Despite President Park Geun-hye's tearful apology and avowal Monday, bereaved families' reactions were mixed at best, rather close to frosty.
They had every right to be. Later in the day, a group of the victims' family members, who were on their way to the shipwreck site to discuss responses to Park's statement, found and caught two plainclothesmen tailing them. "Why are these police officers dogging us?" an angry father said. "Do they think we are potential criminals or something similar to that?"
As it turned out, the bereft family members have long been under police surveillance. When frustrated and angered mothers and fathers tried to leave Jindo, 340km south of Seoul, for Cheong Wa Dae last month, police blocked their way, and filmed them to "gather evidence." What might they have been trying to prove with this evidence?
These are just a few episodes that illustrate what the law enforcement authorities are doing is not to defend the security of citizens but that of the president and her administration. It is small surprise then that riot police arrested more than 200 protesters who tried to march toward the Blue House over the weekend, and are set to push for criminal punishment. In what appeared to be rabbit hunts, they hauled in everyone, even those who were about to go home.
Six years ago, too, police built a barricade of officers and buses ― people called it "fortress of Myung-bak" after the former president's name ― to keep the public from going anywhere near the presidential mansion.
It defies our understanding why these conservative presidents ― elected in perfectly legitimate processes, if ostensibly in the case of the incumbent one ― are so afraid of their own people just wanting to express their sentiments and hear satisfactory replies from their leaders?
It is only in some authoritarian countries that presidential offices are like isolated castles or "fortresses." Korea is not, we think. Nor do we think Cheong Wa Dae's security is no longer as loose as it was back in President Park's father's days, although this nation has long been in a technical state of war.
There must be some "habitual" anti-government protesters among the crowd but the slogan "down with the government" is one of the most common in a democracy. Park needs to come toward her people shedding her overly authoritative airs.
The nation's first female chief executive could start by replacing her key aides, all of them being former generals or senior prosecutors. Even considering Seoul's confrontation with Pyongyang, Cheong Wa Dae needs not be filled with these self-styled "security experts" except for a few defense and military posts. In reality, however, the president recently named another former prosecutor as her senior secretary for "civil" affairs
Park said she would overhaul both organizations and personnel. Like charity, reforms should begin at home. The president must first change herself and the people closest to her. Between teary-eyed Park and police's rough handling of the public, Koreans are still wondering which the true faces of President Park and her government are.
They had every right to be. Later in the day, a group of the victims' family members, who were on their way to the shipwreck site to discuss responses to Park's statement, found and caught two plainclothesmen tailing them. "Why are these police officers dogging us?" an angry father said. "Do they think we are potential criminals or something similar to that?"
As it turned out, the bereft family members have long been under police surveillance. When frustrated and angered mothers and fathers tried to leave Jindo, 340km south of Seoul, for Cheong Wa Dae last month, police blocked their way, and filmed them to "gather evidence." What might they have been trying to prove with this evidence?
These are just a few episodes that illustrate what the law enforcement authorities are doing is not to defend the security of citizens but that of the president and her administration. It is small surprise then that riot police arrested more than 200 protesters who tried to march toward the Blue House over the weekend, and are set to push for criminal punishment. In what appeared to be rabbit hunts, they hauled in everyone, even those who were about to go home.
Six years ago, too, police built a barricade of officers and buses ― people called it "fortress of Myung-bak" after the former president's name ― to keep the public from going anywhere near the presidential mansion.
It defies our understanding why these conservative presidents ― elected in perfectly legitimate processes, if ostensibly in the case of the incumbent one ― are so afraid of their own people just wanting to express their sentiments and hear satisfactory replies from their leaders?
It is only in some authoritarian countries that presidential offices are like isolated castles or "fortresses." Korea is not, we think. Nor do we think Cheong Wa Dae's security is no longer as loose as it was back in President Park's father's days, although this nation has long been in a technical state of war.
There must be some "habitual" anti-government protesters among the crowd but the slogan "down with the government" is one of the most common in a democracy. Park needs to come toward her people shedding her overly authoritative airs.
The nation's first female chief executive could start by replacing her key aides, all of them being former generals or senior prosecutors. Even considering Seoul's confrontation with Pyongyang, Cheong Wa Dae needs not be filled with these self-styled "security experts" except for a few defense and military posts. In reality, however, the president recently named another former prosecutor as her senior secretary for "civil" affairs
Park said she would overhaul both organizations and personnel. Like charity, reforms should begin at home. The president must first change herself and the people closest to her. Between teary-eyed Park and police's rough handling of the public, Koreans are still wondering which the true faces of President Park and her government are.
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