Not revenge but karma

Columns

Not revenge but karma

Published: 08 Sep. 2024, 20:04

Kim Jung-ha
The author is an editorial writer of the JoongAng Ilbo.

Former President Moon Jae-in is known to be gentle. His soft tone and folksy smile were parts of his winning charms. The image helped effectively neutralize his relentless campaign to redress and punish the past two conservative governments under the name of the cleansing “past evils.”

There had been times when he too couldn’t hide his usual public composure. The trigger was former President Lee Myung-bak. From the fall of 2017, Moon vehemently went after the former conservative president through an all-around offensive spanning from investigations into the extraordinary spending by the National Intelligence Service to the allegations over the Defense Ministry-led online meddling in the presidential election to help Park Geun-hye get elected president and a slush fund amassing through a dubious company created under his brother’s name. On Jan. 17, 2018, former President Lee issued a statement condemning a series of prosecutorial investigations as “a political plot to wipe out the conservative front” and “a vendetta against the death of former President Roh Moo-hyun.” The mention of Roh — Moon’s former boss in the presidential office and long-time friend — galvanized Moon’s rage against Lee who ordered an investigation into the suspicions around his predecessor Roh’s family upon taking power. Through a statement, Moon expressed “fury” at the mention of Roh’s death, saying the former president had stepped over the “political line” by denying the judiciary order.

President Moon could have lost his temper because Lee bluntly saw through him. In his memoir in 2011, Moon said he still kept Roh’s death letter in his jacket. We could imagine the depth of Moon’s wrath against Lee’s administration after Roh ended his life at the onset of an investigation into his family.

The prosecution’s investigations on Moon’s predecessor Park Geun-hye started in 2017 before he took office through a snap election following Park’s impeachment. But the investigation on her predecessor Lee was initiated by Moon’s direct order. Moon, who lost to Park in his first bid for presidency, reportedly had no personal grudge against the conservative president, but was said to have been determined to go after Lee once he took power.

Presumably immersed in the mighty power, President Moon didn’t consider the potential consequences of sending two conservative presidents to prison. Since the epic fall of the conservative front following the first-ever presidential impeachment, the liberal front appeared to be safe to govern for decades. But the government led by the Democratic Party (DP) ended with Moon’s five-year term. Under Moon, more than 900 people were investigated and over 200 were arrested. Of them, five died by suicide. It had been Moon’s vengeful quest that resuscitated the conservative front from the grave.

Political revenge tends to be self-perpetuating. The prosecution has recently raided the residence of Moon’s daughter Da-hye and pointed to the former president as “a suspect of bribery.” The prosecution suspects that Moon made former DP lawmaker Lee Sang-jik his minister for SMEs and Startups in 2018 in return for seating his former son-in-law with no relevance to airline business as an executive of Thai Eastar Jet which Lee owned.

The DP condemned the bribery charge as Moon is not liable for the couple as they are an independent family after marriage. However, former President Park was impeached and sentenced for bribery for her unrelated associate Choi Soon-sil under the novel concept of “a common economic community.” In her memoir, Park wrote that she threw the files at the face of the prosecutors for “cooking up” evidence through the concept of “financial union” to demean her. Still, the court sided with the prosecution. Moon and his daughter are blood-connected, much closer than Park and Choi.

It is ironic that the “economic union” — which brought down Park and placed Moon in power — has boomeranged toward President Moon. Can Moon now feel Park’s frustration? The DP is lambasting the investigation as a political vendetta. But to the eyes of objective beholders, it appears to be closer to karma.