Cheong Wa Dae behind pro-Park rallies

By Kim Rahn

Cheong Wa Dae is suspected of having orchestrated rallies supporting President Park Geun-hye in cahoots with ultra-right civic groups, according to the independent counsel, Monday.

The groups have demanded the nullification of Park’s impeachment in rallies, which have become larger in recent weeks. The counsel team alleged that the presidential office provided financial support to these groups via the nation’s largest business lobby.

The prosecution is expected to look into the alleged collusion between Park’s office and the right-wing groups soon.

According to the counsel team, Heo Hyun-joon, a low-ranking Cheong Wa Dae official at the public communication office, contacted Joo Ok-soon, the head of the ultra-conservative Unit of Mothers, on over 90 occasions via text messages, online chatting and phone conversations from January last year to recently.

The mothers’ group has been active in rallies supporting the Park administration’s policies and denouncing opposition parties and liberal civic groups.

About half of the communications were made between March and early April last year ahead of the general election in mid-April, and they usually connected via text messages or a chatting app. In November when the prosecution was looking into the presidential corruption scandal, the two mainly talked over the phone.

The phone talks were made at key phases of the scandal, such as when Choi was arrested, when the prosecution asked Park to undergo questioning, and when the National Assembly passed the bill for the independent counsel’s investigation.

Until recently, Heo also contacted the heads of some other ultra-right civic groups, who led rallies against Park’s impeachment and the counsel’s investigation. Some members disclosed special prosecutor Park Young-soo’s home address online, and one of the group leaders, Jang Ki-jung of the Young’s Liberty Union, went to Park’s house with a baseball bat, threatening the independent counsel’s security.

However, the counsel team has failed to secure hard evidence to directly prove Cheong Wa Dae ordered those groups to hold anti-impeachment rallies. It handed over the case to the prosecution for further investigation.

Separately, the team found that Cheong Wa Dae ordered the Federation of Korean Industries (FKI) to provide funds to conservative civic groups.

In 2014, Heo’s office set the amounts of financial support for each civic group and told this to FKI officials, and the FKI provided a total of 6.8 billion won to the groups from 2014 to October last year _ 2.4 billion won to 22 groups in 2014, 3.5 billion won to 31 groups in 2015, and 900 million won to 22 groups in 2016. The beneficiaries included the Korea Parent’s Federation and the Korea Freedom Federation.

The money provision continued even after liberal civic groups asked the prosecution to investigate the allegation in April 2016 and prosecutors questioned Heo over the suspicions in August.

The counsel team concluded Cheong Wa Dae officials abused their power to extort money from the FKI for the specific civic groups.