of Korea’s representative ills,” the request reads. “We demand institutional improvements be made by addressing the suspicions through a thorough investigation.” [Yonhap]

So far the Moon administration has not allowed any investigation into the prior Roh and Kim administration’s use of special activities funds.

Former President Roh committed suicide after the Lee Myung-bak administration began an investigation into him taking bribes.  There would be no legal implications if the NIS gave him money since he is deceased, but it would still be an interesting fact to know.  President Roh was hugely popular with the South Korean left and current President Moon Jae-in was his chief of staff at the time.  This is likely why the prior left wing administration will not be investigated.

This is also why the conservatives in South Korea consider the arrest and imprisonment of former Presidents Lee and Park as political payback for causing Roh’s suicide by exposing his corruption.

I have written much about the arrest of Korean journalist Byun Hee-jae because his articles have been largely the only reporting challenging the established narrative of why former President Park Geun-hye was impeached.  So what is the established narrative of why President Park was impeached?

I think this December 2016 article by Suki Kim in Foreign Policy best sums up the established narrative that many in the public and the media believe.  ROK Heads may remember that Suki Kim is the journalist that taught English at the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology for six months recording notes for what would become her 2014 book, Without You, There Is No Us: Undercover Among the Sons of North Korea’s Elite.  I have no issues with Ms. Kim, but I am just using her article as example of how members of the media largely parroted the established narrative at the time that brought down former President Park Geun-hye.

Here is the opening paragraph in her Foreign Policy article about the impeachment of President Park and the rise of independent journalists in South Korea:

In late fall, I left New York City for Seoul, intending to visit for just a few days. Then, on Oct. 24, a small South Korean cable network called JTBC revealed that its reporters had discovered a tablet that had belonged to Choi Soon-sil, the hidden power behind President Park Geun-hye. The data on the device exposed a web of unprecedented corruption. In response, millions of people took to the streets, waving candles in protest, until Dec. 9, when South Korea’s parliament voted to impeach Park. [Foreign Policy]

From the start of Ms. Kim’s article you can see the importance of the tablet PC that JTBC discovered.  Would the tablet PC have been as important if people knew that JTBC had changed their story three times on how the tablet was discovered?  Would the importance of the tablet had been the same if people knew that the tablet PC could not be conclusively proven to be Choi’s. Another interesting fact is that the tablet PC did not contain Korean document editing-capable software.  So how was Choi supposedly editing sensitive documents for President Park on a tablet that did not have the software to do this?  The report with these findings was not released until a year after President Park’s impeachment and the public interest in the tablet had died down.

The big thing people should think about is in their own personal lives, how many people they know that leave their phone or tablet PC without password protection?  If you believe JTBC, this is essentially what Choi Soon-shil did, she left a tablet PC filled with sensitive documents in old office space with no password protection that allowed JTBC to find and read the documents.  This alone made me skeptical much less the other facts that have since emerged about the tablet PC.

Ms. Kim continues in her article by making an odd attack against President Trump that he received favorable coverage from the media before the US election:

Having just come from the United States, where a credulous media had been manipulated by the winning presidential candidate rather than holding him to account, I was particularly sensitive to the resilient and creative role played by South Korean reporters.

I would agree that during the Republican primaries that Donald Trump received oversized media coverage compared to other candidates.  This is because he drove ratings for the networks due to his celebrity not because they supported him in anyway.  Once he was the Republican nominee it was like a switch was flipped and the mainstream media changed to relentless negative attacks that did not stop during the lead up to the election and continues to this day.

Ms. Kim’s article continues about conservative bias in the mainstream Korean media under President Park:

The vast influence of South Korea’s independent media is a belated product of dismal failures by the country’s establishment media. For instance, there have long been three main television stations in South Korea: MBC, KBS, and SBS. But after the 2007 election to the presidency of the conservative Lee Myung-bak, the heads of the news stations were replaced by people with an explicitly pro-government stance, essentially turning the press into a propaganda machine. In 2010, thousands of journalists went on strike in response, many of whom were members of the “386 Generation,” a term for those born in the 1960s who went to college during the 1980s dictatorship and student riots. Some of the strikers eventually resigned while others were transferred to lesser divisions where they would not be able to report. It was also around this time that the government took a hand in setting up brand-new cable stations, called jongpyun, linked to the existing establishment newspapers, which were mostly in favor of the ruling Saenuri Party.

The conservative bias in the media during the Park administration is true, but there was left wing bias in the mainstream media during the prior liberal governments.  The left wing media even tried to overturn the election of former President Lee Myung-bak with the anti-US beef protests in 2008.  The Korean media aired false claims about US beef that caused violent anti-government protests.

Lee came to power after a decade of left wing rule in South Korea that saw him begin to undue many of the initiative of the prior governments.  In response the bias media and left wing groups attempted to get President Lee to resign a few months after being elected with the false US beef claims.  It can be argued that what the Korean left accomplished in getting rid of President Park is what they first attempted against President Lee in 2008.

After the anti-US beef protests President Lee decided to drive out the left wing board members from the major media outlets and use libel laws against other critics.  The political polarization of the Korean media has only continued under the Moon administration which used union protests and violence to drive out board members from KBS and MBC appointed by conservative politicians so the coverage could return to the left wing bias they had under prior liberal governments.

Ms. Kim continues in her article discussing the Sewol disaster:

During the Sewol disaster, however, energized independent journalists finally managed to break the partisan establishment media’s monopoly on the public’s attention. What on the surface appeared to be just an unfortunate accident struck at the emotional core of South Koreans in the same way the 9/11 attacks did for Americans because it revealed a pervasive rottenness under the surface of the country’s political system. It was later revealed that the sinking and the lack of rescue efforts were linked to federal-level corruption involving the ferry owners, the insurance company, the Korean coast guard, and the Korean navy.

No argument from me in regards to the corruption surrounding the Sewol disaster, however, this is nothing new and not something caused by President Park.  The fact that a business was able to run an unsafe ferry operation due to corruption is unsurprising to me.  This is the country that has had bridges and shopping malls collapse in on themselves from shoddy construction caused by corruption and poor safety enforcement.  The Park administration was just a continuation of the status quo.

Here is where Ms. Kim continues on with another well known narrative about President Park’s missing seven hours during the Sewol Ferry Boat disaster:

South Korea is one of the most digitally connected nations in the world. The horror was witnessed live online by the entire nation, and those trapped teenagers were texting and video chatting their parents until their final seconds. In those desperate hours, however, Park was nowhere to be found, and no statement was issued by the Blue House until the president finally appeared in public, seven hours after the accident happened, looking dazed and clueless as she asked, “Why is it so hard to find the students if they are wearing life jackets?” Everyone had drowned hours ago.

Remember Ms. Kim wrote this back in December 2016 when the established narrative had already been established about President Park and the Sewol disaster.  Media speculation said she was having botox treatments or even an affair during the missing seven hours.  An investigation conducted by the Moon administration after taking office disclosed the timeline of events involving President Park.

By the time she found out about the accident that morning there was no chance to impact rescue operations.  If a rescue was going to happen it had to happen by the first responders from the ROK Coast Guard. The Coast Guard office in Mokpo immediately sent a vessel to the accident site after receiving emergency phone calls from passengers.  The vessel arrived at the scene before the sinking, but did not order the passengers to evacuate.  An immediate evacuation and rescue by the Coast Guard would have saved many of the passengers.

This was incompetence by the ROK Coast Guard commander on the scene who was clearly unprepared to deal with such an accident and not something Park Geun-hye was going to be able to resolve in the few minutes she had from the Blue House.  If people want to criticize her for lax government regulations that allowed the overweight ferry to operate and the poor disaster response by the Coast Guard I think that is fair.  However, to claim she could have personally did something to save those people that morning, but instead hung out in her bedroom is completely unfair in my opinion.

What Park Geun-hye was guilty of was bad optics.  Instead of making a statement that morning, she waited to receive reports on the situation and met with aides and her infamous friend Choi Soon-shil to determine the way ahead on the disaster.  They decided to have Park visit the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters where she made her statement to the country that afternoon.  This created the perception of the seven hour gap which her critics were happy to make things up to fill.  Even after the investigation the optics still wern’t that good because it showed she received reports and met with aides in her bedroom and presidential residence instead of her office at the Blue House.

Ms. Kim continues about the Sewol tragedy:

When the Sewol ferry sank, Lee was one of the first reporters to arrive at the scene and was the last one to leave, more than a month later. As the mainstream media reported that there was a massive rescue team of hundreds of helicopters and ships, Lee reported that there were just two voluntary divers at the scene. A video clip of Lee, at a meeting of victims’ families, shouting at the other reporters for publishing lies and then breaking down in tears went viral.

In regards to poor coverage of the Sewol disaster it would not be surprising to me in the least if the ROK mainstream media was trying to minimize political damage to the Park administration.  Now the complete opposite is happening with the Moon administration consolidating control of the major media outlets to give them favorable coverage instead.

The addictive real-time reporting of the Sewol disaster demonstrated the potential power of independent journalism. Now such journalists are increasingly turning to documentary reporting to engage their audience in an age where films can be made using just a phone. Lee has used this medium expertly. His first film, Diving Bell, about the Sewol tragedy was first released in theaters, then aired on YouTube, and then finally on TV on the eve of the parliament hearing on the Sewol ferry’s sinking. He will soon release a film called The President’s Seven Hours; he was the first to report the claim that during the seven-hour disappearance, Park was under anesthetic in the Blue House, getting a face-lifting, Botox-related injection treatment.

Here is another example of Ms. Kim repeating the established narrative at the time about the botox injections.  The investigation launched by the Moon administration did not find that Park was having botox treatments that morning.  The investigation did find that she was having botox treatments at other times by a doctor not employed by the Blue House.  This doctor was later convicted for lying about the treatments and given a suspended sentence.

As far as independent journalism, that is what Byun Hee-jae has been attempting to do with his reporting about the tablet PC and it got him sent to jail.  Here is the passage where Ms. Kim talks more about JTBC TV:

Among the generally pro-government jongpyun, JTBC TV stands out as the only left-leaning network. The station, which first broke the tablet story and amplified information originated by Joo and Lee, has dominated ratings during the scandal. Since the Sewol tragedy, when it was seen as the only reliable voice among the cable networks, it has also played a critical role in invigorating Korean media.

JTBC may have done better coverage of the initial Sewol tragedy compared to the major media channels, but their later reporting on the tragedy, the tablet PC, as well as the THAAD issue we now know was either sensationalized or not true.

Here is how Ms. Kim concludes her article:

Of course, just as it is always a few bad seeds among politicians who end up taking their country onto a devastating path, it was only a handful of standout journalists who made a difference. But there’s reason to think that others will soon follow their successful example — and hopefully not only in South Korea.

Now we know that in South Korea that independent journalists that do not follow the established narrative will be jailed while in the United States under Donald Trump journalists can regularly publish ubiquitous “fake news” without the fear of being jailed.

In regards to the narrative against President Park, I have to wonder if she would have still been impeached if the public knew of the dubious nature of the tablet PC and the misinformation of the infamous seven hours?  Maybe she still would have been impeached because Choi did have oversized influence in the Park administration and was corrupt, but the conveniently found tablet PC in my opinion seemed to be the key piece of evidence that finally caused the public to widely turn on Park.

I would love to see an American journalist like Suki Kim revisit the whole narrative against President Park.  For example do they still believe JTBC’s claims about the tablet PC?  The one journalist in South Korea who did vigorously report on it was thrown in jail.  I would also like to see what American journalists think about the jailing of Byun Hee-jae.  Do they support his work?  Also does the American media agree with the Moon administration’s use of labor unions to protest and take control of the major media channels?  What about the Druking online opinion rigging scandal linked to the Moon administration?  I have yet to see any major media American journalist comment on any of this; maybe they just prefer to not challenge the established narrative?

Leave it to North Korea to pile it on the already disgraced Park Geun-hye:

North Korea on Saturday called disgraced former South Korean President Park Geun-hye a “traitor” responsible for “extra-large hideous corruption,” in its first reaction to the sentencing of Park to 24 years in prison on corruption charges.

The insults carried by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency came a day after the Seoul Central District Court found Park guilty on a variety of charges, including abusing her power and taking tens and millions of dollars from companies in bribes and through extortion. She had been under arrest since March last year.  [Associated Press]

You can read more at the link.

A sign with Donald Trump's face at the demonstrations in support of disgraced former South Korean president Park Geun-hye: "All Koreans love USA. Please save Korea's ex-president PGH" https://t.co/5umsrnQbLP pic.twitter.com/0xWtFcwGU0

— Anna Fifield (@annafifield) April 7, 2018

Supporters of ousted former President Park Geun-hye hold South Korean and U.S. flags as they march on the street in front of the Seoul Central District Court after the court sentenced her to 24 years in jail and fined her 18 billion won (US$16.83 million) on April 6, 2018. (Yonhap)

Former President Park has received more time in prison than murderers and rapists in Korea:

Former President Park Geun-hye was sentenced to 24 years in prison and 18 billion won in fine on Friday in a massive corruption scandal that toppled her from power early last year.

In a live televised trial, the Seoul Central District Court meted out the guilty verdict for the 66-year-old former leader, about a year after her arrest in late March of 2017.

Park was convicted of 16 counts of corruption, including bribery, coercion and abuse of power. Prosecutors had demanded a 30-year jail term.  [Yonhap]

Here is what the judge found her guilty of:

They include forcing conglomerates to contribute 77.4 billion won to two non-profit foundations Choi controlled; forcing Hyundai Motor Group to sign deals with Choi-controlled companies; forcing Lotte Group to pitch into Choi’s project to build a sports facility in return for a duty-free business license; forcing Posco to create a fencing team and have the Choi-controlled The Blue K take over its management; and forcing Samsung Group to fund some 1.6 billion won to a winter sports education center practically run by Choi as well as buy three horses for Choi, whose daughter Chung Yoo-ra is a dressage athlete.

“Park abused the power given to her by the people of the country and conspired with Choi to demand bribes from companies and meddle in their business decisions,” Kim said. “She abused her power as the president and received 14 billion won worth of bribes from Samsung and Lotte, and requested 8.9 billion won from SK Group.”

The court said Park received bribes worth 7.2 billion won from Samsung Group, though it cannot determine how much she kept for herself.

Park was also found guilty of abusing her power by blacklisting artists and cultural figures critical of her administration and exercising undue influence in the appointment of civil servants. She was found guilty of abusing her power as president to pressure former senior official of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, Roh Tae-kang, to step down, after he pointed out problems concerning special treatment given to Choi’s daughter. The court judged Park had also pressured three officials in the ministry who did not cooperate on blacklisting artists to step down.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

So she was convicted of taking bribes even though the prosecutors could not prove she received any bribes.  I have yet to see definitive evidence of how Park supposedly pressured these companies to donate Choi’s organizations.  Has anyone seen a definitive listing of the evidence that proves she told someone to donate money to Choi or else?

Interestingly this is what she was not convicted of:

However, the judge found Park not guilty of pressuring Samsung Electronics’ Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong to financially help Choi’s equestrian daughter, Chung Yoo-ra.  [Korea Times]

So in the end all the drama of extraditing Chung Yoo-ra back to Korea was all about nothing.

Park’s lawyers will likely appeal the ruling.  I suspect that this sentence will be greatly reduced after the appeals process takes place, which is why I think this heavy sentencing is more for domestic political consumption.  ROK Heads may remember Samsung heir Lee Jae-yong received a five year sentence for corruption and then was quietly released on appeal a few months later.  I don’t think Park will be released in a few months, but I doubt she will do 24 years in prison considering rapists and murderers don’t spend that much time in Korean jails.

Broadcast vehicles are parked in front of a court in southern Seoul on April 5, 2018, the eve of the sentencing hearing for ousted President Park Geun-hye. Impeached and arrested in March last year, Park, 66, has been on trial on bribery, abuse of power and 16 other charges. (Yonhap)

The whole “7-Hour Mystery” talking point involving former President Park Geun-hye and the sinking of the Sewol has never made any sense to me and the revealing of the actual timeline by investigators only further confirms this:

On the day of the sinking of the Sewol ferry in 2014, then-President Park Geun-hye spent crucial early hours when people could have been saved in her bedroom. As the hours passed, Park met with confidante Choi Soon-sil and got her hair done before starting to deal with the unfolding tragedy, according to a prosecution announcement on Wednesday.

The prosecution concluded that the entire timeline offered by the Park administration about her activities the day of the accident, which killed 304 people, was a fabrication aimed at covering up her slow responses.

The Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office announced the outcome of its investigation into the Park government’s handling of the ferry disaster. Park’s absence in the critical early hours of a lackluster rescue operation generated enough controversy to be branded the “seven-hour mystery.”  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

Here is how the timeline played out:

According to the prosecution, the Sewol sent its first distress signal at 8:58 a.m. on April 16, 2014, and the Blue House’s crisis management center noticed the situation around 9:19 a.m. through a media report. The situation was shared among presidential aides at 9:24 a.m. using a text message system and the crisis management center completed its first situation report at 9:57 a.m. by contacting the Coast Guard.

That report was sent to Park’s residence around 10:12 a.m., but did not reach her. She was in her bedroom and the report was left on a table outside the room.

Around 10 a.m., Kim Jang-soo, who was head of the National Security Office, tried to telephone Park but she didn’t answer. He contacted An Bong-geun, a presidential secretary, and An drove to the residence and called to the president from outside her bedroom, the prosecution said. Park then came out from the bedroom and telephoned Kim around 10:22 a.m.

The prosecution said the first telephone briefing of Park, therefore, took place at 10:22 a.m., although the Park Blue House had earlier said the call took place at 10:15 a.m. Although Park ordered Kim to make sure there were no casualties in the accident, the most crucial hours of rescue operation had already passed, the prosecution said.

So the first report was sent to her at 10:12 AM, but was left outside her door.  The supposed Golden Time for rescue operations ended at 10:17.  Even if the first report to her was immediately received at 10:12, to paraphrase Hillary Clinton, what difference would it have made?

If a rescue was going to happen it was going to have to be by first responders from the ROK Coast Guard. The Coast Guard office in Mokpo immediately sent a vessel to the accident site after receiving emergency phone calls from passengers.  The vessel arrived at the scene before the sinking, but did not order the passengers to evacuate:

West Sea Coast Guard station ship 123 was tasked with patrolling the waters in Coastal Zone 3 near Jindo, South Jeolla Province the morning of the accident on Apr. 16. After the first 119 emergency call on the sinking from high school student Choi Deok-ha (who was later found dead), the Mokpo Coast Guard station situation room issued an order at around 8:57 to send ship 123 to the scene. At roughly 9:14, the vessel’s captain, surnamed Kim, was appointed commander for the accident scene. The boat was tasked with surveying the accident and performing a swift rescue effort according to the Coast Guard search and rescue manual.But after arriving at the scene at 9:30, Kim issued no evacuation order for the Sewol, despite ship 123 having a microphone system rigged up.

The manual’s instruction for capsizes is to “confirm the response from remaining personnel on the vessel and send a signal via loudspeaker.” Instead, the 47 minutes of “golden time” until the Sewol’s deck was fully submerged at 10:17 were wasted.The revelations about Kim‘s lack of urgency while in charge of rescue efforts at the accident scene were seen by many as especially disturbing. At the Gwangju District Court trial of Sewol crew members, Park Hyeong-ju of the Gachon University Interdisciplinary Skyscraper Disaster Prevention Center presented simulation findings showing all passengers could have been evacuated in six minutes and 17 seconds if ship 123 had given the order when Sewol captain Lee Jun-seok, 69, was rescued at 9:45.  [Hankyoreh]

This was incompetence by the ROK Coast Guard that was clearly unprepared to deal with such an accident and not something Park Geun-hye was going to be able to resolve in 5 minutes from the Blue House.  If people want to criticize her for lax government regulations that allowed the overweight ferry to operate and the poor disaster response by the Coast Guard I think that is fair.  However, to claim she could have personally did something to save those people that morning, but instead hung out in her bedroom is completely unfair in my opinion.