いわゆる‘イ・ソクキ事件’を契機に大々的な‘従北狩り’が広がるかも知れないという憂慮が高まる中、国外にいる韓国学研究者たちが国家情報院が主導するマッカーシズムに対して強い憂慮を表明する声明書を出した。
ロシア出身の進歩的知識人であるパク・ノジャ ノルウェーオスロ大教授は8日‘国家情報院が韓国の民主主義を妨害することを憂慮する学者たちの声明’という題名の声明書を<ハンギョレ>に送ってきた。 61人の国外韓国学研究者たちが共同で署名した声明書だ。 オーエン ミラー英国ロンドン大教授、シン・ヒョンバン英国ロンドン経済大教授、ジョージ カチアピカス米国ウェントワース大教授、ソ・ジェジョン米国ジョーンズホプキンス大教授など、主に英米圏で活動する学者たちが声明書に名前を上げた。 パク教授は「同じ内容の声明書を<ニューヨークタイムズ>等、英米圏の主要言論にも送った」と伝えた。
声明書で学者たちは「国家情報院が去る大統領選挙時に深刻な選挙介入を犯した疑いで調査を受けていて、政界で国家情報院の改革について議論が行き来する中で、国家情報院が少数野党とその国会議員に対して内乱を陰謀したという疑惑をもって逆襲に出た」として「1987年に終息した軍部独裁時期後には類例がないこと」と指摘した。 国家情報院の攻撃はかつて政治的反対者らを押さえ込むために作られた事件を思い起こさせ、1980年金大中前大統領や、1975年8人の罪なき人々の命を奪った人民革命党の場合、無罪であることが明らかになった経緯があると学者たちは指摘した。
学者たちは 「韓国は独裁から民主主義に平和的に切り替えたモデルであり、全世界の羨望を買ったが、多くの人々が韓半島に続いている冷戦状況のために韓国の民主化が完成されずにいると憂慮してきたし、最近の国家情報院による行動はこのような憂慮に新たな根拠を与えている」と指摘した。 一歩進んで「国家保安法などが批判的政治勢力を攻撃するために使われていることを深刻に憂慮する」とも明らかにした。
声明書で学者たちは「イ・ソクキ議員と他の統合進歩党被疑者たちが有罪か無罪かまでは判断できないが、韓国で民主主義と市民権を最も大きく威嚇しているのはこれまで知らされた少数の左派民族主義政治家の行動ではなく、情報機関の直接的な政治介入」と主張した。 また、学者たちは 「今は韓国の民主主義にとってとても危険な時期だが、一方では韓国人が冷戦と独裁の残存物を最終的になくすことができる機会でもある」として「韓国が本当に民主的な社会になるには、表現・思想・政治的行為の自由を許容しなければならない」と指摘した。 声明書は「韓国を深く憂慮する学者として、私たちは韓国の民主主義が脅威を受けていることに対する憂慮と韓国人との連帯を表明し、過去の独裁時代への回帰を食い止めようと思う」と締めくくった。
チェ・ウォンヒョン記者 circle＠hani.co.kr
-----------------------------------------------------------------
声明書全文
Concerned scholars‘ statement on National Intelligence Service interference in South Korean democracy (1/9/2013)Recent actions by South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) are raising concerns that Korea‘s hard-won democracy is under threat. The NIS and its former director are currently under investigation for very serious allegations of interference in last year’s presidential election. But with that investigation ongoing and talk among politicians across party lines of the need for NIS reform,the agency has mounted what appears to be a counterattack,moving against a minor opposition party and one of its lawmakers with charges of plotting a rebellion. These charges have been unheard of since the days of the military dictatorship that ended in 1987.They bring to mind previous travesties like the charges of sedition levelled at political dissident and later president and Nobel Peace Laureate Kim Dae Jung in 1980 and the fabricated People‘s Revolutionary Party case of 1975 which claimed the lives of eight innocent people,later exonerated.
South Korea has rightly been seen as a beacon for democratisation from below,as a model of how a dictatorship can transition,largely peacefully,to a thriving democracy with a civil society that is the envy of many around the world. However,it has also been clear to many that under the continuing cold war conditions on the Korean peninsula South Korea’s democratic transition remains unfinished. There have long been concerns that South Korea‘s hidden ’security state‘ has never actually gone away and the recent actions of the NIS have given new credibility to those concerns. Furthermore,we are gravely concerned that alongside the accusation of treason,the National Security Law,a vestige of Cold War anticommunism with a history of abuse,is once again being used to attack opposition politicians.
We can make no judgement about the guilt or innocence of Rep. Lee Seok-ki and the other accused members of the United Progressive Party. However,it is abundantly clear to us that the greatest threat to democracy and civil liberties in South Korea is not the alleged actions of a minor left-nationalist politician,but the direct political interference in the electoral process by an intelligence apparatus that seems to be desperately trying to divert attention from the reform of its own structure and operation. To many in Korea and abroad,it appears that the NIS is using a crude distraction in order to avoid scrutiny of its own alleged illegal activities,and to justify its existing powers.
This is a very dangerous moment for South Korea’s democracy but it also presents an opportunity for the Korean people to finally lay to rest the remnants of the cold war and the dictatorships of the past. For Korea to really be the democratic society that it aspires to be it must allow full freedom of speech,thought and political activity. A mature democracy should not be afraid of people who have strong beliefs,nor should it use a supposed external threat to silence diverse voices that make up society. As scholars who care deeply about Korea we express both our concern about this latest threat to Korean democracy and our solidarity with the Korean people so that we can all ensure there is no return to the dictatorial past.
Signatories:
Owen Miller, SOAS, University of London
Se-Woong Koo, Yale University
Ju Hui Judy Han, University of Toronto
Jamie Doucette, University of Manchester
Vladimir Tikhonov (Pak Noja), University of Oslo
Kevin Gray, University of Sussex
Konrad M. Lawson, University of St Andrews
Adam Bohnet, King‘s University College at the University of Western Ontario
Jim Glassman, University of British Columbia
Jaeho Kang, SOAS, University of London
Laam Hae, York University
Susan Kang, City University of New York
Theodore Jun Yoo, University of Hawaii at Manoa
Jennifer Jihye Chun, University of Toronto
Hae Yeon Choo, University of Toronto
Takashi Fujitani, University of Toronto
Jeongmin Kim, New York University
Soonyi Lee, New York University
Helen Lee, Yonsei University
Marilyn B. Young, New York University
Henry Em, Yonsei University
Andre Schmid, University of Toronto
Yong Soon Min, University of California, Irvine
Seung-Hun Lee, University of Virginia
Merose Hwang, Hiram College
Namhee Lee, University of California, Los Angeles
Saeyoung Park, Davidson College
Kevin Hewison, Murdoch University
Daniel Y. Kim, Brown University
Minjeong Kim, Virginia Tech
Nadia Y. Kim, Loyola Marymount University
Joel Wainwright, Ohio State University
Juhn Ahn, University of Michigan
Sun-Chul Kim, Emory University
Charles Armstrong, Columbia University
James Kyung-Jin Lee, University of California, Irvine
Jae-Jung Suh, Johns Hopkins University
Jesook Song, University of Toronto
Eleana Kim, Rochester University
Jaehoon Yeon, SOAS, University of London
David Hundt, Deakin University
Hyun Bang Shin, London School of Economics
Hyun Ok Park, York University
Ga Young Chung, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Nan Kim, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Albert L. Park, Claremont McKenna College
Janice Kim, York University
Mimi E. Kim, University of California, Berkeley
Hyejeong Jo, University of Pennsylvania
Jinkuk Hong, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Christine Hong, University of California, Santa Cruz
Sarah Eunkyung Chee, University of California, Santa Cruz
Jaeeun Kim, George Mason University
Jerome de Wit, Leiden University
Daniel Kim, The New School
Jung Won Sonn, University College London
Haeyoung Kim, University of Chicago
John P. DiMoia, National University of Singapore
Hyeseon Jeong, Ohio State University
Jiyoung Song, Singapore Management University
George Katsiaficas, Wentworth institute of Technology
訳J.S(7211字)
