Tag: Moon Jae-in

Former President Moon is not happy about the criticism his administration has received from the current President:

 Former President Moon Jae-in has said his administration established a system to counter North Korean drone infiltrations, according to officials of the main opposition Democratic Party.

Moon made the remarks when DP leaders visited his home in the southeastern city of Yangsan on Monday, apparently in response to criticism from President Yoon Suk Yeol that the North’s recent drone infiltration revealed how Seoul’s military readiness and exercises have been “greatly lacking” over the years.

“Former President Moon said the government had introduced radars and prepared substantially with regard to countering drones,” a DP official who met Moon on Monday told Yonhap News Agency.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but I have seen no one criticizing the detection capability. Clearly the ROK military did a good job detecting the drones which Moon’s administration should be given credit for acquiring. However, the inability to shoot them down to include crashing one of their own aircraft is what the criticism of the ROK military has been about.

It looks like the ruling party is intending to continue the trend of putting ex-ROK Presidents in jail:

Following former national security adviser Suh Hoon’s arrest on Saturday for allegedly covering up North Korea’s killing of a South Korean official in the West Sea, clashes between ruling and opposition parties are intensifying, with eyes on whether the investigation will target former President Moon Jae-in.

The prosecution issued an arrest warrant Saturday at around 4:55 a.m. against former national security adviser and spy agency chief Suh after more than 10 hours of questioning, citing the “risk of Suh destroying evidence.” Suh was the first presidential aide of Moon to be arrested among those accused of mishandling of the death of South Korean Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries official Lee Dae-jun in September 2020.

The ruling party and an attorney representing the deceased official’s brother Lee Rae-jin are ramping up calls for justice over the former Moon administration’s labeling of Lee Dae-jun as a South Korean defector to North Korea. This had effectively relieved Seoul of its duty to protect Lee and acquitted Pyeongyang of its summary execution. Meanwhile, evidence that Lee was a defector remains under question.

The ruling People Power Party interim chief Chung Jin-suk said in a statement Saturday on social media that Moon’s statement last Thursday indicated that Moon should be held accountable for the border killing case.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link, but if the ruling party moves forward with trying to jail former President Moon it will pretty much be a guarantee that current President Yoon will be tried for something once the Korean left regains power.

With that all said it would be interesting to find out who in the Moon administration pushed to label the fishery official as a defector in order to not impact their North Korean appeasement strategy.

It seems that Korean conservative party lawmakers are over playing their hand on this issue if they think they can charge former President Moon with treason:

The prosecution is under increasing pressure to investigate former President Moon Jae-in as questions emerge over who ordered the deletion of intelligence reports potentially containing clues as to how the fisheries official ended up in North Korea’s waters, where he was shot dead two years ago.

One of the key findings announced last week by the Board of Audit and Inspection (BAI) was that the official was wearing a life jacket emblazoned with Chinese letters ― a product that cannot be found in the South Korean market. This information debunks the very basis on which the Defense Ministry argued that he, unlike other officials, was wearing a life jacket while on duty on a fishery inspection boat before jumping into the sea to defect to North Korea. Also, none of the life jackets on that boat were missing. 

Yet, such critical information was deliberately omitted from official reports in a coordinated effort to frame him as a defector, which prompted former Defense Minister Suh Wook and former National Intelligence Service Director Park Jie-won to unlawfully remove intelligence documents from the case, according to the state auditor.

Ruling party lawmakers believe that such a coordinated move would have been impossible without former President Moon Jae-in’s direct order and are calling on the prosecution to investigate him.

“If former President Moon Jae-in left him in the hands of North Korea for the sake of an end-of-war agreement, it would be a clear act of treason.” Kim Haeng, a member of the People Power Party’s emergency measure committee, said during a meeting at the National Assembly in Seoul, Monday. “The fabrication of evidence and deletion of intelligence reports would have been impossible without Moon’s orders.”

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but it is weird that fishery official was not wearing a lifejacket from his patrol vessel, but instead a Chinese life jacket. Maybe the North Koreans gave him the lifejacket before they decided to shoot him?

President Yoon is probably thinking ahead to when he exits office and I am sure he does not want a bunch of leftist protesters outside his retirement home:

Rallies around the home of former President Moon Jae-in will be banned starting Monday as the Presidential Security Service expanded the guard zone for the former president amid persistent noisy and menacing protests.

The decision to ban rallies within 300 meters from Moon’s home in Yangsan, about 310 kilometers southeast of Seoul, came after President Yoon Suk-yeol ordered the secret service to consider strengthening security for his predecessor following a suggestion from National Assembly Speaker Kim Jin-pyo.

Since Moon left office in May after a five-year term, his home has been plagued day and night by raucous loudspeaker demonstrations by right-wing protesters and YouTubers opposed to the way he ran the country. 

Last week, one protester was arrested after making threats with a box cutter in front of Moon’s home.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

In my opinion this is not a good look by these people protesting outside Moon Jae-in’s house and making a nuisance of themselves to people in the neighborhood. Whatever validity they have in their complaints I think is lost by how much of a nuisance they are making of themselves:

On early Sunday, the otherwise quiet village of Pyeongsan in Yangsan, South Gyeongsang Province was disrupted by sounds blaring from a minivan covered with insults about former President Moon Jae-in.

“My protest is for Moon to receive legal punishment for the crimes he committed, and be expelled from Yangsan,” said Choi Young-il, a Seoul resident and member of the group calling itself the Freedom-Justice-Truth-Revolution Party. 

A month had passed after Moon had stepped down as president of South Korea, but the series of protests at his Yangsan home had persisted throughout. The narrow road near the Pyeongsan town hall has become ground zero for conflicts surrounding the former president.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

Moon Jae-in definitely did leave office on a much higher note than his predecessors:

“Thank you, thank you everyone,” Moon spoke into a microphone before boarding a KTX train around noon after attending the inauguration of Yoon Suk-yeol.  
   
“Who among past presidents could have had such a beautiful end? Thanks to all of you, I was a happy president until the end.”   
   
When the couple arrived in front of the Pyeongsan village hall, located only a few blocks from their retirement home, hundreds of people were wearing blue shirts or caps and holding blue balloons, Moon’s signature color since his 2017 presidential campaign.They erupted in cheers as the former presidential couple appeared.   
   
Moon is the first president to retire with an approval rating over 40 percent since direct elections were restored in 1987. His approval rating a year into his presidency was also the highest for a Korean president in history, 83 percent, according to Gallup Korea.

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

Tying your legacy to North Korean denuclearization is losing proposition:

Outgoing President Moon Jae-in appealed for the resumption of inter-Korean dialogue Monday as he delivered a farewell address on his last day in office amid heightened tensions over North Korea’s repeated tests of weapons. 

“Peace is a condition of survival for us, a condition of prosperity,” Moon said. “I sincerely hope that efforts for denuclearization and institutionalization of peace will continue with the resumption of dialogue between the South and the North.” 

Taking a look back on his five years as president, Moon touted his role for converting the 2017 crisis, when North Korea conducted a nuclear test and fired ICBMs, into dialogue and diplomacy.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but the North Koreans learned from Saddam, Gaddafi, and most recently Ukraine why you never give up your nuclear weapons program. Does anyone think Ukraine would be getting attacked right now by Russia if they possessed nuclear weapons? The Kim regime is using this same calculus for developing their own nuclear weapons program.

Despite all the outreach President Moon did over the past five years to North Korea, the only that has changed is that North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs are more dangerous than ever:

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said in a recent letter to President Moon Jae-in that inter-Korean relations can improve as much as one wants if both sides make sincere efforts, Cheong Wa Dae said Friday.

Kim sent the letter Thursday in response to a farewell letter that Moon sent the previous day as he prepared to leave office after a five-year term that included three summit meetings with Kim and two summits between Kim and then U.S. President Donald Trump.

In the letter, Moon called on Kim to swiftly resume talks with the United States and make efforts for dialogue with South Korea’s incoming government of President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol, presidential spokesperson Park Kyung-mee told reporters.

“Holding the hands of Chairman Kim, I took one clear step that would change the fate of the Korean Peninsula,” Moon said in the letter, according to Park. “The era of confrontation should be overcome with dialogue.”

In the response letter, Kim said the two sides made “indelible achievements.”

“Though much is left desired, my belief remains unchanged that if the South and the North pour sincerity in based on efforts made so far, inter-Korean relations can move forward as much as one wants,” Kim was quoted as saying in the letter.

Kim thanked Moon for his peace efforts, saying he will continue to respect Moon after his retirement.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.