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Again, on Monday evening, the National Assembly failed to ratify the free trade agreement (FTA) with Chile and approve the deployment of additional Korean troops for Iraq. It's the third time since December of last year that it failed to ratify the FTA. The bill on sending troops to Iraq passed in the Assembly's National Defense Committee, but it didn't even make its way to the main floor.
The Uri Party head of the National Defense Committee was late to the day's meeting, saying people opposed to sending troops had come to his house. There had been optimism about the FTA bill, but when it was suddenly decided that the vote would be with an open ballot that identified who voted how, the situation changed. The situation on the 9th of Feburary 2004 at the National Assembly building in Seoul, the capital of the Republic of Korea was one in which agricultural region Assembly members opposed to the FTA were able to push their way while those in favor got pushed in a corner.
At a farmers protest out beyond Assembly gates, police busses burned and police were beaten. A picture of the scene has already come to represent the country, running in the Financial Times and other world media. The eyes of the world watched as Korea promised troops for Iraq only to have the president's party lead the way in the delay tactics. They watched a country that uses trade to feed its population reject an FTA, watched it decide to be the orphan of international commerce and cut off its lifeline. Our National Assembly has already lost its raison d'etre.
In this situation as well, is the president and Uri Party holding strategy meetings over how to best capitalize on this national failure in April's National Assembly elections? It would, of course, be advantageous in those elections if, by letting events lead to public opinion concluding the Assembly is useless. If they take the people for fools and try to trick them again, then their calculations might turn out to be accurate.
On Monday the chairman of Uri said the Assembly "puts off issues on the national agenda yet looks after its own interest," as if he was talking about someone else, but it is none other than the president and the ruling party that have been delaying things. Essentially all the president has done to push ratification of the FTA signed with Chile over the past year is meet once or twice with the heads of political parties and various organizations. There's not one member of the opposition out there who the president has tried to persuade. The same goes for Uri's leadership. And yet he says he's taking care of the economy.
It was October of last year when the president first promised the international community that Korea would send more troops to Iraq, and yet Uri, the ruling party at least in name, has led the way in the delays. Have they given any thought to what betrayal and contempt our friends and allies must feel at the vast difference in spoken appearances and action taken.
Japan has a constitution that essentially prohibits sending troops overseas, but its new armored vehicles are already moving through the Iraqi desert. Meanwhile, it remains unclear whether our young soldiers will be able to carry out their dangerous mission with the full support of the people. It's enough to make you wonder whether the government and ruling party realize that this is precisely their responsibility.
The majority Grand National Party (GNP) has lost its direction and any final sense of shame as a political party. Even its members don't know where the party is going. Most of the Assembly members from agricultural regions who oppose the FTA belong to the GNP, but party leadership has lost all desire and ability to keep them under control. The majority opposition is being no less harmful of the country than the ruling camp.
At a time when the national interest is being trampled in the National Assembly, members of the GNP passed a bill requiring the release of Assembly member Suh Chung-won, who had been in the Seoul Detention Center, held on bribery charges. It knows quite well that the people are not pleased with its truckloads of tens of billions of Won, and yet it engages in utterly shameless behavior because it believes in the strength it enjoys in its numbers. By passing the bill on Suh's release, the GNP losses all political and moral qualifications as the majority party. Is it still going to ask the people for votes?
The scene in and outside the National Assembly yesterday was a microcosm of the reality of this country. It was symbolic of the question of where this ship without a captain will go, where the final train stop will be. If the politicians have any good sense about them they should spend at least a day out of their schedules and run to the command room, take the key, and pass the bills to ratify the FTA with Chile and to approve troops for Iraq. The people truly don't want to see this kind of government and this kind of National Assembly.
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