Soldiers worked like slaves for Gen. Park, his wife

By Choi Ha-young

Gen. Park Chan-ju, the commander of the Army's 2nd Operations Command, speaks to reporters before entering the military prosecutors' office near the Ministry of National Defense in Seoul, Tuesday. / Yonhap

New allegations are surfacing day by day about how conscript soldiers were exploited by Park Chan-ju, the disgraced commander of the Army’s 2nd Operations Command, and his wife at the couple’s residence.

To call out the soldiers anytime, Park’s wife, surnamed Jeon, made the soldiers wear an “electronic bracelet” with an alarm function. They were ordered to do various housework chores and perform personal functions for the couple.

Their “tasks” included cleaning the toilet, doing laundry for their son, preparing a barbeque party for their son, making ginseng juice for the general at midnight, watering plants, weeding Park’s private garden and picking up his golf balls when he was practicing.

According to the Center for Military Human Rights Korea (CMHRK), a civic organization that represents the soldiers, Park and his wife treated them like “slaves.”

Park even took appliances from their official residence and got rid of them although they were military assets purchased with taxpayer money.

Park allegedly had about 10 refrigerators, according to the victims. They were always full of fruit and food. “Some victims said Park’s wife threw rotten fruit at their faces,” the CMHRK said in a press release issued July 31.

During autumn, Jeon ordered soldiers to harvest quinces in the military camps. The soldiers then had to make over 100 bottles of quince juice, which was served to guests visiting the residence. Other than quince, Jeon also ordered them to prepare dried persimmons from the fruits harvested from the trees on the military base, which are also public assets.

When a soldier cooked “tteokguk” or rice-cake soup and some of the rice cakes got stuck together, Jeon forced him separate them by hand. Since Jeon was being hotheaded about it, he had to put his hands into the boiling soup. When she lost her temper, she would strike a chef’s knife on the cutting board or wave it around. “You lack care in your work, it’s never well-done,” she yelled, a soldier testified.

Sometimes, when she was unsatisfied with the food she insulted the soldiers’ parents saying: “Is this what you learned from your mother?”

Even though the soldiers were working at the residence, they were not allowed to use the toilet there. They had to use a separate toilet outside the home.

The situation was harsher for the victims, since the residence was totally isolated from any neighborhood and the soldiers lacked internet access and smartphones, even isolated from other conscripts who were billeted at a separate military base.

They usually worked from 6 a.m. to midnight, but had no free time on the weekends since the Christian couple urged them to go to church every Sunday. A Buddhist believer was reluctant to go to church, but Jeon kept coercing him. Park, an elder of the church, said in a sermon in 2016: “As a Christian and a soldier, I have a vision to cultivate 37 million believers by 2035 through propagation in military camps.”

Under extremely irrational circumstances, a soldier attempted suicide in 2015. He had been seriously berated by Jeon for failing to find one of her belongings. Later, the item was found at their former residence.

When a soldier stomped out of the residence because he couldn’t endure such humiliation, the general scolded the group of soldiers saying: “My wife should be respected as if she were a brigadier general in the Army.” Later the soldier who resisted the orders of his wife was transferred to a military camp on the border under the pretext of “tightening military discipline.”

After the couple’s alleged wrongdoings came to light, Park was transferred to a training course irrelevant to combat missions. The military has dismissed his application for resignation in order to look into his wrongdoings and punish him as a soldier.

While appearing for questioning at the military prosecutors’ office, Monday, Jeon told reporters she treated the conscripts “as if they were her sons.”