Lee Seok Ki’s RO movement, a revolutionary
movement in South Korea inspired by North Korea’s Kim Dynasty, has gone down
for the count. His aspirations to free South Korea from the grasp of American
imperialism and unite the Korean Peninsula under North Korean rule have been
shattered into pieces.
On December 19th, the Constitutional Court
dissolved the Unified Progressive Party [UPP] and on January 22nd, the panel of
Supreme Court justices charged RO’s Lee Seok Ki with instigating an armed rebellion and
violating the National Security Law, sentencing him to serve 9 years in prison.
This incident has brought two things to
light. First, some of the UPP’s mission and goals are in violation of the constitution
under the leadership of Lee Seok Ki and other regional branches of related
political groups. The Constitutional Court has deemed the so-called
“progressive democrats” pursuit of North Korean-style socialism, the related
attempts at rebellion, the proportional corruption, the district show trial,
and the violence case involving its central committee, to be in direct
violation of the basic values of the democratic constitution.
Secondly, the RO assembly and affiliates
have been declared to be in violation of National Security Law on the grounds
of instigating a rebellion in the event of a war against North Korea. Participants were accused of gathering
in Seoul’s Hapjeong neighborhood, discussing and preparing specific plans
to topple the Republic of Korea at the outbreak of a war by attacking
government structures using propaganda, destroying key traffic facilities, etc.
The Constitutional Court and the Supreme
Court’s rulings are in line with the both the principles of democracy and the
evidence presented. Specifically, according to the Supreme Court ruling, as
long as RO exists, it is impossible to rule out a number of dangerous
possibilities, seeing as they fit the strictest criteria for conspiracy to
commit rebellion. However, in order to protect the basic rights of the accused,
uncertain evidence was disallowed in the Supreme Court case, resulting in a
commuted sentence.
This is the unfortunate part. The basis and
logic for the decision to acquit Lee Seok Ki on charges of conspiracy to commit insurrection reveals a fundamental inability to understand the nature of
underworld revolutionaries. The Supreme Court acknowledged that RO was
interested in instigating a rebellion, but Lee Seok Ki could not be held
accountable because they could not prove that all the participants came to a
specific agreement about all the details of when and where to revolt. However,
if one considers considers the past activities of the group, it should be clear
that instigation and plotting took place simultaneously
between the head of the group and its members.
The operating principles of groups in the
political underground are different from groups that operate in the light of
day. Procedures for coming to a decision that typify democratic groups [things
such as debate, voting, and freely making propositions] do not exist as such.
Underground political parties are an affiliate network of small interconnected
groups, and all of the group’s activities and policies are determined by the
leadership and issued as a command to the rank and file. From the moment that
the leadership issues a command, the direction of the activities are decided.
Accordingly, it is obvious that RO head Lee Seok Ki and the other leadership
are guilty of attempting to incite a rebellion. In other words, as soon as the
command was ordered, it should have been understood that the leadership was
responsible for trying to instigate a government takeover. The very structure
of RO informs us that has to be the case.
It appears that the grounds used as a basis
to try Lee Seok Ki for sedition were insufficient. RO’s plans were not specific
enough to be incriminating. Because the plans called for a takeover only if war
breaks out, there is not a specific timeline in place. The court ruled that
even those with specific attack targets might still lack the practical, step-by-step planning necessary to instigate a rebellion. Taking the long view, the following judgement should have been declared:
“Lee Seok Ki and RO have been declared
guilty of plotting and instigating a rebellion to overthrow the government and violating the National Security Law. When
considering the ruling that RO’s rebellion plans were not practical and
specific enough to be viewed as serious threats, Lee Seok Ki’s original
sentence of 12 years in jail was commuted down to 9 years with a further
seven years without his civic rights.”
Lee Seok Ki should have been declared guilt on both charges of plotting and instigating a rebellion to overthrow the government. The
sentence was decided based on the fact that the plan was not specific or
detailed enough. The Supreme Court’s decision and the Constitutional Court’s
decision are at cross purposes, leading to some confusion for the press
and citizens who are trying to come to terms with the decisions. As I see it,
this confusion could have easily been prevented if the nature of RO were truly understood.
*Views expressed in Commentaries do not necessarily reflect those of Daily NK.
