La Vie en Rose

Wednesday, August 05, 2009

Release of 2 American journalists

Two American journalists sentensed for 12 years of hard labor and detained in North Korea were pardoned upon the former US president Bill Clinton's visit to the country and released. They, along with Clinton, are on their ways to their beloveds now, but how to interpret this grows to be ever more controversial. How Korea's major news media perceive the news are clearly distinguishable and contradictory in terms of the future relations of the six parties in accordance with this ruling.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
August 5, 2009
Clinton and Two Freed Journalists Leave N. Korea
By CHOE SANG-HUN, MARK LANDLER and PETER BAKER
SEOUL, South Korea — Former President Bill Clinton left North Korea early Wednesday, after securing a pardon for two jailed American journalists from the reclusive North Korean president, Kim Jong-il, Reuters reported. The two journalists, Laura Ling, 32, and Euna Lee, 36, were returning to the United States with Mr. Clinton, the news agency reported, after having been held by North Korea since being detained by North Korean soldiers along the Chinese border on March 17. They were on a reporting assignment from Current TV, a San Francisco-based media company co-founded by Al Gore, the former vice president.
They were eventually convicted and sentenced to 12 years at hard labor for “committing hostilities against the Korean nation and illegal entry.” But they were held near Pyongyang rather than sent to a labor camp after the sentencing, raising hopes that North Korea might be willing to pardon them. The administration, which had initially said the charges were “baseless,” began discussing a possible “amnesty” for the women, signaling a readiness to acknowledge some degree of culpability in return for their freedom.
On Tuesday, the Ling and Lee families issued a joint statement on their Web site in which they thanked the Obama administration, President Clinton and “all the people who have supported our families through this ordeal.” They added that they were “counting the seconds to hold Laura and Euna in our arms.”
The pardon added to speculation among analysts in Seoul that North Korea, after months of raising tensions and hostile rhetoric towards Washington, may be ready to return to dialogue with Washington.
Tensions have been high since a nuclear test by the North on May 25 and the subsequent American-led effort to impose international sanctions against the North.
Administration officials sought to temper suggestions that Mr. Clinton would engage in sweeping discussions with Mr. Kim about North Korea’s nuclear program. His brief, one official said, was strictly limited to the imprisoned journalists.
Since its last short-range missile tests in early July, North Korea has refrained from taking any provocative actions, setting the stage for a possible return to dialogue. In recent weeks, it has indicated that it wanted one-on-one talks with Washington. The United States insists that such discussions are possible only within the six-nation talks involving other regional powers, a multilateral forum the North has declared “dead.”
Accompanying Mr. Clinton was John Podesta, who was his last chief of staff at the White House and is now an informal adviser to the Obama administration. Mr. Podesta, the president of the Center for American Progress, a research organization in Washington, is an influential player in Democratic policy circles. Mr. Clinton also brought longtime personal aides, including Douglas Band.
Kang Sok-ju, the first vice foreign minister and Mr. Kim’s most trusted adviser on Pyongyang’s relations with Washington, attended the meeting, and later in the evening the North’s National Defense Commission, the country’s top governing agency chaired by Mr. Kim, hosted a dinner party for Mr. Clinton, state media reported.
Mr. Clinton flew into Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, in an unmarked jet early Tuesday morning local time, Central TV, a North Korean station, reported. The White House confirmed the visit on Tuesday, but said it was a private mission.
“While this solely private mission to secure the release of two Americans is on the ground, we will have no comment,” Mr. Gibbs said in a statement. “We do not want to jeopardize the success of former President Clinton’s mission.”
It was widely assumed that Mr. Clinton would not have undertaken the mission without specific assurances that Ms. Ling and Ms. Lee would be released.
The last time an American official met with Mr. Kim was in October 2000, when Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, Mr. Clinton’s top envoy, traveled to Pyongyang. Mr. Kim reportedly suffered a stroke last August, raising uncertainty about his health and the future of his regime.
Television footage from Pyongyang showed Mr. Clinton being greeted at the airport by North Korean officials including the chief nuclear negotiator Kim Kye-gwan and Yang Hyong-sop, the vice parliamentary speaker. The footage showed him smiling and bowing as a young girl presented him with flowers. Photographs released by North Korea showed Mr. Clinton sitting next to a thin, though not sickly looking, Mr. Kim.
The Obama administration had been considering for weeks whether to send a special envoy to North Korea. The visit by Mr. Clinton, even if officially a private effort, was clearly undertaken with the blessings of the White House, and marked his first diplomatic mission abroad on behalf of the administration. Mr. Clinton’s wife, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, has been deeply involved in the journalists’ case.
Mr. Clinton is the first former American president to travel to North Korea since 1994, when Jimmy Carter went to Pyongyang — with Mr. Clinton’s half-hearted blessing — to try to strike a deal to suspend the North’s nuclear work in return for concessions from the United States. Ultimately that led to a 1994 nuclear accord, which froze North Korea’s production of plutonium until the deal fell apart in 2002.
As president, Mr. Clinton was initially ambivalent about Mr. Carter’s intervention. But Mr. Carter’s trip also proved that a former president could break a logjam, and Mr. Clinton has some cards to play with the North. In December, 2000, the last days of his presidency, he came close to traveling to the country in hopes of striking a deal to contain North Korea’s missiles. Mr. Clinton ultimately decided not to go because the deal was not pre-cooked, and his advisers feared he would be appearing desperate for an end-of-presidency deal.
Relations with the North deteriorated rapidly under the Bush administration, with the North renouncing the 1994 nuclear agreement, harvesting enough plutonium for approximately eight nuclear weapons and conducting a nuclear test. Mr. Obama never had time to get talks off the ground with the North before it conducted a second nuclear test and terminated the one significant deal it struck with the Bush administration. It is in the process of restarting its main nuclear facility at Yongbyon.
It is not clear whether the timing is propitious for Mr. Clinton to revive the broader relationship, with Mr. Kim in failing health after a stroke last summer and the North Korean leadership facing an apparent succession struggle.
In fact, the jailing of Ms. Ling and Ms. Lee came amid a period of heightened tensions following the second nuclear device in May and the subsequent launchings of several ballistic missiles.
In recent months, the White House has marshaled support at the United Nations for strict sanctions against the North Korean government, including a halt to all weapons sales and a crackdown on its financial ties.
But the administration has tried to keep its diplomatic campaign separate from this case, which American officials have portrayed as a humanitarian issue, appealing to North Korea to return the women to their families.
“Their detainment is not something that we’ve linked to other issues, and we hope the North Koreans don’t do that, either,” Mr. Gibbs, the White House press secretary, said to reporters in June.

Monday, July 06, 2009

Too Lost

Felt too lost; my vision gotten blurred that I cannot see things clearly; my judgement gotten dulled that no longer sharpened observations possible; and my sense of responsibility gotten numbed that no longer feel guilty even if seeing things falling apart right in front of my eyes. Over the weekend, suddenly my life has loosened from a usual grip of sense of duty, responsiblity, and morality that had ruled it for a long time. Guess last few weeks, I was just too busy and occupied even to realize what status I was in; but finally a sense of reality stroke me last night; I was too lost and am about to lose what really matters in life; for this I thank.

I need to stop and think; and I will.

Friday, July 03, 2009

Institute for Medicine and Human Rights

The first ever in Korea, a medical doctor paid attention on the interrelations between medicine and human rights. When we think about this, there has been an apparent and obvious close relations between two; but we just didn't have much room in our minds to share such thoughts. When talking to victims of any sorts of violations, we often realized how deep and dangerous it is to have a post-traumatic symptoms much more so than just being hurt physically. They often wouldn't be able to sleep soundly for the rest of their lives. If the ones attempting to hear the physical wounds ignore the pain inside the victims, it would only be another assault rather than healing. To cut a long story short, I was glad to learn the news below this morning!

인권의학자 1호..국내 첫 전문연구소 4일 개소"인권클리닉 추진..의대생 가르치며 희망 느껴"(서울=연합뉴스) 김태균 기자 = "의료인이 인권까지 잘 안다면 어떻게 될까요? 병원에서 벌어지는 인권 침해나 차별이 줄고 인권 피해자를 의학적으로, 사회적으로 돕는 길이 열립니다."환자의 생명뿐만 아니라 인권도 지키려는 학문이 국내에선 아직 생소한 '인권의학'이다. 이 학문을 연구하고 전파하는 기관이 국내 처음 생긴다. 4일 인권의학연구소(IMHR)의 문을 여는 이화영(50.여.연세대 외래교수) 소장. 그는 3일 연합뉴스와의 인터뷰에서 "국가공권력 등의 폭력 때문에 몸과 마음을 다친 인권 피해자를 치료하는 '인권 클리닉'을 만들겠다"고 말했다. 종양내과 전문의인 이 소장은 미국 국립암센터에서 일하다 2003년 조지메이슨대 국제분쟁연구소 석사과정을 밟으며 처음 인권의학을 접했다. 팔레스타인 지역에서의 고문 사실을 폭로하고 피해자를 치료하던 의사들을 만났던 것. 미국과 유럽에서 인권운동을 하는 의료인을 찾아다니며 공부하다 귀국한 그는 '의사가 별걸 다한다'는 소리를 들으며 군사독재 시절의 고문 피해자를 치료하는 상담 모임에 참여하고 해외 인권의학 서적과 국제 규약서를 번역했다. "의사가 왜 인권을 알아야 하느냐는 질문은 지금도 많다"고 한다. 그는 고문을 당한 피해자는 정신적 외상(트라우마)이 심각한데 치료를 받으려 병원에 가면 제2의 정신적 상처를 받는 경우가 많다는 점을 강조했다. 그들이 당시 인권을 얼마나 심각하게 침해당했는지 몰라주는 의료진 때문이라는 게 이 소장의 진단이다. 이 소장의 꿈은 종합 병원에 인권 클리닉을 만드는 것이다. 이주 노동자나 학대 노인처럼 인간의 존엄성을 부정당한 이들을 육체적, 정신적으로 치유하는 종합 서비스가 가능하다는 이유에서다. 미 미네소타대 고문피해자치유센터(CVT) 등을 참고로 했다. 4일 문을 여는 IMHR은 인권 피해자 치유법을 교육하는 일을 하게 된다. 그는 "기존 인력을 재조직하는 만큼 추가 비용이 거의 없는데 인권 사업이 경쟁력에 도움이 된다고 보는 병원이 아직은 흔치 않아 계속 설득할 생각이다"고 했다. 이 소장은 연세대와 아주대 의대 본과생들에게 인권의학을 가르친다. 국내 의대에서 인권을 공부하는 유일한 자리로, 학생들과 모여 앉아 인권운동을 하는 활동가의 얘기를 듣고 현안을 토론한다. 그가 준 변화도 적지 않다. 방학 때 병원과 의학 연구소로만 인턴을 가던 의대생들이 그의 수업을 듣고 나서는 국가인권위원회와 국제 의료 NGO(비정부기구)로 발길을 돌린다는 것. 이 소장은 "내과와 정신과를 전공해 난민과 인권 피해자를 치료하고 싶다는 학생을 보면 교육이 희망이란 생각이 든다"고 했다. IMHR은 아직 규모가 작아 정치학과 법학을 전공한 상주 연구원 2명을 막 뽑았을 뿐이고, 사무 실무는 자원봉사자들에게 맡겨야 할 형편이다. 국내 첫 인권의학자로서 부담감을 느끼는지 묻자 그는 "의사로서 인권의학을 다룬 건 처음이겠지만 심리학 등 다른 분야에선 훨씬 예전부터 이런 개념을 얘기한 분이 많다"고 겸손해했다. 이 소장은 "IMHR이 인권의학을 실천하는 학자들과 시민단체 활동가들이 경험을 공유하는 자리가 됐으면 좋겠다"고 말했다. tae@yna.co.kr(끝)

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

6.25 (The Outbreak of the Korean War)

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

BBC Documentary Film on US War Crimes during the Korean War

Documentary "Kill 'Em All" by BBC concerning the American War Crimes during the Korea War. In September 1999 an investigative team from the Associated Press broke a story that shocked America. Fifty years before, they claimed, refugees caught up in the Korean War were shot and strafed by US forces.

Parts 1-5:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQaCB-KmhGA&feature=channel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9hAQG0h_4I&feature=channel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rJcTklWhqI&feature=channel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9l4N8mLkUQ&feature=channel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFxqLaMic7M&feature=channel

Thursday, June 04, 2009

Benazir Bhutto Interview

A wonderful interview clip with Benazir Bhutto by CBC, a Canadian TV station. She is gone now, but it is worth of sharing it with my blog readers.

Benazir Bhutto Interview
August 7, 2007 (Runs 18:40)
Carol Off spoke with Benazir Bhutto about her plan to return to Pakistan and politics, and whether or not Pervez Musharraf could be counted on as an ally
play video

Message on the Twentieth Anniversary of Tiananmen Square

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton issued a strong statement denouncing the Chinese government that has wrongfully detained, abducted, deported, and killed civilians in the course of the 6.4 Incident at the Tiananmen Square in 1989. We wish she would do the same for tragic incidents taken place here in Korea decades ago.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hillary Rodham Clinton
Secretary of State
Washington, DC
June 3, 2009

On this the 20th anniversary of the violent suppression of demonstrations in Tiananmen Square by Chinese authorities, we should remember the tragic loss of hundreds of innocent lives and reflect upon the meaning of the events that preceded that day.

Hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets for weeks, in Beijing and around the country, first to honor the late reformist leader Hu Yaobang and then to demand basic rights denied to them.

A China that has made enormous progress economically, and that is emerging to take its rightful place in global leadership, should examine openly the darker events of its past and provide a public accounting of those killed, detained or missing, both to learn and to heal.

This anniversary provides an opportunity for Chinese authorities to release from prison all those still serving sentences in connection with the events surrounding June 4, 1989. We urge China to cease the harassment of participants in the demonstrations and begin dialogue with the family members of victims, including the Tiananmen Mothers. China can honor the memory of that day by moving to give the rule of law, protection of internationally-recognized human rights, and democratic development the same priority as it has given to economic reform.

Wednesday, June 03, 2009

서울대 교수들 시국선언문

이명박 대통령과 현 정부는 국민적 화합을 위해 민주주의의 큰 틀을 지켜나가야 한다

우리 국민은 누구나 전직 대통령의 비극적인 죽음 앞에서 큰 아픔을 겪고 있다. 그러나 전국 각지에 길게 늘어선 조문 행렬은 단지 애도와 추모의 물결만은 아니었다. 국민 한 사람 한 사람이 착잡하기 이를 길 없는 심경으로 나라의 앞날을 가슴속 깊이 걱정하는 모습이었다.

서로 다른 정치적 입장을 넘어서서 각계각층의 온 국민이 하나 되어 전직 대통령의 국민장을 치러낸 것을 계기로 우리 모두는 새로운 길을 열고 있으며 또 열어야만 한다.

지난 수십 년간 온갖 희생을 치러가며 이루어낸 민주주의가 어려움에 빠진 현 시국에 대해 우리들은 깊이 염려하고 있다. 작년 ‘촛불집회’에 참여한 일반 시민들에게까지 소환장이 남발되었고 온라인상의 활발한 의견교환과 여론수렴이 가로막혔으며, 이미 개정이 예고된 집회 관련 법안들의 독소조항도 시민사회의 강한 비판에 부딪히고 있다.

현 정부가 출범한 이후 언론의 자유와 독립성 또한 훼손되었다. 주요 방송사가 바람직하지 못한 갈등을 겪는가 하면, 국회에서 폭력사태까지 초래한 미디어 관련 법안들은 원만한 민주적 논의절차를 거쳤다고 말하기 어렵다. 여야의 동의로 지난 3월 미디어발전 국민위원회가 국민적 합의 도출을 위해 출범했지만, 여당 측 위원들이 회의 공개나 국민여론 수렴을 반대함으로써 위원회는 표류하고 있다. 국민 다수가 언론법 처리 강행 방침을 부정적으로 인식하는 최근의 여론조사 결과를 굳이 상기하지 않더라도, 이런 흐름은 민주주의의 기반인 언론의 자유를 허물어뜨리는 일이라 아니할 수 없다.

그 뿐 아니다. 현직 대법관의 ‘촛불집회’ 재판 개입 사건에서 보듯이, 현 정권은 사법부의 권위와 독립성에 대한 국민적 신뢰에 상처를 입혔으며, 그에 따라 재판의 독립을 수호하려는 전국 법관들의 반발을 불러일으키고 있다. 국민여론에 따라 일단 포기했던 ‘한반도 대운하’는 ‘4대강 살리기’로 탈바꿈하여 되살아나고 있으며, 지난 십여 년 동안 대북정책이 거둔 성과도 큰 위험에 처했다. 특수고용직 노동자가 목숨을 끊고 비정규직 노동자가 기본권 보장을 요구할 때 집회의 강제 해산과 노동자 대량연행과 구속으로 맞서는 일 또한 구시대적 대처임이 분명하다. 　

문제는 정치노선의 차이나 이념의 대립이 아니라 기본적인 인권 존중과 민주적 원칙의 실천이다. 모든 국민의 삶을 넉넉히 포용하는 열린 정치를 구현하는 정부의 노력이 참으로 절실한 시점이다.

그러나 안타깝게도 전직 대통령 관련 검찰 수사 과정 또한 이전 정권에 대한 정치보복의 의혹을 불러일으키기에 충분한 것이었다. 검찰은 국가원수를 지낸 이를 소환조사까지 했음에도 불구하고 이후 3주가 지나도록 사건 처리 방침을 명확히 밝히지 못하고 추가 비리 의혹을 언론에 흘림으로써 전직 대통령과 가족에게 견디기 힘든 인격적 모독을 집요하게 가했다. 이는 엄정한 공직자 비리 수사라고 하기 곤란하며 상식에서 벗어난 것이었다.

되돌아보면 지난 1월 용산 철거민 농성에 대한 무모한 진압으로 빚어진 참사는 올해 벌어질 갖가지 퇴행적 사건을 예고했다. 용산 참사의 희생자들은 아직 장례도 치르지 못하고 있으며, 검찰이 수사기록 중 핵심적인 대목의 공개를 거부함으로써 재판도 정상적으로 진행되지 못하고 있다. 지난 5월 22일 서울 서부지법 민사12부가 ‘도시 및 주거환경 정비법’이 “세입자의 재산권, 주거권, 인간다운 생활을 할 권리를 침해한다”며 위헌법률심판을 제청한 사실에 주목하면서 현 정부의 근본적인 자기 성찰을 기대한다.

이명박 대통령과 현 정부가 전직 대통령에 대한 범국민적 애도 속에 주어진 국민적 화해의 소중한 기회를 잘 살리고 국민의 뜻에 부응하기를 우리는 간절히 희망하며, 다음의 구체적 요구사항을 제시한다.

1. 이명박 대통령은 국정의 최고 책임자다. 이 대통령이 스스로 나서서 국민 각계각층과 소통하고 연대하는 정치를 선언해야 한다. 더불어 현 정부와 집권 여당은 다른 정당과 시민사회단체를 진심으로 국정의 동반자로서 받아들여야 한다.

1. 현 정부는 민주사회의 기본권인 ‘표현의 자유’, ‘집회와 결사의 자유’, ‘언론의 자유’를 보장해야 한다.

1. 현 정부는 전직 대통령 관련 검찰 수사의 문제점을 인정하고 사죄해야 하며, 정적이나 사회적 약자에게만 엄격한 검찰 수사에 대한 근본적 반성과 개선이 이루어져야 한다.

1. 현 정부는 용산 참사의 피해자에 대해 국민적 화합에 걸맞은 해결책을 제시하고, 경제 위기 하에서 더 큰 어려움에 처한 비정규직 노동자 등 소외계층의 요구에 귀를 기울이고 그들의 기본권을 보장해야 한다.

이명박 대통령과 현 집권층이 우리 국민 모두의 가슴에서 타오르고 있는 민주적 요구에 대해 진지하고 성의있게 대응함으로써 지금의 어려운 상황을 국민적 화합과 연대를 바탕으로 한 민주주의의 큰 길로 나아가는 전환점으로 삼을 것을 간곡히 바란다.

　2009. 6. 3.

　민주주의의 후퇴를 우려하는 서울대학교 교수 일동

　서명자 명단 (2009년 6월 3일)

　가나다 순 정리 (동명이인은 마지막에 나열하고 단과대 표시)

　강우성 강진호 계승혁 고철환 구명철 구인회 권태억 김길중 김도균 김빛내리 김상종 김세균 김영민 김용익 김월회 김유용 김인걸 김장주 김재범 김종욱 김종일 김진수 김춘수 김현균 김혜란 김효명 남동신 류재명 모경환 문중양 민은경 박경숙 박동열 박명규 박배균 박태균 박현섭 박흥식 박희병 방민호 배은경 배철현 백도명 변현태 봉준수 성노현 손영주 송석윤 신광현 신종호 심봉섭 안광석 안삼환 양동휴 양현아 오명석 오석배 오순희 오용록 우희종 유용태 윤순진 윤여창 윤여탁 윤제용 이강재 이건수 이경우 이병민 이성중 이성헌 이애주 이인호 이일하 이창숙 이철범 이현숙 이형목 임호준 임홍배 장덕진 장승일 전종익 전태원 정근식 정용욱 정원규 정향진 조국 조영남 조현설 조형택 조흥식 최갑수 최권행 최무영 최영찬 최윤영 한상진 한숭희 한영혜 한인섭 한정숙 허원기 홍기선 홍성욱 홍승권 홍재성 홍진호 황상익

　김명환(인문대) 김민수(미대) 김정욱(환경대학원) 김현진(인문대) 이건우(인문대) 이근(국제대학원) 이동수(환경대학원) 이상훈(사회대) 이용환(농생대) 이준호(자연대) 장진성(인문대) 전경수(사회대) 최병선(사회대) 최진영(사회대)

　--------------------------------------------------------

　이상 124명

Amnesty International Sees S. Korea’s Human Rights Backpedaling

Riot police used excessive force when dispersing largely peaceful protesters demonstrating against US beef imports. Large numbers of irregular migrants were deported amid reports of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment during arrest. There was heightened concern about freedoms of expression, assembly and association of protesters, unionists and journalists. No executions took place but 58 people remained on death row. The Special Bill to Abolish the Death Penalty lapsed in March.

Excessive use of force
Candlelight protests against the resumption of US beef imports attracted tens of thousands of people and took place almost daily from May to early July. During the largely peaceful protests some police beat protesters with shields and batons, fired water cannons at close range and denied medical care to protesters in detention. Protesters suffered injuries such as broken bones, concussion, temporary blindness and punctured eardrums.

"Police imprisoned at least 408 conscientious objectors, mostly Jehovah’s Witnesses..."

Migrants’ rights
In September, the government announced its intention to deport approximately half of irregular migrant workers, an estimated 220,000 people, by 2012. There was a growing number of cases of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of migrant workers during arrests in the ongoing crackdown.

In November, about 280 immigration officials and police raided factories and dormitories in Maseok, Gyeonggi province, where at least 110 regular and irregular migrant workers were indiscriminately apprehended en masse. One female migrant worker was not permitted to go to the toilet, but was instead forced to urinate in public. One male migrant worker broke his leg when he tried to escape, after which he was handcuffed and made to wait five hours before being allowed to go to hospital.
In May, the government deported Torna Limbu, a Nepalese national, and Abdus Sabur, a Bangladeshi national, president and vice-president respectively of the Seoul-Gyeonggi-Incheon Migrants’ Trade Union (MTU), despite a call from the National Human Rights Commission for a stay of deportation until it could investigate allegations of beatings by immigration officials during their arrests. There were concerns that the two men were targeted specifically because of their union activities.
Freedom of expression, assembly and association
Labour movement
According to the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, irregular employment protests occurred at more than 30 different factories. Security forces used excessive force against striking irregular workers, who were protesting because they received less pay than regular workers for equal work. They also faced losing their jobs after two years so that their employers could avoid regularizing their status in line with the 2007 Contract Based Employment Law.

Media independence
The chief executives and presidents of the Korean Broadcasting System (KBS), Korean Broadcasting Advertising Corporation, Arirang TV, Sky Life and Yonhap Television Network (YTN) were replaced by supporters of the government.

Protests against the appointment of the new YTN president Ku Bon-hong, a former aide to President Lee Myung-bak, resulted in Ku Bon-hong suing 12 trade union journalists and firing six journalists for “interfering with business”.
Conscientious objectors
Police imprisoned at least 408 conscientious objectors, mostly Jehovah’s Witnesses, for refusing compulsory military service. This significant drop in numbers compared to the 733 imprisoned in 2007 was largely because cases were not heard ahead of plans to introduce an alternative to military service in 2009. However, in December the Ministry of Defence put the plans on hold due to lack of public support.

Lee Gil-joon, a conscripted riot police officer was sentenced to one and a half years in prison for failure to return to duty and disobeying orders because he opposed using violence to disperse demonstrators during the candlelight protests.
Arbitrary arrests and detentions – National Security Law

2008 celebration event on the World Day Against DP,10 Oct.© Amnesty International2008 marked 60 years since the National Security Law (NSL) was introduced. As of December, there were at least nine detained individuals charged under the vague provisions of the NSL.

On 26 August, police arrested seven activists from the Socialist Workers League of Korea, including a university professor, Oh Se-chul, for violating article three (forming anti-state groups) and article seven (praising or sympathizing with anti-state groups) of the NSL. Seoul Central District Court rejected the arrest warrants submitted by the prosecutor’s office on grounds of insufficient evidence. On 14 October, police re-submitted the arrest warrant for Professor Oh, but it was again rejected by the court due to lack of evidence.
Refugees and asylum-seekers
A total of 364 applications for refugee status were submitted in 2008. Thirty-six people were granted refugee status and 22 were given humanitarian protection. Seventy-nine applications were rejected. Serious concerns were raised about the lack of resources in immigration offices as the backlog of asylum claims reached over 1,200 cases.

Violence against women and girls
In January, President-elect Lee Myung-bak said he would not call on Japan to apologize for its wartime atrocities.

In October, the South Korean parliament passed a resolution calling for justice for the survivors of Japan’s military sexual slavery system during World War II.

Death penalty
South Korea’s unofficial moratorium on executions continued. Fifty-eight prisoners were on death row at the end of the year. The Special Bill to Abolish the Death Penalty lapsed in March. Two new bills on the abolition of the death penalty were introduced in the National Assembly.

See more for the AI Reports on the policing the candlelight protests by the Korean government. http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/ASA25/008/2008/en

Amnesty Sees S. Korea’s Human Rights Backpedaling

By Park Si-soo
Staff Reporter

South Korea has been backpedaling on human rights regarding expression of opinion, assembly and association under the Lee Myung-bak administration, Amnesty International said Tuesday.

The world's largest human rights watchdog urged the government to remove all measures restricting such rights to maintain Seoul's leadership in human rights protection in the Asia-Pacific region.

``Some policies and measures restricting human rights have commonly been found in prior administrations. However, our concern over, in particular, the right of expression, assembly and association under the current government is higher than ever before,'' said Go Eun-tae, chairman of Amnesty International's Seoul bureau, at a press conference. ``We reached this conclusion after reviewing our past human rights reports.''

It expressed grave concern over the increasing use of force by police in cracking down on demonstrators.

``In recent rallies, police recklessly assaulted and detained non-violent demonstrators and even innocent civilians. Some were injured. But police have not taken any responsibility for that,'' said Kim Hee-jin, director of the human rights group. ``It seems that police have lost their sense of responsibility.''

Kim denounced the police's recent decision to prohibit civic groups with records of hosting unauthorized rallies from taking any collective action. ``It's an arbitrary decision and apparently infringes upon people's freedom of expression, protected under the Constitution,'' Kim said.

She said South Korea's freedom of the press was also in jeopardy as the government has tried to muzzle media outlets critical of the administration by replacing their chief executives with supporters of President Lee.

Earlier this year, chief executives and presidents of the Korea Broadcasting System (KBS), Arirang TV, and Yonhap Television Network (YTN) were replaced by President Lee's supporters.

In replacing YTN's top job, 12 trade union journalists and six YTN journalists were sued or fired for their protests against the appointment of Ku Bon-hong as YTN president.

It added that freedom of expression in cyberspace was also under attack.

``The arrest of blogger Minerva proves it,'' Kim said. ``Even though he was acquitted at trial, we are concerning about similar cases in the future.''

Internet blogger Park Dae-sung, better known as Minerva, was indicted on charges of causing financial loss to the government by spreading unconfirmed information online.

pss@koreatimes.co.kr

Professors Demand No Rollback on Democracy
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2009/06/117_46122.html
By Bae Ji-sook
Staff Reporter

For the first time in more than five years, professors are moving to issue a statement to press for furthering democracy.

About 100 professors of Seoul National University will issue a joint statement today to denounce the Lee Myung-bak administration for what they call backtracking on democratic rights.

They will urge the Lee administration to change the framework of its policies as ``democracy has reached a point where it cannot become worse.'' They condemned the administration's ``excessive suppression of the media and the oppression of public voices.''

It is the first such announcement in five years since they publicly opposed a lawmakers move to impeach former President Roh Moo-hyun in 2004.

It was quite common during the authoritarian Park Chung-hee and Chun Doo-hwan administrations in the 1970s and early 1980s for professors, opinion leaders and religious leaders to press for democracy.

The announcement will mainly be a request to the government to ``respect full democracy,'' including permission for public political gatherings and guaranteeing the ``independence of the press from political or chaebol'' influence.

Prof. Lee Joon-ho noted that the Lee administration has been indifferent about pressing the issues necessary for national harmony.

``During the past liberal administrations of Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun, we enjoyed freedom of expression. But we don't anymore,'' he said. ``Of course it is a bit of a scary situation. The prosecution has even hauled away critical TV program directors. Now we can no longer tolerate the arbitrary questioning,'' Lee said.

Lee says that the present administration needs to make changes to its policies that may run counter to a fuller democracy.

Police blocked Seoul Plaza to prevent illegal gatherings and have torn down memorial alter to the late former President Roh installed in central Seoul, a move which drew immense public criticism.

The professor said there are more professors critical of the administration's policy on democracy and human rights. ``Even some conservative people told me that it is the time to make some changes,'' he said.

Professors at other universities are likely to issue the same statement to press the government not to backpedal on the country's hard fought-for democracy.

bjs@koreatimes.co.kr

The power of presidential restraint

It is kind of hard to comprehend what he exactly wanted to point out here; was it that Truman made a good decision not to use nukes to end the Korean War and instead made it "a forgotten war" and set a nuke-restraint international convention; or it wasn't a good decision not to use it, since it didn't quite contribute the "US War Economy"?

By James Carroll | June 1, 2009

KOREA saved us - but you wouldn't think so today. Pyongyang's second nuclear test, followed by multiple rocket launches, and its repudiation of a decades-old armistice with South Korea are generating international consternation. The Obama administration's important nuclear reduction initiatives may be undercut, together with its hopes for blunting Iran's nuclear ambition. China, Taiwan, and Japan all face unexpected pressures. South Korea's "sunshine policy" of seeking accommodations with North Korea is all but dead - along with its main architect, former president Roh Moo Hyun, who committed suicide last week.

In America, the Korean War is sometimes referred to as "the forgotten war," but these events show that the most forgotten thing of all is that the war never ended. That a civil war on a peninsula in Northeast Asia so ensnared the United States - with more than 30,000 GI's stuck in its amber to this day - is now commonly taken as a Cold War mistake. The mirror-image mistake a decade later was US intervention in a second civil war on an Asian peninsula - Vietnam.

The critique of Korea is familiar. Only months before North Korean forces crossed the 38th parallel into South Korea in June 1950, Secretary of State Dean Acheson had declared Korea to be outside "the defense perimeter" of US national security, yet he led the charge to join the conflict. Pentagon leaders warned against "a land war in Asia," but President Truman followed Acheson. The United States, under cover of the United Nations, went to war, scuttling once and for all the post-World War II movement to demilitarize America. Instead, the US defense budget jumped from $13 billion in 1951 to $50 billion in 1953; the US nuclear arsenal grew from 300 bombs in 1950 to 1,300 bombs in 1953. Welcoming the "permanent war economy," Acheson said, "Korea saved us." Cold War critics have decried this turn in history ever since.

But there is another, less noted - more authentic - way that Korea saved us. At first, General Douglas MacArthur led a brilliant offensive against the North Koreans, driving them back across the parallel and ever closer to the Yalu River, the Chinese border. Then China stunned MacArthur, in November 1950, by sending hundreds of thousands of its soldiers across the river - a "Chicom" rout of Yanks.

MacArthur retreated down much of the peninsula, warning Washington of a coming American Dunkirk, a desperate evacuation of troops by sea. MacArthur demanded that Truman authorize use of atomic weapons in battle. The Air Force chief of staff, General Hoyt Vandenberg, proposed a preemptive nuclear attack against the Soviet Union. Truman later wrote, "I could not bring myself to order the slaughter of 25,000,000 non-combatants . . . I just could not make the order for a Third World War." Truman said no to MacArthur, the beginning of the famous dispute that would lead to the general's dismissal the following April.

American troops valiantly hung on, finally clawing their way back up to the 38th parallel. Truman chose to abandon victory rather than order total war. The resulting stalemate defines the problem between North and South Korea to this day. But in the forgotten war, Truman's refusal to order the use of atomic weapons is, except to a handful of historians, the forgotten decision. Its impact has been as permanent as it has been underappreciated, for the effect of Truman's rejection of the atomic bomb at that moment of extremity - America facing the worst defeat in its history - was to establish a taboo against nuclear use that has lasted all these years. That the president who ordered the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, when it was militarily dubious to do so, was the one to reject the atomic bombing of enemy forces in Korea, when it seemed militarily essential to do so, made the point. Because Washington did not use atomic weapons when, with relatively little danger to itself, it could have, other nuclear powers joined in regarding the use of these weapons as beyond the pale. If Truman had chosen otherwise, whether "successfully" or not, there can be little doubt that nuclear weapons would have been used again, and probably again, until . . .

This unsung story of presidential restraint has profound relevance for the present crisis.

James Carroll's column appears regularly in the Globe.

Monday, June 01, 2009

Circle of Life

Hear my stories over the last weekend.

Saturday started with attending the wedding of one of my friends. Fooled by his luring persuasion, I truly expected to encounter unresistable bunch of hunks at the wedding. Puhhhzzz,, I've seen better. At the wedding, I called a friend who also was supposed to show but not; to everyone's surprise, she said her mom is critically ill with leukemia and she is with her at an emergency room. So, soon after the wedding, I went to see her at her apartment. She seemed calm and in control; so I relieved.

Then, on Sunday morning, I got a call from THE friend saying her mom passed away; I felt blown up by a storm; but amazingly her voice was still so serene, so I also calmed down. Passing on my condolesence, I said how sorry I am as well as how sudden it was to face her mom's death; she certainly didn't expect a day before when I talked to her in front of her apartment.

Learning the saddened news, I thought it's better to share it with other friends, just to split some burden on my friend. Then, one of our mutual friend called. He said he unlikely attends her mom's funeral since his wife is in labor.

Within a span of 48 hours, I realized once again; the circle of life. People breed, die, and are born again. We are born capable of finding joys in the saddest events and passing on our genes to survive; we've been doing it for tens of thousands of years; why shouldn't we do now?

I, once again, give my great condolecense to my friend's loss.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From the day we arrive on the planet
And blinking, step into the sun
There's more to see than can ever be seen
More to do than can ever be done
There's far too much to take in here
More to find than can ever be found
But the sun rolling high
Through the sapphire sky
Keeps great and small on the endless round

It's the Circle of Life
And it moves us all
Through despair and hope
Through faith and love
Till we find our place
On the path unwinding
In the Circle
The Circle of Life

It's the Circle of Life
And it moves us all
Through despair and hope
Through faith and love
Till we find our place
On the path unwinding
In the Circle
The Circle of Life

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Paying Tribute to Korea's Democracy

Joined the endless queue of people awaited for paying tribute to now the deceased former president of South Korea, Roh Moo-hyun. After standing on the pedestrian road approximately three hours, finally the temporarily set altar appeared through the crowd. Strange mixture of emotions whipped around the people; overwhelming grief was interrupted by an occasional complaints towards surrounding riot police forces, and so did the tension rise. Strange enough, there were also a drop of festive mood; street musicians playing instruments of which sound deeply surmerged into saddened hearts of thousands of the crowd, tired from the hours of standing in a hot Indian summer night, fighting mosquitoes. Volunteers were busy cleaning up the area, maintaining an order, and delivering a cup of cold water, Kimbap and chrysanthemuns to the crowd. As the darkness came, people gradually lit up candles. The scene was peaceful and even beautiful to observe. Still though, on the way home, complaints politically charged and directly aiming at the crowd pierced through the air. Tension existed so did chances to communicate.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

May 26, 2009
South Korea’s President Faces Dual Crises
By CHOE SANG-HUN
SEOUL, South Korea — President Lee Myung-bak of South Korea faced double crises on Monday as a North Korean nuclear test caught his government off-guard and he struggled to soothe political rancor over the suicide of his predecessor, Roh Moo-hyun.

In one of the biggest outpourings of national grief in years, the central and provincial governments and religious and civic groups opened 300 mourning centers across the country on Monday. Long lines of Cabinet ministers and ordinary citizens streamed into the centers to pay respects to Mr. Roh. About 180,000 mourners have journeyed to Mr. Roh’s rural home village of Bongha on the south coast alone.

The country’s major Web sites have posted a black-and-white photo of Mr. Roh and created special sections to permit hundreds of thousands of citizens to post their condolences.

The former president jumped off a cliff on Saturday as prosecutors investigated allegations that he and his family took $6.4 million from a businessman.

Many South Koreans said they believe that Mr. Roh, whether guilty or not, was driven to end his life because of relentless pressure from a politically motivated investigation orchestrated by the government of President Lee.

“He is the victim of the vicious circle of an incumbent president strengthening his political hand by relentlessly shaming and trampling on his predecessor in our country,” Yang Chun-shik, a 35-year-old office worker, said Monday, reflecting a common view shared by mourners interviewed Sunday and Monday.

Mr. Lee must decide whether to accept the Roh family’s wish to hold his funeral on Friday in central Seoul. That would certainly draw a huge crowd and could turn into an anti-government protest similar to demonstrations that crippled Mr. Lee’s government for weeks last summer.

In a sign of simmering tension, Mr. Roh’s supporters continued to turn away ruling-party lawmakers who travelled to Bongha to pay tribute.

As he struggled over how to prevent Mr. Roh’s funeral from developing into another crisis, Mr. Lee also faced the news Monday that North Korea had conducted its second nuclear test.

Earlier Monday, North Korean leader Kim Jong-il had expressed “profound condolences” to Mr. Roh’s widow, Kwon Yang-sook, but gave the Seoul government no hint of the nuclear test.

Mr. Roh, who sought reconciliation with North Korea while in office from 2003 to 2008, traveled to Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, in 2007 for a landmark summit with Mr. Kim. But inter-Korean ties chilled dramatically after Mr. Lee took office in February 2008, promising a tougher policy on the North.

Monday, May 25, 2009

Recriminations and Regrets Follow Suicide of South Korean President Roh

May 25, 2009
By MARTIN FACKLER
SEOUL, South Korea — As South Koreans laid white chrysanthemums at makeshift memorials for their former president, Roh Moo-hyun, many said Sunday that the once-popular champion of clean government had been driven to suicide by more than humiliating bribery allegations.

They directed much of their ire at the prosecutors and conservative media who relentlessly pursued the accusations of corruption against Mr. Roh and his family. Many accused the current president, Lee Myung-bak, of orchestrating the investigation, a move that could become a political liability for him.

Others expressed deeper misgivings that Mr. Roh was a victim of the legacies of South Korea’s authoritarian past — most notably the near ritual of incumbent presidents presiding over investigations of their predecessors.

“It has become a bad political habit for presidents in South Korea to try to gain support by punishing the former president,” said Kang Won-taek, a politics professor at Seoul’s Soongsil University. “What happened to Roh Moo-hyun shows that it is time to break this habit.”

The tendency to define a presidency by the failings of the one that came before took root as the country struggled to redefine itself in the early 1990s as a young democracy after years of dictatorships. Many Koreans were exhilarated as the first democratically elected governments punished the men who had resisted democracy for so long.

The sight of former President Chun Doo-hwan — a military ruler blamed for a crackdown of pre-democracy protesters that ended in 200 deaths — being paraded in a prison jumpsuit proved cathartic for the nation.

But political experts, and even many average Koreans, say that their nation’s struggle to shed its authoritarian past was never finished, and that investigation of Mr. Roh highlighted at least two other legacies: a powerful presidency and a justice system with few checks and balances, especially on its prosecutors.

At least so far, the subject of Mr. Roh’s culpability has been put aside, overwhelmed by the shock and sadness over his dramatic death on Saturday, when he threw himself off a cliff. In the weeks before that, he acknowledged that a businessman who supported him had given more than $6 million to his wife and son and his brother’s son-in-law while he was in office, but he denied that they were bribes. He said he did not know about the transactions until he left office.

The money for his wife had been used to pay for his son’s tuition at Stanford University, among other things, according to a top aide. In a country where education is key to social status, Mr. Roh, a self-educated lawyer, never won full respect from many people, despite having become a lawyer and the leader of a powerful economy.

Much of the outpouring of public anger since Mr. Roh’s death has focused on the murky ties between the Blue House, as the president’s office is called, and the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office, which led the investigation into Mr. Roh and other former presidents. These suspicions are also a hangover from the pre-democracy days, when prosecutors were seen as military henchmen, using the legal system to attack their political opponents.

“The prosecutors have become the most omnipotent force in Korean society today,” said Moon Chung-in, a political scientist at Yonsei University in Seoul and former adviser to Mr. Roh. “Their strength is a legacy of dictatorship that still affects us.”

Mr. Moon said that Mr. Roh actually ended up strengthening the power of prosecutors by weakening one check on their power: the National Intelligence Service, the South Korean spy service used by military rulers against South Korea’s citizens. Mr. Roh appointed a former human rights lawyer as its director and curtailed many of its internal surveillance activities.

Mr. Roh also tried to rein in the prosecutors, but with less success. Though he weakened links between prosecutors and the Blue House, he failed to pass some of their powers to the police or create grand juries to oversee investigations.

In 2003, his first year in office, Mr. Roh also held a widely watched public debate with 10 prosecutors in which he called the prosecutors office a “powerful organization” that the Justice Ministry had “failed to rein in.”

Mr. Roh also came to office with promises to break the cycle of corruption that has plagued South Korean presidents, and made them vulnerable to investigation. He also vowed to curtail the powers of South Korea’s presidency and sever its links with the country’s “chaebol,” or big-business conglomerates.

Mr. Roh’s death unleashed a renewed wave of sympathy for a former president who had alienated many supporters by signing a free-trade agreement with the United States and seeming to bungle economic policy.

Many of the thousands who turned out at makeshift altars in front of an ancient palace in central Seoul seemed to feel that Mr. Roh had paid too high a price for a relatively petty infraction.

Many noted that Mr. Chun and his successor as president, Roh Tae-woo, were found guilty of accepting hundreds of millions of dollars of bribes while in office. Sons of the first two civilian presidents of the era, Kim Young-san and Kim Dae-jung, were also imprisoned for pocketing millions of dollars from large companies.

The mourners lashed out at the prosecutors and the conservative media who had relentlessly pursued accusations of corruption for the past year, after Mr. Roh had left office. Most also accused the sitting president, Mr. Lee, of guiding or at least encouraging the investigations. In Mr. Roh’s native village, Bongha, his supporters trampled a funeral wreath sent by the president.

“President Roh was not just another corrupt president. He was different,” said Lee Dong-joon, 31, an insurance planner. “But Lee Myung-bak is acting the same as the dictators. Our democracy has been set back 30 years.”

The former president, who had prided himself on being above South Korea’s corruption, could no longer eat or focus on his favorite pastime of late-night reading, said aides. In his suicide note, Mr. Roh apologized for disappointing supporters.

Political scientists said the suicide could cause a backlash against President Lee or even the prosecutors. Mr. Moon, the former Roh adviser, said the National Assembly might formally investigate the prosecutors, and the apparent press leaks of questionable allegations, which increased the pressure on Mr. Roh.

“Let’s see if this breaks the cycle of political vendettas” against former presidents, Mr. Moon said. “But we won’t know for sure if the vendettas are over until 2012, when Lee Myung-bak steps down.” Some supporters who gathered in Seoul said they thought the opposite would happen: that Mr. Roh’s suicide almost guaranteed that the current president would also face similar attacks once he leaves office.

South Korea on Edge After Ex-President's Suicide

Woken up in a Saturday morning by a shocking news of a former leader's death, people in this country still find difficult to realize he is truly gone. We are still in awe and speechless for the great loss we have. The whole country is turned into an enormous mourning place, where no one is able to find words to describe the deepest sorrow of loosing a leader who they elected with their own hands and also now about to bury. State of awe continues, Korea is submerged with the silence.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

May 25, 2009

By CHOE SANG-HUN
SEOUL — Thousands of South Koreans — some holding the hands of children, some shouting anti-government slogans, all carrying white chrysanthemums — flocked to central Seoul on Sunday to bid farewell to former President Roh Moo-hyun, who committed suicide Saturday.

In a country where even the most prominent political leaders have faced corruption charges in recent decades, Mr. Roh, 62, was the first to end his own life while under investigation. For both his supporters and detractors, his suicide served as a painful reminder of how difficult it remained to break the chain of graft in South Korean society.

“We are sorry we failed to protect you,” read many of the numerous yellow ribbons near the ancient Deoksu Palace in Seoul, hung by people who believed Mr. Roh was the victim of political vendetta from his successor, President Lee Myung-bak. “We will remember you forever. History will know that you were the cleanest president we ever had,” others said.

Before dawn Saturday, Mr. Roh switched on his computer and typed a suicide note — his last comment on a corruption scandal that threatened to undo his proudest legacy: his record as an upstanding political leader.

“Don’t be too sad,” Mr. Roh said in the note, meant for his wife and two children. “Life and death are all parts of nature. Don’t be sorry. Don’t blame anyone. Accept it as fate.”

An hour and a half later, as the sun rose through a cloudy sky, Mr. Roh climbed a hill overlooking his native village of Bongha, on the south coast, and jumped off a cliff.

On Sunday, South Koreans across the country lined up — for hours under drizzling rain in some places — to pay respect at temporary mourning altars set up in the retirement village of Bongha.

Central Seoul was thick with police officers in full riot gear, a sign that Mr. Roh, even after death, remained a volatile figure.

On Sunday, the government and Mr. Roh’s family agreed to hold a state “people’s funeral” Friday.

But tension also simmered as Mr. Roh’s suicide threatened to deepen a political divide. His supporters trampled on a funeral wreath donated by his successor, President Lee Myung-bak, and turned away his deputy, Prime Minister Han Seung-soo, who came to pay tribute at Bongha.

Past midnight Sunday, young people holding candles still stood in lines hundreds of meters long and snaking around the Deoksu Palace. People signed a petition calling on Parliament to impeach Mr. Lee for “murder.” Police buses surrounding the mourning site were plastered with paper messages denouncing Mr. Lee and prosecutors.

In his last months, Mr. Roh, who was president from 2003 to 2008, had seen his personal achievements clouded by accusations of corruption and many of his political accomplishments undone.

The corruption charges faced by Mr. Roh’s family were minor compared with those that had discredited some of his predecessors, who had collected massive sums from the nation’s top conglomerates. But prosecutors, long accused of taking orders from whomever is in power, aggressively went after Mr. Roh, leaking details of their investigation to the media. Mr. Roh killed himself a day before his wife, Kwon Yang-sook, was expected to be summoned for questioning for a second time.

“He was driven to kill himself for taking some money from a long-time supporter, while those who robbed big businesses of truckloads of cash are still alive without shame,” said Choi Chul-kyu, a 48-year-old mourner holding a candle, referring to former conservative political leaders convicted of bribery. “How am I going to explain this to my children? How am I going to explain the fact that every president in this country has wanted to squash his predecessor?”

But those who were close to Mr. Roh said the charges were especially painful because he had made his name as a “clean” politician, refusing to follow in the path of his predecessors; every former South Korean president since the 1980s has faced corruption accusations or gone to prison on such charges after his term was over.

In recent weeks, Mr. Roh acknowledged that a little-known businessman who supported him had given more than $6 million to his wife and son and his brother’s son-in-law while he was in office, but he denied the payments were bribes. He said that he did not know about the transactions until he left office and that the money for his wife went to pay a debt.

While in office, Mr. Roh survived an impeachment and even confessed to being “sick and tired of being president.” But masked by such frankness and feistiness was a sensitive leader who took criticism personally, engaged in a vicious, prolonged battle with the nation’s conservative media, and appeared to consider real-life politics, which haunted him even in retirement, too messy for his character and too much to take.

“There was not a single quiet day while he was in office,” said Choi Jin, head of the Institute of Presidential Leadership. “Throughout his life, he always made extreme choices, playing an all-or-nothing game. His suicide was the last explosion in his fiery and volcanic career.”

Home
World U.S. N.Y. / Region Business Technology Science Health Sports Opinion Arts Style Travel Jobs Real Estate Automobiles Back to Top
Copyright 2009
Privacy Policy Search Corrections RSS First Look Help Contact Us Work for Us Site Map

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Google Korea Head Blasts Real-Name Requirement

Korea's Communication Privacy Law, is it beneficiary for whom?

By Kim Tong-hyung
Staff Reporter

The head of Google's South Korean operations blasted the government's recent attempt to limit anonymity on the Web.

``Our business is based on thinking from the user's point of view, and we believe that the real-name requirements do not benefit users in any way and do not contribute to creating a vibrant Internet culture,'' said Lee Won-jin, the managing director of Google Korea in Seoul Wednesday.

``In any country, Google intends to respect the local law and do business within its boundaries. However, since the Internet renders geography irrelevant, it is sometimes difficult to define how far the law of a certain country should extend.

``For services that are not customized or launched particularly for Korean users, we believe it would be better to make our judgments based on moral principles, rather than local law.''

The country has obliged Internet users to make verifiable real-name registrations to post comments on Web sites with more than 100,000 daily visitors since April.

Google, which is reluctant to bend its principles only for Korea and set a precedent that might affect its business in other countries, chose to avoid the requirements by disabling users from uploading videos and comments on the Korean language site of YouTube (kr.youtube.com), its online video service.

However, since the changes are only applied to YouTube's Korean sites, users could easily upload content by setting their country preference to other countries.

This has clearly miffed the Korea Communications Commission (KCC), the country's broadcasting and telecommunications regulator, with KCC chairman Choi See-joong threatening a review of whether Google is violating the local law with its YouTube decision.

Choi's stance, apparently affected by the sentiment within Cheong Wa Dae and the ruling Grand National Party (GNP), differed from the initial response by lower-ranked KCC officials, who had been saying YouTube's Korean site wouldn't be subject to the real-name requirements if content uploading is blocked.

Lee, who said the company is talking with KCC officials, stressed that Google's decision to limit YouTube's Korean site represents its commitment to abide by local laws. Google had no discussions with KCC officials before making the YouTube decision, because ``we didn't think there was any need to do so,'' Lee said.

``YouTube is subject to Korean law, because we have launched a localized service,'' Lee said.

``I can't talk about what will happen with our future services, but if we are pressed to make another decision about real-name registration, I believe we will have no other option but to repeat what we did with YouTube.''

The Lee Myung-bak government has been looking at more ways to monitor the Internet, after being repeatedly attacked by bloggers, first for its controversial decision to resume U.S. beef imports and more recently for its supposed ineptitude in economic policies.

The latest attempt comes from the efforts by GNP lawmakers to rewrite the communication privacy law and allow authorities further power to observe and track Web browsing habits.

According to the bill, law enforcement authorities get expended surveillance power beyond fixed-line telephone calls and are enabled to intercept mobile phone and Internet communications, which include e-mail, chats and voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) calls.

Lee revealed that the company received about 10 requests from Korean investigators last year to hand over the e-mail records of some Korean users of Gmail, Google's e-mail services.

However, Google refused to oblige, arguing that Gmail services are based on servers in the U.S. Despite the possible legal changes here, Lee said Gmail wouldn't become anymore vulnerable to surveillance.

``Gmail is not a service developed for Korean users, and a localized version wasn't launched either,'' Lee said.

``As in any country, we will decide our level of cooperation with local investigators following our judgment of the matter at hand, and considering both the Korean law and our principles.''

Google Korea doesn't operate any servers here for its local services, according to company officials, as even the server for its Korean digital map services is operated by a partner company.

thkim@koreatimes.co.kr

Friday, April 10, 2009

Reverend Gustav Schultz Scholarship by UB Berkeley Korean Alumnae

UC Berkeley's Korean alumnae established a scholarship fund to pay a tribute to the deceased Reverend Gustav Schultz who served the University Lutheran Chapel congregation from 1969 to 1999. The Reverend Schultz led campaigns appealing international alliance concerning Korea's democritization in 1980s.

<버클리대 한인동문 美목사 추모 장학기금 설립>

(샌프란시스코=연합뉴스) 김성용 특파원 = 미국 서부의 명문 버클리 캘리포니아대(UC) 한국계 동문들과 재학생들이 1980년대 한국 민주화 운동 및 평화적 통일 운동에 기여해 온 것으로 알려진 미국인 목사 고(故) 구스타프 슐츠를 기리기 위한 기금을 설립했다.

9일 버클리대 홈페이지에 따르면 한국계 동문과 재학생들은 지난해 12월 `슐츠 목사 기념 장학기금'을 설립하기로 버클리대 측과 약정을 맺었으며 이르면 올해부터 국제 평화 활동에 공헌한 버클리대 학생에게 국적을 불문하고 장학금을 주기로 했다.

캘리포니아주 버클리에 위치한 `유니버시티 루터파 교회' 등에서 재직해 오다 2년 전 숨진 슐츠 목사는 1980년대 한국의 민주화 운동에 대한 국제적 지원을 호소하는 캠페인을 벌이고 김대중 전대통령에 대한 구명 운동에 참여해 주목받았다.

그는 한국 민주화 운동을 지원해 온 공로를 인정받아 1988년 김 전대통령 취임식에 직접 초청돼 참석했고 남북한 관계자들을 미국으로 함께 초청, 평화적 통일을 주제로 한 포럼을 주최하는 등 한반도 평화에 많은 관심을 기울였다.

슐츠 목사는 한반도 문제 뿐 아니라 남미 등지의 민주화 운동과 빈민 퇴치 운동에 기여한 공로로 버클리 평화상을 받기도 했다.

ksy@yna.co.kr

Wednesday, April 08, 2009

A new non-standing commissioner of the TRC, appointed by the current ROK president.

Below is the interview of Kyu-hyung KANG, a new non-standing commissioner of the ROK's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, opposing the abolition of death penalty with such absurd backing reasonings. Following the forcible downsize of the nation's human rights commission, the change of high positions in other human rights related governmental organizations implicates many.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
장면 1. 1961년 12월 예루살렘의 법정에서 열린 세기의 재판. ‘국가에 의한 살인’이라는 이유로 사형이 금지된 이스라엘에서 비밀경찰 모사드가 납치한 유대인 학살범 카를 아돌프 아이히만에게 사형이 선고됐다. 죄목은 반인륜범죄. 다음 해 교수형이 집행됐다.

장면 2. 1988년 미국 대통령 선거의 첫 TV토론. 유명 앵커 버나드 쇼는 사형 제도를 반대하는 민주당 대통령 후보 마이클 듀카키스 매사추세츠 주지사에게 도발적인 질문을 던졌다. “당신의 부인이 강간당하고 살해돼도 그 범인에 대한 사형을 반대하시렵니까?” 당황한 듀카키스는 답변을 제대로 못했다.

장면 3. 역시 1988년 선거전. 인기도에서 뒤지던 공화당 대통령 후보 조지 부시 측은 매사추세츠 주의 무기수인 흉악범 윌리 호턴이 인도적 취지에서 휴가를 나온 사이 몇 차례의 강간, 무장 강도를 저지른 사실을 간파하고 ‘민주당 대통령 후보 듀카키스, 부통령 후보 호턴’이라는 선거 구호를 만들어 사용했다. 듀카키스는 이러한 휴가 제도의 지지자였다. 이 선거전에서 부시는 무난한 승리를 거뒀는데 그 이유 중 하나가 ‘범죄에 온정적인 듀카키스’라는 이미지였다.

재작년 정기국회 때 국회의원 상당수가 사형제 폐지안을 발의했고 국가인권위원회도 폐지 쪽으로 의견을 모아 가고 있다. 여기에 대해 법무부는 작년 중순 사형제 폐지안을 반박하는 검토 보고서를 제출했다. 그러나 21일 법무부는 돌연 사형제 폐지를 긍정적으로 검토하겠다고 밝히면서 국회에 계류 중인 사형폐지법안 심의를 지원해 나갈 방침이라 한다. 하지만 이 사안은 이렇게 쉽게 결정될 수 있는 문제가 아니다. 사형제를 반대하는 논리는 크게 네 가지로 집약되며 필자는 여기에 대해 상식적인 의문을 제기하려 한다.

첫째, ‘인도주의’적 측면. 사형은 잔인한 형벌이지만 사형수들이 범한 행위에 비해 결코 잔인한 것이 아니다. 인류는 예로부터 잘못된 행동에 대해 응분의 책임을 질 것을 요구해 왔다. 이러한 요구가 무시될 때 과연 사람들은 ‘정의로운 사회’에서 살고 있다는 생각이 들 것인가. 이 경우도 어린이 성추행범의 인권을 옹호하는 사이 죽어 간 11세 허모 양 사건 같은 우를 범하고 있지는 않은지.

둘째, 사형제는 범죄 억제 효과가 없다. 죽음은 인간에게 가장 큰 공포 중 하나다. 범죄의 대가에서 죽음이 제외될 때 범죄 억지력은 약화될 수밖에 없다. 위에 언급한 호턴의 경우를 보자. 어차피 종신형을 살고 있고 사형선고가 불가능한 당시의 상황에서 그가 추가 범죄를 저지르는 것은 어쩌면 합리적인 선택일 수 있다. 또한 이 논리는 ‘교도소가 범죄의 온상 역할을 하고 교정 효과가 분명하지 않으므로 교도소를 없애자’고 주장하는 것과 다를 바가 없다.

셋째, 오심의 경우 돌이킬 방법이 없다. 인간의 판단이 완벽할 수 없고 재판관도 인간이기에 오심의 여지는 있다. 그렇다고 사형제를 없애는 것은 마치 잘못된 자동차 운전으로 매년 수많은 사람이 죽거나 다치기에 자동차 운행을 금지시키자는 얘기와 비슷하다. 법무부 보고서도 지적하듯이 현행 재판 제도하에서 사형수에 대한 오심 가능성은 거의 없다.

넷째, 정치적 목적으로 악용될 수 있다. 물론 과거 사형제도가 악용된 경우도 드물게나마 있었다. 그러나 이제 우리는 민주사회에 살고 있다. 정치적 이유의 사형선고 사례가 1980년 이후 없다는 것을 감안하면 이 주장 역시 설득력이 떨어진다.

현재 국민의 압도적 다수가 사형제 폐지를 반대하고 있다. 더 중요한 것은 사형제 폐지의 논리가 상식적인 수준에서 많은 사람들이 공감할 만한 타당성을 결여하고 있다는 것이다. 법무부가 올해 돌연 태도를 바꾼 연유도 수긍이 안 간다.

이에 필자는 두 가지 질문을 던지려 한다. 흉악범에 의해 아무 이유 없이 잔인하게 살해된 사람의 가족에게 “그 죄수가 처형돼서는 안 된다”라고 자신 있게 얘기할 수 있는가. 그리고 사형제도를 금지하는 이스라엘인들이 그들의 동포를 무참히 학살하는 데 일조했던 아이히만을 특별법을 통해 사형을 집행한 것이 잘못된 행동이라고 비난할 수 있는가. 만약 이 질문들에 대해 머뭇거릴 수밖에 없다면 이 문제는 좀 더 신중하게 생각해 봐야 할 것이다.

강규형 명지대 교수·현대사

Tuesday, April 07, 2009

Urgent Statement by the Human Rights Commission, ROK

ROK's Human Rights Commission has beeing facing the forced restructuring process by the Ministry of Public Administration and Security, and released a public statement opposing it.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

행정안전부의 조직축소 강행 방침에 대한 국가인권위원회의 긴급 의견표명

- 09.3.23. 긴급 전원위원회 개최 결과 요약 -

- 국무총리와 행정안전부장관은 일방적인 국가인권위원회 조직축소 방침을 즉시 철회해야 한다.
- 국가인권위원회 조직개편의 시기, 절차, 범위는 인권위의 자율적 판단에 기초하여 독립성이 훼손되지 않도록 결정되어야 한다.
- 국가인권위원회는 행정안전부의 일방처리 방침에 반대하며, 현재 진행되고 있는 직제령 개정절차는 유보되어야 한다.
- 합리적인 사태해결을 위해 국가인권위원장과 국무총리 및 행정안전부장관의 긴급 면담이 이루어져야 한다.

국가인권위원회(위원장 안경환)는 국무총리와 행정안전부장관에게 국가인권위 조직축소 방침 철회를 강력히 요청하며, 합리적인 사태 해결을 위해 행정안전부가 신속히 직제령 개정절차를 유보할 것을 요청한다.

행정안전부는 지난해 12월 이래 국가인권위원회 조직 축소를 일방적으로 추진하고 있다. 이는 행정부가 독립기구인 국가인권위원회 조직의 근간을 뒤흔드는 행위로, 유엔의 파리원칙 등 국제인권규약과 국가인권위원회법에 명시된 ‘독립성’의 심각한 훼손이다. 행정안전부는 국가인권위원회법 제18조를 근거로 국가인권위원회 직제를 조정할 법적 권한을 갖고 있다고 주장한다. 그러나 그런 주장은 직제변경 권한 행사를 통해 국가인권위원회의 실질적 독립성을 침해하겠다는 것에 다름 아니다.

국가인권위원회의 독립성은 2001년 출범 당시부터 중요한 사안이었다. 국가인권위원회는 여야를 초월한 정당 및 시민사회의 총의에 따라 행정부가 임의로 관여할 수 없는 독립기관으로 탄생했다. 독립성은 지난 8년간 국가인권위원회가 본연의 기능을 차질 없이 수행할 수 있었던 원동력이었다. 공권력에 의한 인권침해가 전체 진정사건의 80% 이상을 차지하는 나라에서, 정부로부터의 정치적 독립은 국가인권위원회의 존립을 위한 필수적 조건일 수밖에 없었다.

국가인권위원회는 그동안 입법․행정․사법 등 3부 어디에도 속하지 않는 독립기구임에도, 범정부적 국가 시책에 동참할 뜻을 지속적으로 밝혀왔다. 국가인권위원회는 감사원의 조직체계 재정비 권고를 대승적으로 수용했고, 외부 전문기관에 의뢰해 국가인권위 조직과 인력 실태를 점검했으며, 행정안전부가 요구한 대국대과제 개편안에 대해서도 독립성이 침해되지 않는 범위에서 이행할 의지가 있음을 밝혀왔다.

그럼에도 행정안전부는 자체 조직진단 결과를 갖고 있다는 말만 되풀이할 뿐 어떠한 분석자료도 공개하지 않고 있다. 이는 책임있는 정부기관의 태도라 볼 수 없다. 행정안전부는 조속히 조직진단 결과를 제시하고 국가인권위원회와 함께 타당성 검증을 거쳐야 할 것이다.

행정안전부가 제시한 개편안은 국제적으로 공인된 국가인권기구의 3대 기능(조사, 정책, 교육홍보)을 무시하고 있다. 1개 본부에서 각각 수행하던 정책과 교육업무를 각 1개과 수준으로 축소해 업무 공백이 예견된다. 정책 업무가 마비된다면 국가인권정책 전반을 감시하고 견제하는 기능이 중단된다. 인권교육이 축소되면 사회 전체적으로 인권의식 향상을 도모할 수 있는 통로가 막힌다.

국가인권위원회 조직축소는 한국이 국제인권 분야에서 공들여 쌓아올린 성과를 일거에 허무는 것이다. 한국은 유엔사무총장을 배출하고, 유엔인권이사회 이사국에 재선된 나라다. 한국 국가인권위원회는 현재 ICC(국가인권기구 국제조정위원회) 부의장국이자 내년 초 의장국 합의추대가 유력한 국제사회의 역할 모델이다. 유엔 인권최고대표가 1년 사이 두 번이나 국가인권위원회 독립성 훼손을 우려해 긴급 서한을 발송한 까닭이 여기 있다. 국정과제로 인권외교 강화를 내걸고 국가브랜드위원회까지 만들어 국가의 품위를 높이고자 한다면, 국가인권위원회 조직축소는 마땅히 철회되어야 한다.

국가인권위원회는 그간 대화와 설득을 통해 조직개편 논쟁을 마무리하기 위해 노력해왔다. 국가인권위원회는 행정안전부가 그동안 각계의 의견 등을 반영해 노력을 기울여온 것에 대해 나름의 의미를 부여한다. 하지만 여전히 국가인권기구의 독립성에 대한 이해가 부족하다는 것이 우리의 판단이다. 실례로 지역사무소를 1년간 존치한 뒤 조직진단을 통해 존폐 여부를 다시 결정하겠다는 행정안전부의 방침은 지역사무소의 필요성 및 지역사회의 인권상황과 배치되는 주장이다.

행정안전부가 국가인권위원회에 조직개편 강행 처리를 통보한 지금의 상황을 우리는 매우 중대한 사태로 규정한다. 국가인권위원회의 독립성이 훼손될 경우, 대한민국의 국제적 위상에 심각한 타격이 불가피하다고 보기 때문이다. 국가인권위원장이 ICC 총회 참석까지 취소하며 긴급 전원위원회를 소집한 이유이기도 하다.

국가인권기구의 생명이라 할 독립성이 위기를 맞은 시점에서, 국가인권위원회는 국무총리와 행정안전부장관에게 요청한다. 국가인권위원회 인권위원들은 학계, 법조계, 시민사회 등 각자 다른 영역에서 활동해 왔으나 국가인권위원회의 독립성 침해에 대해서는 한 목소리로 우려를 표한다. 인권위원들은 국회, 대통령, 대법원장 등의 선출과 지명을 거쳐 임명됐다는 점에서, 오늘 전원위원회의 의견은 3부의 의견을 고루 반영한 독립적이고 중립적인 결정이다. 모쪼록 오늘 국가인권위원회의 결정이 인권위 조직축소라는 중차대한 문제를 풀어가는 잣대가 되기를 바란다. 아울러 이번 사태가 국가인권위원회의 독립적 위상을 다시금 명확히 확인하는 계기가 되기를 기대한다.

국가인권위원회는 독립기구의 위상이 훼손되고 있는 현 상황을 매우 유감스럽게 여기며, 향후 국가인권위원회 조직개편은 독립성이 훼손되지 않는 절차와 과정의 범위에서 추진돼야 한다는 점을 거듭 천명한다. 국가인권위원회의 독립성 침해라는 비상한 사태를 바라보는 국제사회의 우려가 더 이상 나오지 않도록 정부의 책임있는 대처를 주문한다. 또한 합리적인 사태해결을 위해 국가인권위원장과 국무총리 및 행정안전부 장관의 긴급 면담이 이루어져야 한다.
2009년 3월 23일
국가인권위원회

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Don't Move On Yet

World Beat
by JOHN FEFFER | Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Let’s say that President Barack Obama appointed me as his Karl Rove. My advice: Don’t move on. The best way to tie the opposition on the right into a pretzel is to go after the Bush administration for all of its high crimes and misdemeanors. The radical right will fall back to defend its conduct for the last eight years. It will have less time and energy to battle the current agenda. The administration should embrace Sen. Patrick Leahy’s (D-VT) Truth Commission, prosecute the Justice Department lawyers for their torture memos, rake the top Pentagon officials over the coals for war crimes in Iraq, and uncover as much dirt as possible on how the Bush administration subverted the constitution, undermined international law, and hijacked America.

Here’s the catch. Obama doesn’t want his own private Karl Rove. Rahm Emanuel may well be foul-mouthed, rude, and not above sending dead fish to his opponents, but he plays by the rules and works both sides of the aisle. He is Mr. Art of the Possible, just like Obama himself. The new president actually believes in bipartisanship — as opposed to simply mouthing the usual clichés about making nice. For Obama, bipartisanship is not just about trying to win votes from Republicans reluctant to provide them or offering cabinet posts to leading conservatives who say yes and then no. It’s about bridging the larger cultural divide in the country.

Obama is no patsy. He has practical reasons for his desire to move on. First of all, he’s sending more U.S. troops in Afghanistan — a poorly thought-out plan, argue Foreign Policy In Focus (FPIF) contributors Farrah Hassen and Phyllis Bennis — and any discussion of U.S. war crimes would complicate his mission. Moreover, any investigation of U.S. conduct in Iraq would run up against the uncomfortable truth that a large number of folks in Obama’s party favored the invasion. A Predator strike on the Republican opposition, in other words, would cause collateral damage on the Democrats.

This collective responsibility relates to the second problem: The legal case for war crimes isn’t a slam dunk. Unlike the Nuremberg trials against the Nazis, lawyers can’t make the argument that the government that authorized the invasion of Iraq was an illegitimate one. “The legislature and the courts continued to function according to the constitution, even though the president tried to shield his actions and those of his administration from review,” writes Foreign Policy In Focus contributor Robert Pallitto in Prosecuting the Bush Team? “In several instances — authorizing military action against Iraq, detainee treatment, denial of court review to detainees, immunity for warrantless wiretapping — Congress approved presidential actions, thus making it harder to argue that the government wasn't operating according to valid law.”

Obama might also worry that an in-depth investigation of the Bush team would catalyze rather than confound the opposition. In the 1970s, after the Watergate inquiries and the Church commission investigations into the misdeeds of U.S. foreign policy, the precursors to the neoconservatives launched the Committee on the Present Danger. It mobilized discontent with the perceived America-bashing of the Democrats and produced the long Dark Ages of the 1980s presided over by Ronald Reagan. Handing over Donald Rumsfeld to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, however satisfying, would in fact hand over to the opposition a major tool for mobilizing the Foxified and Rushized masses.

But here’s the larger and ultimately more disturbing reason why Obama wants to put the past behind us. Peace and justice so frequently go hand-in-hand in progressive rhetoric. Alas, peace and justice often find themselves in grave tension. Demands for justice often get short shrift to secure the peace. In South Africa, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission solicited testimony from perpetrators by providing them with amnesty beforehand. In Rwanda, mass murderers received relatively light sentences to put the past behind and promote reconciliation. Anyone working on human rights issues confronts this tension between peace and justice every day. In the most recent example, Hillary Clinton in Beijing promoted better relations between two potential Cold War rivals (a good thing) but also slighted human rights concerns (a bad thing).

The red-blue divide in the United States isn’t exactly apartheid or Hutu vs. Tutsi. Still, the last several elections revealed the immense gap between north and south, relatively educated and relatively undereducated, and white and non-white. A deepening economic crisis only widens that gap. To push through an ambitious, very expensive domestic program and forestall dangerous right-wing populism, Obama aims to promote peace across warring factions. His conciliatory temperament, in this case, intersects with his tactical game plan. Something, however, has to give. And that will be justice.

But if Obama lets everyone off the hook — the Bush team, the top military brass, Wall Street billionaires — the public will treat his calls for change with pained indifference. Leahy offers a middle course with his Truth Commission: “Rather than vengeance, we need an impartial pursuit of what actually happened and a shared understanding of the failures of the recent past,” he has written. Even if Obama’s domestic revolution doesn’t come with a proper Bastille — a powerful, symbolic renunciation of the past — then let’s at least lay bare the perversions of power. Of course we must all look forward, as the president argues. But as any psychologist will tell you, there’s no true moving on without a serious coming to terms with the past. What applies to patients traumatized by their childhoods applies double strength to countries traumatized by their presidents.

War Crimes Elsewhere

Obama isn’t only forgiving when it comes to U.S. war crimes. He’s willing to look the other way at those of allied countries.

Amnesty International has called for an arms embargo against both Israel and Hamas in the aftermath of the war in Gaza. The Obama administration shows no signs of honoring that call. “The most Obama might do to express his displeasure toward controversial Israeli policies like the expansion of illegal settlements in the occupied territories would be to reject a planned increase in military aid for the next fiscal year and slightly reduce economic aid and/or loan guarantees,” writes FPIF senior analyst Stephen Zunes in Obama and Israel’s Military: Still Arm-in-Arm. “However, in a notable departure from previous administrations, Obama made no mention of any military aid to Israel in his outline of the FY 2010 budget, announced last week. This notable absence may indicate that pressure from human rights activists and others concerned about massive U.S. military aid to Israel is now strong enough that the White House feels a need to downplay the assistance rather than emphasize it.”

After 20 years of far-right-wing rule, El Salvador appears also to be on the verge of moving on. Later this week, Salvadorans go to the polls, and the frontrunner for the presidency is Mauricio Funes of the leftist Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN). If the left wins, Salvadorans might finally learn the truth of the U.S. role in the civil war of the 1980s. “Washington sent $6 billion in aid to a Salvadoran government whose army and paramilitary death squads were responsible for heinous crimes,” writes FPIF senior analyst Mark Engler in Will the Winds of Change Reach El Salvador? “Some 75,000 people were killed in the country's civil war during that decade. In 1993, a United Nations-backed Truth Commission determined that the government was responsible for 85% of human rights abuses and that the rebel forces were responsible for 5%, with the remaining 10% undetermined.”

Time for Action

Thousands of young activists descended on Washington at the end of February for the Power Shift conference. Also scheduled was the largest act of civil disobedience on the issue of climate change: a protest in front of the coal-fired power plant on Capitol Hill that provides energy for Congress and other buildings. FPIF contributor Andrée Zaleska was there: “There were about 2,500 of us there, despite freezing weather and heavy snow. It was well organized, with great posters and banners. And it was truly fun.” The crowd and the police were both civil, but there was no disobedience. Read her Postcard from…Capitol Climate Action to find out why.

Here’s a suggestion for the Obama administration: Instead of focusing specifically on North Korea’s nuclear weapons program in the Six Party Talks, widen the discussion to address a regional nuclear-weapons-free zone. “Pyongyang might accelerate its own denuclearization if provided with assurances that neither Seoul nor Tokyo would embark on nuclear programs or host the nuclear weapons of other countries — with the proviso that North Korea must first return to the Nonproliferation Treaty,” writes Jon Reinsch in No Nukes in Northeast Asia. “Nothing gives insecure countries like North Korea a greater incentive to pursue nuclear weapons than fear of the nuclear arsenals, potential or actual, of their adversaries.”

Burma is a tough nut to crack. The Bush administration and its predecessors have tried a variety of sanctions. And the military junta has only dug in its heels. Kanbawza Win has a different proposal: Washington and Beijing should hammer out their own bipartisan consensus on Burma. “By teaming up with China, the United States can devise a policy that both respects the democratic opposition and also reaches out to the current Burmese government,” he writes in Dealing with Burma through China. “If the two great powers can resolve their differences over Burma policy, despite different political systems, then they can set an example for the undemocratic Burmese government and the democratic opposition to achieve a compromise that can bring Burma, finally, into the 21st century.”

Links

Chris Cillizza, "Ten Facts You Need to Know about Rahm Emanuel," The Washington Post, November 6, 2008; http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/2008/11/top_10_facts_you_need_to_know.html

Ryan Lizza, “The Gatekeeper,” The New Yorker, March 2, 2009; http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/03/02/090302fa_fact_lizza?currentPage=all

Matt Bai, “Yes, More Mr. Nice Guy,” The New York Times Magazine, March 8, 2009; http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/08/magazine/08wwln-lede-t.html?_r=1&ref=magazine

Farrah Hassen and Phyllis Bennis, “President Obama Has Things Backward in Afghanistan,” Monterey County Herald, via the Progressive Media Project (http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/5927); He's putting the escalation cart way out in front of the strategy horse.

Robert Pallitto, “Prosecuting the Bush Team?” Foreign Policy In Focus (http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/5914); Bush’s legal advisors facilitated the administration’s use of torture. Should we drag them in front of the court?

Patrick Leahy, “The Case for a Truth Commission,” Time, February 19, 2009; http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1880662,00.html?iid=tsmodule

Stephen Zunes, “Obama and Israel’s Military: Still Arm-in-Arm,” Foreign Policy In Focus (http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/5923); Despite some hopeful movement on Middle East issues, the new administration is still lavishing military aid on Israel and, by extension, the U.S. defense industry.

Mark Engler, “Will the Winds of Change Reach El Salvador?” Foreign Policy In Focus (http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/5915); The prospect of progressive leadership coming to power in El Salvador's March 15 presidential elections should prompt a new U.S. policy toward Central America.

Andrée Zaleska, “Postcard from…Capitol Climate Action,” Foreign Policy In Focus (http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/5925); With the climate in the balance, it's time to step up the pressure on coal.

Jon Reinsch, “No Nukes in Northeast Asia,” Foreign Policy In Focus
(http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/5926); One way to deal with North Korea's nuclear program is to go regional.

Kanbawza Win, “Dealing with Burma through China?” Foreign Policy In Focus (http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/5921); Here's one way of breaking the impasse with Burma: Go through Beijing.

. . .
Published by Foreign Policy In Focus (FPIF), a project of the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS)
fpif.org: a think tank without walls

Tuesday, March 03, 2009

In Legal Memos, Clearer View of Power Bush Sought; Crafter thereof, JOHN C. YOO

The new Obama administration being shaped up while filling up the empty seats of each governmental organization, many speculations are circulating around within/outside the nation. Vocal ones raised the emphasis on defence alliances, widening FTAs throughout the globe as a mean to breakthrough the economic hardship, regardless of how effective and accurate analysis it was based on, multilateral cooperation concerning the energy and environment. Last but not the least is the issue with human rights. The chairmen of both House and Senate Judiciary Committee have vocalized on the necessity to establish a Truth Commission investigating any human rights violations during the Bush administration. So far Obama took a rather careful stance, trying not to give an impression it may be viewed as politicised issue. But a series of articles published both within/outside the US suggests the attempt is indeed gradually visualized as time goes by. Will this bring more collaborative allianceship between the US and the ROK in terms of human rights issues?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1GT-BZvhrw

March 3, 2009
In Legal Memos, Clearer View of Power Bush Sought
By NEIL A. LEWIS
WASHINGTON — The secret legal opinions issued by Bush administration lawyers after the Sept. 11 attacks included assertions that the president could use the nation’s military within the United States to combat terrorism suspects and to conduct raids without obtaining search warrants.

That opinion was among nine that were disclosed publicly for the first time Monday by the Justice Department, in what the Obama administration portrayed as a step toward greater transparency.

The opinions reflected a broad interpretation of presidential authority, asserting as well that the president could unilaterally abrogate foreign treaties, ignore any guidance from Congress in dealing with detainees suspected of terrorism, and conduct a program of domestic eavesdropping without warrants.

Some of the positions had previously become known from statements of Bush administration officials in response to court challenges and Congressional inquiries. But taken together, the opinions disclosed Monday were the clearest illustration to date of the broad definition of presidential power approved by government lawyers in the months after the Sept. 11 attacks.

In a memorandum dated this Jan. 15, five days before President George W. Bush left office, a top Justice Department official wrote that those opinions had not been relied on since 2003. But the official, Steven G. Bradbury, who headed the Office of Legal Counsel, said it was important to acknowledge in writing “the doubtful nature of these propositions,” and he used the memo to repudiate them formally.

Mr. Bradbury said in his memo that the earlier ones had been a product of lawyers’ confronting “novel and complex questions in a time of great danger and under extraordinary time pressure.”

The opinion authorizing the military to operate domestically was dated Oct. 23, 2001, and written by John C. Yoo, at the time a deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel, and Robert J. Delahunty, a special counsel in the office. It was directed to Alberto R. Gonzales, then the White House counsel, who had asked whether Mr. Bush could use the military to combat terrorist activities inside the United States.

The use of the military envisioned in the Yoo-Delahunty reply appears to transcend by far the stationing of troops to keep watch at streets and airports, a familiar sight in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks. The memorandum discussed the use of military forces to carry out “raids on terrorist cells” and even seize property.

“The law has recognized that force (including deadly force) may be legitimately used in self-defense,” Mr. Yoo and Mr. Delahunty wrote to Mr. Gonzales. Therefore any objections based on the Fourth Amendment’s ban on unreasonable searches are swept away, they said, since any possible privacy offense resulting from such a search is a lesser matter than any injury from deadly force.

The Oct. 23 memorandum also said that “First Amendment speech and press rights may also be subordinated to the overriding need to wage war successfully.” It added that “the current campaign against terrorism may require even broader exercises of federal power domestically.”

Mr. Yoo and Mr. Delahunty said that in addition, the Posse Comitatus Act, which generally bars the military from domestic law enforcement operations, would pose no obstacle to the use of troops in a domestic fight against terrorism suspects. They reasoned that the troops would be acting in a national security function, not as law enforcers.

In another of the opinions, Mr. Yoo argued in a memorandum dated Sept. 25, 2001, that judicial precedents approving deadly force in self-defense could be extended to allow for eavesdropping without warrants.

Still another memo, issued in March 2002, suggested that Congress lacked any power to limit a president’s authority to transfer detainees to other countries, a practice known as rendition that was widely used by Mr. Bush.

Other memorandums said Congress had no right to intervene in the president’s determination of the treatment of detainees, a proposition that has since been invalidated by the Supreme Court.

The Jan. 15 memo by Mr. Bradbury repudiating these views said that it was “not sustainable” to argue that the president’s power as commander in chief “precludes Congress from enacting any legislation concerning the detention, interrogation, prosecution and transfer of enemy combatants.”

Mr. Yoo, now a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, is widely known as the principal author of a 2002 memorandum, separate from those made public Monday, that critics have characterized as authorizing torture. That memorandum, signed by Jay S. Bybee, a predecessor of Mr. Bradbury as head of the Office of Legal Counsel, was repudiated in 2004.

The memorandum issued by Mr. Bradbury this January appears to have been the Bush lawyers’ last effort to reconcile their views with the wide rejection by legal scholars and some Supreme Court opinions of the sweeping assertions of presidential authority made earlier by the Justice Department.

Walter Dellinger, who led the Office of Legal Counsel during the Clinton administration and is now a law professor at Duke University, said in an interview that Mr. Bradbury’s memo “disclaiming the opinions of earlier Bush lawyers sets out in blunt detail how irresponsible those earlier opinions were.”

Mr. Dellinger said it was important that it was now widely recognized that the earlier assertions “that Congress had absolutely no role in these national security issues was contrary to constitutional text, historical practice and judicial precedent.”

In a speech a few hours before the documents were disclosed Monday, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said: “Too often over the past decade, the fight against terrorism has been viewed as a zero-sum battle with our civil liberties. Not only is that thought misguided, I fear that in actuality it does more harm than good.”

Mr. Holder said that the memorandums were being released in light of a substantial public interest in the issue.

_______________________________________________________________________________

John C. Yoo served for only two years in the Bush administration Justice Department and never rose higher than the rank of assistant attorney general in the legal counsel office. But his bold assertion of executive power and rejection of international law helped shaped some of the administration's most controversial policies, and are likely to have an impact in debates over crucial Constitutional questions for years to come.

When the Justice Department offices were being evacuated Mr. Yoo, then a 34-year-old former law professor whose academic work had focused on foreign affairs and war-powers issues, was asked to stay behind, and he quickly found himself in the department's command center, on the phone to lawyers at the White House.

Within weeks, Mr. Yoo had begun to establish himself as a critical player in the Bush administration's legal response to the terrorist threat, and an influential advocate for the expansive claims of presidential authority that have been a hallmark of that response.

Read More...

Mr. Yoo was a primary author of a series of legal opinions on the fight against terrorism, including one that said the Geneva Conventions did not apply and at least two others that countenanced the use of highly coercive interrogation techniques on terror suspects. He also wrote a still-secret 2002 memorandum that gave legal backing to the administration's secret program to eavesdrop on the international communications of Americans and others inside the United States without federal warrants.

After Mr. Yoo left government in 2003 to return to teaching at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law, an opinion he wrote on interrogations with the head of the legal counsel office, Jay S. Bybee, was publicly disavowed by the White House, a highly unusual step.

While his successors in the Justice Department may have had second thoughts, Mr. Yoo has not backed down. In a combative book, “War by Other Means,” Mr. Yoo was more candid than many of his colleagues about his fervent belief in unfettered executive power.

In the book, Mr. Yoo argued that the Constitution grants the president “the leading role in foreign affairs,” and that the Authorization for Use of Military Force, passed by Congress a week after 9/11, gives the president broad powers to wage the war on terror the way he wants to. Indeed, Mr. Yoo says, “We wrote the law as broadly as we did” to “make sure there could be no claim in the future that the President was acting in the war on terrorism without congressional support.”

Hide