Nothing illustrates Koreans’ seemingly perennial security concerns more than the hordes of riot police deployed around key facilities in major cities around the nation.
Actually, they are not police officers but conscripted soldiers, who were recruited or have volunteered to serve as combat police to fight North Korean infiltrators or help the police maintain public security.
They are neither soldiers nor policemen. Or, they can be both.
The time has long past for the nation to do away with this anomalous _ and unconstitutional _ diversion of young manpower to crack down on popular protests, and allow them to return to their original duty of national defense.
In some cases, these conscripted riot squads in olive drab or black combat gear, mostly college students themselves before joining the Army, are forced to confront their friends still on campus in various sites of demonstrations. This is a tragicomedy that should not continue under the pretext of reducing personnel expenses.
No less serious are the rampant abuses of human rights occurring in their barracks, which are attributable to their jobs of coping with protestors that inevitably accompany violence as well as to their ambiguous role or status. News reports are far too frequent about seniors’ harsh treatment of their juniors, including physical and verbal abuse, which often leads to unnecessary, avoidable deaths and suicides.
Little wonder the National Human Rights Commission recently called for the abolition of the conscripted police, as the first such state agency.
And this is why the former Roh Moo-hyun administration decided to phase out the system by 2012 and replace the conscripted riot police with professional officers. That changed under the new government, which will maintain the 25,000-strong riot squad until 2015, meaning the nation’s young soldiers will have to endure the physically and mentally hellish environment for at least three more years. Officials say they can improve the situation through stricter monitoring, education and discipline.
Past experiences and experts’ advice tell that the authorities can’t, and the best solution is its immediate dismantlement.
The Lee Myung-bak administration must not pass the buck to its predecessor. It can secure the budget by taking a fraction away from its nonessential public works.
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