Tag: Park Geun-hye

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

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

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

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

Here is how the timeline played out:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Supporters of former South Korean President Park Geun-hye participate in a protest near Anguk Station in downtown Seoul on March 10, 2018, the one year anniversary of the Constitutional Court’s ruling to uphold the impeachment by the National Assembly. (Yonhap)

This seems pretty outrageous to me that former President Park is looking at 30 years in jail when murderers and rapists in South Korea get far less time than that:

The prosecution demanded a 30-year prison term for former President Park Geun-hye, Tuesday, at the latest hearing in a corruption trial stemming from an influence-peddling scandal that removed her from office. It also called for the court to fine her 118.5 billion won ($110 million). The Seoul Central District Court held the final hearing for Park, who again refused to appear citing health problems. If she is found guilty, the sentencing for Park, who was indicted for receiving 59.2 billion won in bribes among 18 charges, will be held April 6.

The harsh sentence demand was widely expected as taking 100 million won ($97,000) or over in bribes is punishable by a minimum prison term of ten years. The Supreme Court sentencing guideline stipulates that a minimum of an 11-year prison term be imposed for those who received 500 million won or over in bribes. Choi Soon-sil, Park’s longtime friend and the central figure in the scandal, who faced 13 out of the 18 charges Park did, was sentenced to 20 years.

Prosecutors said Park deserved harsh punishment for the influence-peddling scandal that undermined constitutional values and the public trust in the judicial system. The charges against her were substantiated by evidence including witness statements and meeting minutes made by the presidential chief of staff and presidential secretaries, they added. “Park is the central figure in the influence-peddling scandal. She was head of state and a political figure with ultimate power, and had full authority in managing administrative affairs,” the prosecution said. “She gave powerful discretion to a private individual, Choi, thereby subjecting the public to the unprecedented trauma stemming from the scandal, from which we can never easily recover.”

Such an act, the prosecution added, violated the public’s expectation that the country would be governed by socially agreed-upon principles, and that individuals would be respected for their own merit not for their connections. “It also violated the public expectation that people should be guaranteed a fair opportunity regardless of their occupation or status and lead a life in a free and just country,” it said.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link, but I have yet to see the prosecutors show evidence that President Park ordered someone to pay a bribe.

I do agree that the above statement “She gave powerful discretion to a private individual, Choi, thereby subjecting the public to the unprecedented trauma stemming from the scandal” is a valid point.  Choi Soon-shil definitely used her position as a close friend of Park Geun-hye to benefit herself and President Park gave her that platform.  However, does a politician have criminal liability because one of their friends are corrupt?  If so there should be a whole lot more Korean politicians heading to jail than just Park Geun-hye.

The always interesting B.R. Myers has an interesting essay posted about the role the Lee Myung-bak conservative right played in the impeachment of fellow conservative President Park Geun-hye:

Not until Park Geun-hye’s presidency (2013-2017) did the issue make a strong comeback. Conservatives in the National Assembly were then roughly divisible into a faction loyal to Park and one loyal to her predecessor Lee Myung Bak. Naturally his followers had learned to like the presidential system during his occupancy of the Blue House (2008-2013), only to find it inherently despotic again the moment Park took over. What really worried them was the likelihood that she would take revenge for the “nomination massacres” that had occurred during Lee’s rule, when he had excluded many of her followers from candidacies in parliamentary elections.

Sure enough, there ensued the “nomination massacre” of spring 2016, in which even some of the most popular pro-Lee or “non-Park” politicians were bypassed for nominations in favor of the president’s people. From then on calls for a parliamentary system grew in intensity until the Lee-conservative press broke the story of the Choi Soon-sil scandal in the autumn of 2016.

It was just what many pols had been waiting for: a chance to get the public so angry about the status quo that it would finally sign off on a whole new system of government. Conservatives were confident they could remove Park with left-wing help without losing the presidency altogether. They would simply make the returning hero Ban Ki-moon their candidate while pushing hard for constitutional revision, then trounce Moon in the election. What could go wrong?  [B.R. Myers]

Well a lot did go wrong if the Lee Myung-Bak supporters thought they could get Ban Ki-moon elected.  He ended up quickly dropping out of the election because of what he said was all the “Fake News” published about him.  It probably was all fake news, but if he can’t fire back against lies in the media he clearly did not have what it took to be the President of South Korea.  Without a strong candidate the Korean right ended up getting trounced in the election now leaving them in a worse position than if Park remained President.

Speaking of fake news I am still curious to who doctored and planted the tablet PC for the media to find?:

The evidence has turned out to be thinner than was initially believed. The tablet PC on which Choi allegedly edited Park’s Dresden speech had so obviously been tampered with that the court did not consider it in Choi’s trial. It is still unclear how Park’s pressuring of businesses to contribute to this or that national team or foundation differed to a criminal degree from established presidential practices. We have to wait and see, but the recent decision to charge her even with meddling in her own party’s nominations suggests a desperation to find things that will stick. While she may well have deserved impeachment by absolute standards, she was probably less deserving of it than a few of her predecessors.

The planting of the tablet PC is the real scandal which no one in the Korean media seems eager to try and uncover. The finding of the tablet is in my opinion what turned the tide against President Park.

Anyway so what happened after President Moon took power?  Well he staffed the Blue House with the same type of people that President Park had around her with hardly a complaint from the media and candlelight protest crowd:

The once bipartisan pretense that removing Park was a non-ideological response to her abuses of power is now upheld only by the right-wing impeachers and the foreign press. Upon his election Moon appointed several Gangnam leftists with records of tax avoidance, real-estate speculation, and the Choi-like pulling of strings on relatives’ behalf. This prompted much use of the crypto-Sinitic compound naero nambul, short for “When I cheat, it’s romance, when others do, it’s adultery.”

I recommend reading the whole essay at the link.

The only conviction to stick to Lee Jae-yong was sponsoring equestrian training for Choi Soon-sil’s daughter:

Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong was released Monday after an appellate court handed him a suspended sentence dismissing most of the key charges against him in a bribery and corruption scandal that led to the ouster of former President Park Geun-hye last year.

The Seoul High Court sentenced Lee to 2 1/2 years in prison with a stay of execution for four years. He was immediately freed from a nearly yearlong incarceration.

Two former group executives were also released on suspended sentences. They were given four-year jail terms by the lower court.

Lee, 50, was arrested on Feb. 17, 2017 on five charges, including bribery, embezzlement and hiding assets overseas.

A lower court sentenced him to five years in prison, on Aug. 25, for giving 8.8 billion won (US$8.1 million) in bribes to Park and her confidante, Choi Soon-sil, in return for government backing of the merger of two key Samsung units, a process that was deemed vital to tighten Lee’s control of South Korea’s biggest conglomerate. The prosecution had demanded 12 years in prison for Lee.

But the appeals court acknowledged as bribes only some 3.6 billion won which Samsung sent to Choi’s German-based firm to sponsor the equestrian training of her daughter, Chung Yoo-ra.

The court found Lee “passively” complied with Park’s request to sponsor the former dressage rider after he was apparently intimidated by Park and Choi.  [Yonhap]

Here is the strangest thing about the court ruling:

But the appeals court acknowledged as bribes only some 3.6 billion won which Samsung sent to Choi’s German-based firm to sponsor the equestrian training of her daughter, Chung Yoo-ra.

The court found Lee “passively” complied with Park’s request to sponsor the former dressage rider after he was apparently intimidated by Park and Choi.

What did former President Park tell him that was so intimidating that is what I want to know?

Here is the latest update on the status of ex-ROK President Park Geun-hye who continues to be jailed despite not being convicted of anything:

Former President Park Geun-hye, currently facing a criminal trial for conspiring with her friend to receive bribes from conglomerates, is extremely regretful that she was fooled by her longtime confidante, Park’s onetime defense lawyer said Wednesday.

Park was indicted in April 2017 for having abused her power to receive bribes from conglomerates by conspiring with her friend, Choi Soon-sil.

The former president is also charged with leaking confidential information to Choi. She has been boycotting the trial since October, describing the accusations as “political retaliation.”

All her lawyers, including a longtime associate, Yoo Yeong-ha, resigned from the case to protest a judge’s decision to extend her detention to April 2018.

In an interview with the JoongAng Ilbo, Yoo spoke for the first time about the case and his client. It was Yoo’s first media interview since Park was impeached and ousted from presidency in March of last year. The interview took place on Wednesday, and the JoongAng Ilbo published it in Friday’s edition.

Yoo said Park had not known about Choi’s alleged illicit activities when she was president. “The National Intelligence Service, police and the presidential senior secretary for civil affairs never briefed her about Choi,” Yoo said. “She said it is unfortunate that no one informed her about Choi’s activities.”

Park was indicted in April for alleged crimes committed during her failed presidency. Prosecutors said Park, in collusion with Choi, received massive bribes from conglomerates through two cultural and sports foundations Choi practically controlled. Samsung’s contributions to the foundations and generous sponsorship of equestrian training for Choi’s daughter, Chung Yoo-ra, were described as bribes, and Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong was also indicted for offering or promising the president a total of 43.3 billion won ($40.7 million).

Yoo said Park is firm on three key issues surrounding her charges. “Park is firm that she never heard from Choi that Samsung Group offered support for Choi’s daughter’s equestrian training,” Yoo said. “Park is also firm that she never asked Samsung Vice Chairman Lee to support Choi and her daughter. She also stands firm that she never ordered An Chong-bum, then senior economic affairs secretary, to create foundations.”

Regarding the newly added charges that Park had misappropriated the funds of the National Intelligence Service (NIS) and used the money for private purposes, Yoo said the former leader is also innocent on this count. Earlier this month, the prosecution said Park had used 1.5 billion won of misappropriated NIS funds for private affairs, including beauty treatments.

Yoo had visited Park at the Seoul Detention Center after the new charges were added. Speculation was high that Yoo would be rehired, but Park ultimately did not retain him.

“At the beginning of her term, Park was briefed that the Blue House of the previous administrations had received money from the NIS and used it, and there is no legal problem involving the practice,” Yoo said. “She therefore told her officials to do business as usual. She never received any report about spending the NIS money.”

Yoo added, “It’s also not true that Park used the NIS money for private affairs. A president has their own special-activities account. There’s no reason for her to use the NIS money.”

Yoo also said it is unfair to hold Park accountable for the administration’s creation and operation of a blacklist of liberal artists to oppress them and cut their funding just because she was briefed about a plan.

“She doesn’t seem to recall any specific order,” Yoo said. “If you argue that she made a tacit order for something just because she received a briefing about it, it means that presidents will be linked to all sorts of crimes in the future. No administration will be safe, if you use that logic.”  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link, but on this issue I have yet to see the evidence that Park ever accepted a bribe or knew what Choi was up to.  If this all ends up being smoke and mirrors to get her out of office this is going to cause a precedent that whenever the conservatives take power they will legally go after liberal presidents for real or imagined reasons as well.

This is a bombshell of an accusation if true:

Prosecutors said Wednesday they will indict ousted President Park Geun-hye on additional bribery charges as early as this week over allegations that during her term Park took bribes from the state spy agency.

An official from the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office said that prosecutors are also considering “gradually pressing charges against the others involved.”

Prosecutors have been investigating allegations that the National Intelligence Service (NIS), South Korea’s main spy agency, provided Park with up to 200 million won (US$188,000) in kickbacks every month between May 2013 and July 2016.

Prosecutors suspect that the NIS paid Park around 3.8 billion won in total and that she used those funds personally or to carry out illicit political activities.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but if President Park was receiving that much money every month as a bribe from the National Intelligence Service (NIS) then she needs to receive jail time.  With that said I would love to see what this evidence is because the evidence of all her other supposed crimes has not been very forthcoming during this whole legal process she is going through.

Members of a conservative civic group march toward Gwanghwamun Square in central Seoul holding the Korean national flag, or Taegukgi, during a rally to demand the release of the ex-President Park Geun-hye on Nov. 25, 2017. (Yonhap)

A group of supporters of former President Park Geun-hye stages a rally on a street in Seoul on Nov. 14, 2017, demanding the release of Park who has been on trial for alleged bribery and a few other charges for the past several months after her impeachment. (Yonhap)

According to the Korea Times there is a bunch of mounting evidence against former ROK President Park Geun-hye proving she is corrupt has been found:

Ousted former President Park Geun-hye, who is on trial over massive corruption allegations, seems to be seeking sympathy from international society by claiming she is suffering from “political persecution.”

The change of strategy may have come because she is unlikely to get a favorable verdict in the trial, with her detention being extended recently for another six months.

But it seems unclear whether her playing the victim of political retaliation will work, because more and more evidence unfavorable to her is being found, and she has already faced strong criticism for denying all the allegations and attempting to cover them up.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link, but I would love to see a roll up of this evidence and how Park ordered a cover up.  I have yet to see a definitive roll up of the evidence just accusations in the media.  Maybe at some point we will see the evidence that proves she is corrupt.

Here is probably the statement that concerned me the most in the article:

Rep. Park Beom-kye also said she has four to six times as much space as other inmates, has enough furniture and received outside medical treatment at a hospital twice. “She can also receive treatment inside the prison any time she wants. The claim (of human rights violations) is unreasonable,” he said.

“She committed very serious crimes but she and the MH Group are likely to package her as a victim of political retaliation.”

The cell conditions I am less concerned about then the fact that Representative Park Beom-kye has already declared her guilty with no presumption of innocence until proven guilty.  That just feeds into Park Geun-hye’s claims that this is a political persecution.