By Jun Ji-hye
Suspicions are growing that President Park Geun-hye’s arrested confidant Choi Soon-sil also meddled in military personnel appointments.
Citing sources, the Segye Ilbo reported that Choi might have exerted her influence in appointments to key posts in the Army, including the commander of the Defense Security Command (DSC), Lt. Gen. Cho Hyun-cheon, who was appointed in October 2014.
Since then — until earlier this year — Choi, along with President Park’s former civil affairs secretary Woo Byung-woo and former personal secretary Ahn Bong-geun, has helped Cho get his close colleagues appointed to important positions such as the commander of the Special Warfare Command.
The Segye Ilbo said a person well-informed on internal matters in the military created a report about Choi’s influence peddling and delivered it to lawmakers.
When the high-profile scandal broke out in late October centering on allegations that Choi exercised huge influence in state affairs and extorted millions of dollars from big businesses, rumors were also raised that Choi might have intervened in military personnel appointments. At the time, observers cited the “unexpected” replacement of the DSC commander in 2014, in which Lt. Gen. Lee Jae-soo was replaced by Lt. Gen. Cho only a year after his appointment. Observers said Choi might have pulled some strings behind the President, considering that Lee was close to Park’s brother, Ji-man, who was known to have engaged in a power struggle with Choi.
But this was the first time that specific names and positions were revealed.
DSC commander Cho and his colleagues belonged to a military fraternity called “Alza.” The group was composed of those who entered the Korea Military Academy from 1974 to 1983, but was supposed to have been disbanded in 1992 under the Roh Tae-woo administration after its existence was made public.
According to the report, a former spy agency officer, indentified only by his surname, Choo, who was also a member of the group, approached Choi using his sister’s relationship with her. He purportedly recommended Cho as DSC commander, the report said, adding that after this recommendation, former presidential chief of staff Kim Ki-choon ordered the civil affairs staff at the presidential office to stop verifying Cho’s background.
The report claimed that after Cho was appointed as DSC commander, he delivered a list of candidates for key posts to Choo, who then delivered this to Woo and Ahn, who are suspected of being involved in the scandal.
People on the list were selected for key posts, the report continued, citing examples that Gen. Leem Ho-young was named deputy commander of the South Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command (CFC) in September this year, and Lt. Gen. Jo Jong-seol was assigned to take command of the Special Warfare Command the following month.
The Ministry of National Defense strongly denied the suspicion, saying that the group was disbanded a long time ago and that an unqualified civilian’s intervention in military personnel appointments was an absolute impossibility.
Defense Minister Han Min-koo said Thursday, “I can say with confidence that military personnel appointments have been conducted very fairly. There was no external influence.”
Another military official said on condition of anonymity that the report might have been created by a person with a grudge due to his failure to be promoted.