Almost nothing remains intact among previous government's policies and promises but Seoul's latest reversal on conscientious objectors is especially disappointing.
The Lee Myung-bak administration has decided to virtually nullify the plan to allow people objecting to military duty for religious and other conscientious reasons to replace it with various community services beginning next year, citing a ``lack of popular consensus.''
A Ministry of National Defense spokesman, based on a recent opinion poll, said, ``It is too early to introduce the system, as we can hardly accept it for now.'' As anyone who has ever participated in preparing for a public survey would acknowledge, however, the answers are often poles apart depending on how the pollsters phrase questions.
In the survey, the pollsters simplified the question into yes or no without providing background information on how long and hard ― much longer and even harder than military service in some ways ― the alternative service is. In an earlier survey on most opinion-leading groups, including teachers, journalists and other professionals, up to 80 percent of respondents supported the system.
The Lee administration's reluctance to take over this particular change was visible from the start. The ministry has dragged its feet as long as it could, taking almost six months in conducting the poll, while pushing ahead with its pet projects in half the period, completing surveys and even several public hearings.
Opponents of this system are never short of reasons. The biggest is the principle of equity, which makes it hard to replace the ``sacred'' military duty with anything else, especially in a country still living in a Cold War situation. The system could also lead to would-be draft dodgers resorting to certain religions or religious sects, including Jehovah's Witnesses ― if temporarily.
Officials, however, can solve the equity issue by adjusting the difficulty of the alternative community services and can discern true, long-term believers from bogus ones with a simple test.
Reports show, out of the 83 countries that have adopted the draft system at least once, more than 30, including the United States, Israel and Taiwan, permitted alternative community services and found little adverse effects, including fake conscientious objectors.
The time has long past for Korea, which is the executive member of the U.N. Human Rights Commission and has produced the Secretary General of the biggest international organization, clears itself of the stigma as an oppressor of human rights by doing away with its narrow-minded practices of alienating religious minorities.
Currently, the nation has the largest number of ``prisoners for peace,'' producing about 600 to 700 a year to an aggregate total of 18,000 over the past six decades.
We know the Lee administration is no great fan of human rights from various instances.
Considering President Lee is a fervent supporter of the airtight alliance between Korea and America, it is all but a mystery why his administration is turning a deaf ear to the U.S. State Department's repeated calls for Seoul to legislate alternative community service system.