For whistleblowers, praise runs short, troubles last longer
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Ko Young-tae, who blew the whistle on Choi Soon-sil to the media, is surrounded by reporters at Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office on Oct. 31 after being interrogated by investigators there. / Korea Times photo by Choi Won-suk
By Kang Hyun-kyung
Whistleblowers are lauded by the public as heroes as their courageous acts to stop illegal practices facilitate political and social reforms which otherwise would have taken decades longer.
As we have witnessed how the Choi Soon-sil scandal unraveled and eventually cut President Park Geun-hye’s tenure short, people like Ko Young-tae, who once colluded with Choi and became a whistleblower later, are the agents of change.
But their instant successes are usually short-lived as their heroic acts gradually fade away in public memory as time goes by. Their acts to seek justice wreak havoc on their lives and many end up in a lonely fight to make a decent living in their post-revelation days.
Many whistleblowers grapple with basic human needs, according to high-profile whistleblower Lee Jie-moon who rattled the nation in 1992 with his shocking revelation of the military brass’ covert intervention in absentee voting by coercing soldiers to vote for the ruling party.
“Unemployment is the most urgent and common issue facing whistleblowers,” said Lee, now a board member of the Seoul-based nonprofit Whistleblowers’ Foundation. “I’ve met a number of potential whistleblowers upon their requests as they wanted to discuss what to do with their knowledge of illicit activities in their organizations. They knew they couldn’t turn a deaf ear to the ill practices. But many choose to remain silent because they know they will pay the price once they disclose the dirty secrets.”
Lee, 49, is all too familiar with the struggles fellow whistleblowers are going through.
In 1992, he made headlines following his disclosure of voter fraud in the National Assembly elections. Lee, then a first lieutenant in the Ninth Infantry Division, said the unnamed regimental commander of the division “encouraged” the soldiers to vote for the ruling Democratic Liberty Party. Voting for the ruling party was voting for national defense, the military leader was quoted as underscoring before the soldiers. Lee claimed those soldiers were “forced” to vote for ruling party candidates because their boss kept his watchful eye on who they voted for.
The revelation caused a stir. The absentee voting system was later overhauled to ensure transparency and secret ballots.
On a personal level, however, he paid the price for his courage.
On March 23, 1992, a day after the news conference, Lee was arrested by the military police and put behind bars. He had violated the military rule prohibiting leave without prior approval. Lee said it was inevitable because his boss wouldn’t let him go to the news conference.
Lee was demoted to private and discharged from the military. He took legal action against the military’s decision about his rank and finally won it back in 1995. The Supreme Court ruled in his favor and he retired as a first lieutenant.
Although the court’s ruling gave him his good name back, it didn’t help him fix the damage done to his career.
He had a job waiting for him at Samsung Group after the military for passing an exam given to commissioned officers. But Samsung rejected him and said Lee had been chosen because he was a “commissioned officer,” not a private soldier.
Lee went to Samsung again after the Supreme Court ordered the military to reverse their decision regarding his military rank but only heard that his record was deleted from their human resources files. If he wanted to work with Samsung, he was advised to apply again.
Lee had worked in several unstable jobs until he finally founded a civic group to help his fellow whistleblowers in 2000.
Living in the public eye is another pressure facing those who disclose the dirty secrets of their organizations. Ko, the whistleblower who triggered the political earthquake that unseated a president, said he has been paying the price after his revelation that Choi was the mastermind of major state affairs while President Park was her puppet.
“At the onset of the scandal, I felt like I was a hero seeking justice by bringing a group of wicked people to justice. Some people recognized me and encouraged me to keep fighting,” he said in an interview with a monthly magazine published in February. “As time went by, however, things have gone ways that I didn’t expect. (While going through groundless allegations about me) I became mature… There was a time when I did whatever Choi asked me to do to curry favor with her, although I knew she was a bad person. Now I regret what I did. I’d like to spend the rest of my life repenting for my deeds.”
President Park’s lawyers portrayed Ko as Choi’s “kept man” and claimed he fabricated stories about Choi and made them public for his own benefit once his relationship with Choi was broken. They said Ko demanded money on condition of keeping silent. Ko denied these allegations and said Choi was his boss and he never had an inappropriate relationship with her and he never asked her for hush money.
Park Gwang-seo, a retired professor of Sogang University and a board member of the civil alliance aiming to build pressure on the National Assembly to introduce the legislation to protect whistleblowers, said insiders who reveal dirty secrets of their organizations face a double threat.
Their brave acts cost them their careers and also deal a blow to their reputations, he said. “They are branded as traitors who betrayed their organizations and now it is more difficult for them to get another job because employers feel uncomfortable about hiring a person who has a record of rocking the boat at their previous workplace,” he said. “In our culture, revealing inconvenient truths about the organization they had worked for is not considered laudable.”
In the wake of the Choi scandal, there was debate about whether Ko can be classified as a justice fighter who needs protection. There was evidence in the early stages showing he had colluded with Choi.
“We should remember that only the insiders who have access to such classified information know the dirty secrets of their organizations and some of the whistleblowers were, to some degree, involved in the illicit processes before they broke their silence,” Park said. “I think we should be more flexible when we judge who’s eligible to be whistleblowers to be protected. In my opinion, people like Ko and Roh Seung-il are all whistleblowers who deserve protection under the law.”
Park said the benefits those whistleblowers brought to society outweigh the costs it paid while they were involved in the illicit activities.
The Choi Soon-sil scandal facilitated the movement to introduce an amendment bill to better protect whistleblowers.
Lee put forth financial incentives to encourage potential whistleblowers to stand up against corrupt practices in their organizations without worrying about their futures.
“We have laws to protect whistleblowers but they are still left without proper protection. We need realistic measures to better protect them.”