Im Su-Kyong Answers Questions on Politicians' Whiskey Party

On the eve of the May 18 Memorial Day in Korea, certain incumbent politicians attended a whiskey party at a hostess bar. This according to Im Su-kyong, who was a student leader in the 1980s and is perhaps best-known for being the first South Korean student to visit North Korea, done without the government＇s permission. The 32-year-old commentator talks about the shameless party.

Q: What brought you to the party?
Im Su-kyong: One of my friends called me and invited me to the bar. It wasn＇t a regular bar, though. Politicians were all drunk and singing with hostesses.

Q: They said that you had a fight with them?
Im: I could not believe my eyes. These people were at the forefront of the democratic movement in the 80s, but were now drunk on the night before the Kwangju Uprising Memorial Day. Nobody listened to me. I don＇t want to talk about it. You can ask the politicians directly. They said that they would take full responsibility.

Q: You waited one week before writing about the incident.
Im: I was too sad to talk about it. I asked myself if my rage was just. I finally decided to write about it because it should not be a secret. I wrote it on an Internet site, The Third Power, run by lawyer Lee Chong-woo, the former president of the student body at Seoul National University.

Q: Did you mention the incident on other sites?
Im: No. I uploaded it on May 24 but it was deleted two hours later. I was betrayed by my friends.

by Park Shin-hon