SEOUL, March 15 (Reuters) - South Korea is poised to host the third Summit for Democracy next week, taking up a U.S.-led initiative aimed at discussing ways to stop democratic backsliding and erosion of rights and freedoms worldwide.
Seoul has released few details about who will be participating, but U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will lead a delegation.
The Reuters report attempts to distract and minimize the South Korean democratic backsliding, and the obvious authoritarian inclination of the current far right Yoon administration which caters to US and Japanese foreign policy goals.
Democracy in South Korea took a step backward since Yoon took office, the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Institute at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden said in an annual report last week, citing legal cases against figures associated with the previous administration, and assaults on gender equality and freedom of expression.
Concerns about democratic backsliding in South Korea are likely overblown for the moment, and recent elections have been free, said Philip Turner, a former New Zealand ambassador to Korea.
South Korea to host third democracy summit with digital threats on agenda
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/south-korea-host-third-democracy-summit-with-digital-threats-agenda-2024-03-15/?
taid=65f3e9c6a8059200016c464f&utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter
This Reuters article harps on the gender equality issue, a traditional problem in South Korea, which was a factor in mobilizing the misogynist young adult male population in South Korea to vote for the reactionary Yoon Seok-yeol in the last presidential election. Yoon's platform called for dismantling the Department of Children and Families. The so called Ilbe misogynist vote of young adult South Korean male voters, frustrated by lack of opportunity, a highly competitive and class conscious job market (appa 아빠 chance), and being disadvantaged by a male only compulsive military service system, blames alleged favoritism for women in the job market for their social and economic problems. It was the Ilbe misogynist vote that put Yoon in office by a very slim margin, but their party faction led by Lee Jun-seok, the former PPP party leader, was soon disempowered after Yoon won presidential office. Lee Jun-seok was accused by the party of ethics violations, receipt of sexual favors and bribery and driven out of the party leader position. Yoon as a rigid egotistical authoritarian doesn't "share" power with anyone.
Gender discrimination is not the key "democratic backsliding" in South Korea promoted by Yoon and his party's policies. Repression of media, criminal persecution of political rivals, labor leaders, and any other civic leaders, including feminist activists, who oppose the interests of ruling elites is the true nature of the new right's frightening authoritarianism. In a recent example of abuse of power, and obstruction of justice, Yoon's former defense minister, who interfered in a military legal investigation into the death of a marine by drowning, was appointed Ambassador to Australia and hurriedly shipped out of the country despite an order from the Office to Investigate Crimes by High Public Officials that he stay within South Korea to be amenable to legal process. Obstruction of justice is a hallmark of the administration led by the former prosecutor general and the PPP conservative party leader Han Dong-hun.
This Hankyoreh column below outlines the real problem of the policies of Yoon Seok-yeol, Han Dong-hun, and other principal figures in the current PPP so called "new right" configuration:
The claims they have made are farfetched and based on leaps of logic. A basic translation of them might read thusly: “The Constitutional Court dissolved the Unified Progressive Party because they were communists. Their successors in the Progressive Party are also communists. In forging an election alliance with the Progressive Party, the Democratic Party and its leader Lee Jae-myung are likewise communists. Don’t vote for communists.”
This applies even if we consider that the Constitutional Court’s decision (blog note: in 2014) might have been justified. If a party is dissolved by a Constitutional Court decision, it becomes impossible to form a new party with an identical or similar platform (or basic policies) to the one that was dissolved. This provision in the Political Parties Act bars the formation of “substitute parties.”
If the Progressive Party is indeed the “latest incarnation” of the UPP, that means Han Dong-hoon would need to explain why he didn’t take any action on it when he was the justice minister. If he was remiss in his responsibilities as minister, that would seem to constitute dereliction of duty.
After Korea’s liberation, members of the pro-Japanese collaborators branded many democracy advocates as “commies” and had them executed. This was an ideological maneuver, a ploy to achieve dictatorial rule while covering up their own misdeeds during the occupation.
The column goes on to say that today's new right are the descendants of the pro-Japanese collaborator class. This is a key to understanding contemporary South Korea's domestic political scene. This is why statues of independence fighters must be removed from the military academy grounds, and the "bamboo spear song," must be ridiculed.
The tiresome commie witch hunt of Korea’s fake conservatives
https://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/english_editorials/1131959.html
In fact, the "new right" led by Yoon and Han, the PPP chair, intend to eliminate the leaders who emerged from opposition to the dictatorships, and their legacy.
Since becoming president, Yoon has branded a series of groups as cartels, one after another: the new and renewable energy industry, the Korean Public Service and Transport Workers’ Union; the Korean Construction Workers’ Union; the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions; sections of the establishment that oppose reform initiatives in the areas of labor, pension and education; and educational bureaucrats who are supposedly in collusion with the private education market.
In a luncheon with newly appointed vice ministers on July 3, 2023, Yoon described his administration as being “anti-cartel” and instructed the new officials to “undertake a merciless fight against vested-interest cartels.”
Yoon’s next target was “anti-state groups that blindly follow communism and totalitarianism.” That came up in a celebratory speech on Aug. 15, the anniversary of Korea’s liberation from Japanese colonial rule.
Sections of the establishment that oppose reform initiatives is code for those opposed to Yoon stripping public interest protections from the law. This is an order of magnitude expansion of Milton Friedman libertarian economics, where labor unions are special interest cartels without reference to South Korea's corporate monopoly chaebol class.
Here is how Han Dong--hun described the democratic party which forms the majority in the National Assembly:
“Since the majority party is set on preventing serious crimes from being prosecuted under the law, we must stop that party from further mischief that would wreck this country’s present and future. We must also eliminate the politics of privilege for members of the protest generation who have held sway over that party for three decades now and who attempt to bully and indoctrinate generation after generation of Koreans. We have to stop the Democratic Party under the leadership of Lee Jae-myung from ruining this country as it seeks to enrich itself in collaboration with its hardline supporters and the privileged members of the protest generation,” Han said.
The real reason for Yoon and Han’s politics of antagonism and hate
https://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/1124242.html
Members of the assembly elected by a majority of South Koreans are described as "privileged members of the protest generation" rather than the elected majority representing the South Korean people. Above they are characterized as "communists," here as privileged criminals. In fact, Yoon and Han with their politically motivated firings, and prosecutions of political rivals, labor and media personalities, are doing the bidding of traditional corporate chaebol elites whose interests and families thrived during the dictatorships and the earlier Japanese colonial period and who resent having to share power with the democratic opposition that wrested political and economic concessions from their privileged grasp.
Reuters, reflecting the establishment view of western power elites, says nothing to see here, it's exaggerated, blah, blah, blah. Meanwhile, the South Korean courts, unlike the partisan Public Prosecutors Offices in South Korea, know the implications of the upcoming elections, and have become politically more circumspect of late in ordering the detention and imprisonment of opposition leadership. If the Yoon/Han PPP were to win a majority in the National Assembly, their judicious demeanor will disappear overnight, lest they themselves become targets of the political prosecution machine.
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