Traitors!

For as long as I have been in Korea I've heard about how the country is over-run by North Korean spies. I took this with a grain of salt and figured, that while possible, for the most part it was probably just a result of too many conspiracy movies.

Well, it seems that there are at least a few and they are all working with the Democratic Labor Party. This comes as no major surprise to most people, the DLP is known to be radically pro-labor, but the headlines are catching the tail of the Nuclear tensions and driving public opinion even further right.

As it stands, Democratic Labor Party leader Lee Jung-hoon and two others are being held on accusations of spying. Apparently they (after being protesters in the 80s) were approached by a Korean-American businessman and introduced to the wonderful world of espionage. They had a safe house in Beijing and from they they received their instructions - among them they were to keep track on a parliamentary resolution to sack then-Defense Minister Yoon Kwang-ung;
Intervene on Pyongyang's behalf in the May 31 regional elections, including having the DLP throw its votes behind Uri Party candidate Kang Kum-sil in an ultimately unsuccessful bid to defeat Grand National Party candidate Oh Se-hoon in the Seoul mayoral race; Use environmental issues to bring civic groups into the anti-American struggle. Keep dossiers on South Koreans in various fields (politicians, civic group figures, etc.) in order to keep track of trends in South Korean society following North Koreas recent nuclear test. These dossiers were supposedly given to Mr. Chang.

I am not convinced oftheir guilt. In this day and age of open-arms (no pun) policy to the North, I suspect that they could almost get away with claiming they did it for unification. However, if the current trend continues (and I hope it does), I think that there is the distinct possibility that this may lead to a wider net being cast and a pruning of the leftist shrub.

It's about time someone chopped down that weed a little.