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Unification Minister Lee Jae-joung is grabbing headlines these days. But few government officials seem to be paying much attention to the bewildering comments he has been making. These are weighty words coming from a minister who has only recently stepped into office.
Just after taking office, Minister Lee said he was surprised to learn that rice shipments provided to North Korea were in the form of loans and not humanitarian handouts. Rice shipments have been provided as loans since the beginning and this fact has been reported in print and on air hundreds of times. And our Unification Minister is surprised to discover this only now? The Korean public should be even more surprised to learn how ill-informed he is. The minister said he would seek to change the policy to offer rice as handouts, saying he wants to ensure that aid won't be affected by any changes in our political climate. A minister who is surprised by rice loans probably has little idea that his government has repeatedly urged North Korea to make progress towards nuclear dismantlement in order for aid to resume.
In a New Year¡¯s message on January 2, Minister Lee said South Korea, with its exports of US$300 billion, should bear the responsibility for alleviating the North's poverty. This poverty, he said, was part of reason behind North Korea's nuclear ambitions. Perhaps the person who must have been the most surprised by those words was North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, the man responsible for starving his people, many of whom are wandering hungry throughout China.
In a National Assembly hearing to review his credentials, Minister Lee said it was wrong to view the Korean War as having been started by a North Korean invasion, and he went on question the validity of reports of North Korea's human rights abuses. Those comments raised concerns that his ideology leans too far to one side, but in retrospect, it seems that his real problem is ignorance more than anything else. It's said that whenever the minister opens his mouth, Unification Ministry staff have to scramble to contain the fallout. Minister Lee abruptly canceled a radio interview scheduled for Tuesday. This was apparently to avoid the possibility of more verbal slip-ups. Canceling interviews to avoid saying the wrong words is one thing. But I wonder how the government is going to guarantee that this minister won't make similar mistakes in meetings with the North Koreans.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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