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Rep. Moon under siege over missing minutes
By Jun Ji-hye
Rep. Moon Jae-in
By Jun Ji-hye
The ruling Saenuri Party Thursday began pursuing sweeping legal action over the disappearance of the minutes of the 2007 inter-Korean summit.
Saenuri Party spokesman Hong Ji-man told reporters, “All who contributed to the disappearance of the minutes are included,” explaining why the complaint failed to specify those accused.
This means that Rep. Moon Jae-in, former chief of staff for the late ex-President Roh Moo-hyun, and Kim Man-bok, chief of the National Intelligence Service (NIS), will be investigated.
Moon is now leader of a faction that upholds Roh’s political legacy. He lost to President Park Geun-hye in last year’s election. On Wednesday he called for an end to the partisan dispute over the missing minutes but took flak from his own party, the main opposition Democratic Party (DP).
Kim served under Roh during the second South-North summit.
The ruling party has alleged that the Roh government destroyed the summit records after the National Assembly officially confirmed earlier this week that the original minutes and tape recordings do not exist in the National Archives of Korea.
“The summit records are categorized as part of presidential records, which carries the highest level of confidentiality,” said Rep. Hong. “The prosecution’s investigation is inevitable because the nation lost its historical material.”
Hong argued that the late Roh took some presidential documents to his hometown, Bongha Village in South Gyeongsang Province, after he finished his term in office.
“Roh’s aides claim the late president only reviewed those documents in Bongha and did not dispose of them. But it is highly probable that the minutes were concealed there,” he said.
Also drawing attention is Cho Myung-kyun, former secretary for national security affairs who worked in Cheong Wa Dae under Roh.
Cho attended the summit in October 2007 in Pyongyang when the minutes were recorded.
Moon previously explained that, because the quality of recordings was not good, Cheong Wa Dae asked the NIS to transcribe them.
While the ruling party has cast suspicions over the former Roh government, the DP has questioned the Lee Myung-bak administration on the grounds of testimony made by Roh’s aides that they must have transferred the summit records to the archives.
“The prosecution will have to thoroughly investigate all suspicions raised from both sides,” Hong said. “Moon should speak publicly to lay bare the summit mystery and make an apology.”
Kim Kyung-soo, Roh’s speech writer who now works for the Roh Moo-hyun Foundation, criticized the ruling party, saying it was attempting to water down the NIS’s illegal intervention in the 2012 presidential election.
“Clarification of truth should be achieved through bipartisan discussions to find out how the matter can be solved. It should not be the subject of a political offensive,” said Kim.
Meanwhile, Rep. Cho Kyung-tae, a member of the DP’s Supreme Council, called on Moon to step down for what he said was an unprincipled attitude.
“Moon should act responsibly,” Cho said at a news conference, raising an issue over Moon’s statement that it was time to put an end to wasteful partisan wrangling. “Moon should apologize to the party and people.”