ED Itaewon disaster, one year on

Let’s restore long overdue justice and common sense

A year has passed since a crowd crush in an alley in central Seoul's Itaewon took 159 lives.

It was a human disaster that could – and should – have been prevented had the governing mechanism and administrative system in this country worked normally.

However, neither the police nor the central and local governments did their job properly. In the aftermath of the catastrophe, officials passed the buck to one another. After the police investigated the police, no responsible officials are now behind bars.

At the top of this oversimplified accountability process is President Yoon Suk Yeol. “When it comes to accountability, you must ask those who have it,” Yoon said after the incident. “Recklessly holding anyone responsible is not allowed in a modern society.” So, the government has punished some lower-level officials and let all others get away with it.

Can this be viewed as common sense in an advanced modern society?

Since 2017, the size of the Halloween crowds in Itaewon has increased. Last year, working-level officials sensed it could grow to dangerous levels and asked their superiors to take some preventive measures. Their requests went unheeded. On that fatal day, two higher and directly responsible officials – the national police chief and the district head – were in the provinces on personal and political event-related duties.

At a parliamentary hearing, National Policy Agency (NPA) Commissioner Yoon Hee-keun asked, “Can’t a police chief have some private time on weekends?” Yongsan District head Park Hee-young said later, “I am not a god.” However, the Halloween weekend was no ordinary weekend, and it didn’t take a god to predict dangerously large crowds that night. A recent KBS report said that the NPA commissioner spent more time discussing how to minimize the possible political fallout than reducing casualties on his way back to Seoul.

Minister of the Interior and Safety Lee Sang-min took an hour and a half to reach the scene. Lee, who lived a 15-minute drive from Itaewon, waited for his chauffeur instead of driving himself or catching a cab. Kim Kwang-ho, head of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency who had deployed more officers at the nearby presidential office, was concerned mainly about the chief executive’s whereabouts, the KBS report said. Lee escaped impeachment at the Constitutional Court, which ruled only by “legal aspects.” Kim was even reappointed for another term recently.

All this occurred in an advanced and modern country led by a president who has emphasized fairness and common sense.

It is a small surprise that Yoon did not attend the memorial ceremony yesterday, co-organized by bereaved families and four opposition parties at Seoul Plaza. The presidential office and the governing party said the mourning was “not pure but politicized.” However, what made the event partisan – and all related ones over the past year – was the ruling camp’s noticeable distancing. It avoided soothing the wounds of bereaved families and trauma-stricken survivors appropriately.

The president did recently console one bereaved family member, although not one connected in any way to last year's tragedy. On Friday, Yoon met with his conservative predecessor, Park Geun-hye, and shared her sense of loss for her father, ex-President Park Chung-hee, who was assassinated by his spy chief on Oct. 26, 1979. The visit came amid media reports on Yoon’s falling approval rating within his conservative base ― where Park still enjoys strong support.

That also made Koreans question how sincere the president was when he vowed to improve communication with the people after a recent by-election defeat. Many voters, including some conservatives, think the government is not dealing fairly with the aftermath of the disaster.

If Yoon was serious about communicating with the people, Park – who was ousted due partly to her poor handling of another disaster, the sinking of the Sewol ferry in 2014 ― is not a good role model for that task.

The president instead should have visited the home of another ex-president, Roh Moo-hyun. Roh, faced with a subway fire in Daegu which took 192 lives during his transition days in 2003, met with bereaved families and told them, “I apologize with a sinner’s heart.” Roh held his inaugural ceremony more like a memorial.

President Yoon must agree to enact the Itaewon Special Law, identify structural problems, punish high-ranking officials and make an official apology. That is the only way to heal and unite this wounded nation.